“’Tis nay verra fine but ’tis clean and the food is good,” said Brian as he helped her down from her mount. “There is but one wee thing we need to agree on ere we go inside.”
“And what is that?” She frowned when he did not immediately answer, even looked a little nervous, and then guilt swept over her. “Oh. I fear ye will have to wait for my share of the cost until I can reach my family. All my coin went down with the ship. Do ye have enough coin e’en without me adding something?”
“Dinnae fret o’er the cost. I have enough. Nay, ’tis just that we will be getting only one room. That is what I needed to speak about.”
Brian hoped she would not think he was making them share a room so that he could get her into a bed and into his arms. He wanted to, no question about that, but he had to wait until she was ready to be there. His body was tied up in knots only she could untie, but he could wait until she was ready. He just prayed that would not take too long.
Arianna struggled to think clearly enough to understand exactly what he was saying. The man had revealed a desire for her but she did not believe he was a man who would trick or force any woman to share her favors with him. He could not know that she had decided it was time to cast aside her fears and let him show her what passion was. Something she would have done by now if they had stopped for more than the briefest of rests.
Perhaps, she thought, it was a matter of a lack of coin despite his claim that he had enough, but that did not make much sense, either. If he had so little coin he would not have even brought her to an inn. She rubbed a hand over her forehead, deciding that thinking about it was just confusing her, not gaining her one single answer. She needed to stop bouncing around on top of a horse and let her mind clear.
“Why are we getting only one room?” she asked.
“I dinnae think it would be safe for us to be separated. If the need to flee this place comes, we can do it more swiftly if we are together. There will be two pairs of ears to catch every sound, two sets of eyes to catch sight of any threat or, at least, to see a little more clearly. And there would be no time lost if trouble came, no need for one of us to try and warn the other.”
“Oh, of course.”
Arianna was not sure why she was worried about sharing a room at an inn with the man since she had been alone with him for six long days. She had already shared a cave with him, and slept close around a fire with him. And she had also decided to let the desire that flared between them have free rein, which would certainly be more easily done if they were sharing a room. Yet, strangely, the thought of sharing a room with him, a room with a bed, had her stomach tied up in knots. Suspecting that was Claud’s poison affecting her, she did her best to push aside that tension.
“But ... what will ye tell them?” she asked. “How will ye explain why the two of us need only one room?”
“I doubt we will be asked the why of it. Molly isnae one to ask many questions,” he replied as he took his pack of supplies from the back of the horse.
Before she could ask him how he could be so certain of that and ask just who Molly was, he grasped her by the hand and pulled her toward the scarred door of the inn. Arianna could think of many reasons why he was so sure the innkeepers would ask no questions and none of them pleased her very much. The one reason that troubled her the most was the possibility that he had brought other women to this inn and often enough that the innkeeper would feel he knew why she was at his side. The thought that she had decided to give herself to a man who frolicked all too often with women was not a comfortable one.
She was opening her mouth to actually ask him if this was some favorite trysting place when a very round woman with a large wart on her chin stepped in front of them just inside the door of the inn. Arianna was glad of the interruption. Asking Sir Brian about his trysting habits was not a good idea. It was truly none of her business where or how often he did his trysting, she told herself firmly. All she wanted of him was to show her that she could not only feel passion but make the man in her arms feel it, too. She was fairly sure it was all a man like him could offer her anyway. From what she recalled of the tales of the MacFingals, none of them understood the word constancy.