Evie was having the most delicious and infuriating dream.
She was deep in the Haldon woods, seated on the soft forest floor, sharing a very heady kiss with McAlistair. It was a lush meeting of eager lips and heated breath that made her pulse race madly and her limbs feel heavy. Too heavy, in fact. She couldn’t move them, couldn’t lift her arms to touch McAlistair. She tried so hard, but…
“Evie.”
McAlistair took her by the shoulders and shook her gently. It was, she decided, a devilishly hard way to kiss.
“Leggo.”
“Evie, wake up.”
“Leg…” Cautiously, she opened her eyes and found McAlistair leaning over her. They were at the inn, she realized, not in the woods. He was sitting on the edge of the bed, not next to her on the ground. And he wasn’t trying to hold her; he was trying to rouse her.
She squeezed her eyes shut with a soft groan.
“Don’t go back to sleep, Evie.”
“I shan’t.” Probably. Much too groggy to feel embarrassed by her dream, she dragged two hands down her face and wondered just how awful she looked.
She felt McAlistair rise from the bed. “Do you want breakfast?”
“Chocolate,” she nearly whimpered. “Please.”
“I’ll see if any is to be had in town.”
Prying her eyes open, she glanced at the window. There wasn’t the faintest hint of light peeping from behind the drapes. The only illumination in the room came from the glowing coals of the fire. “In town?”
“We need supplies. I won’t be gone long.”
He had his coat on before she found the energy to sit up and was out the door before she’d made a move to get off the bed.
The floor seemed so terribly far away.
She stretched her legs, then her back, hoping the movement would push aside the remnants of sleep. She found a little success and leveraged herself off the bed to shuffle to one of the chairs…where she sat and stared at the fireplace.
She was still staring at it, caught somewhere between asleep and awake, when McAlistair returned.
He crossed the room to hand her a steaming mug. “No chocolate, I’m afraid. Just tea.”
“What?” She blinked at the mug. “Oh, right. Thank you.”
“Not awake yet?”
She shook her head, breathed in the aroma of the tea and took a sip. It was strong and hot and it worked wonders to clear her head.
“Still dark yet,” McAlistair commented.
Evie took another sip and felt another layer of grogginess slide away. “I noticed. How did you manage the tea and supplies?” She looked at him. “Did you manage supplies?”
“A few, already packed. I pounded on doors,” he said, and smiled a little at her sympathetic wince. “Just two, and I paid handsomely.”
“And the tea?”
“Cook’s up.”
“Oh.” He’d gone shopping, made tea, and packed supplies, all while she’d been sitting there. “How long have you been gone?”
“Little less than an hour. Thought you’d be ready when I returned.”
An hour? She really had fallen asleep in the chair. “I move slowly in the morning.”
“If you move quickly enough to dress before the sun rises, you can forgo the cape.”
She downed the remainder of her tea and bolted for the screen.
To Evie’s delight, the only sign of life at the inn as she and McAlistair made their way into the yard was the bang of pots in the kitchen and the muffled sound of voices from the stable. Both were easily avoided, the first by simply not going into the kitchen, and the second by waiting while McAlistair fetched the horses.
She shoved the cape in the saddlebag the moment McAlistair returned. She was going to bury the filthy thing at the very first opportunity. No doubt, it would be more satisfying—it would certainly be less work—to burn it, but heaven knew what sort of vapors the thing would give off.
For now, Evie was relieved just to have it out of sight and away from her nose.
The hour was much too early for her taste, and her aching body resisted both the climb into the saddle and the soft jolting as the horses moved forward into the street. But having escaped another encounter with the hideous cape was sufficient to warrant a measure of optimism for the coming day.
The storm had passed, leaving behind cool air and soft ground…well, soft once they left the confines of the soggy yard. The sun had yet to show itself, but a glow from the horizon had chased away the complete darkness of night. In the dim light, Evie could make out the gray shapes of shops and homes lining the street. A few windows flickered with candlelight, but for the most part, the town remained asleep.
With the inn nearer the edge of town than the center, it took no more than a quarter hour for houses to give way to farms, and soon those farms gave way to open fields of uncultivated land.