“Later.” He brushed a hand down her hair in gentle strokes as her eyes fluttered close again. “Later.”
While Mirabelle slept and Whit sat watching Mirabelle sleep, a very drunken gentleman staggered down the hallway to knock on a door. After several moments without receiving an answer, he knocked again, and again, and then turned the handle to peek inside. Discovering he’d gained admission to a broom closet, he snickered and stumbled back to the center of the hall.
It took him two more tries to correctly count the doors between his room and his destination, but eventually he managed to knock on the right door.
He didn’t bother, or perhaps simply failed to remember, to wait for an answer this time. He fumbled his way into the room.
“What the bloody hell are you doing here?” a second drunken voice snapped—slurred really, but he wasn’t in a position to notice.
It took his eyes a moment to find the form lying on the bed, and a moment more for his uncooperative feet to find their way to that same bed.
“Come to a decision. Here.” He dug through his pockets, which seemed exceedingly deep just then, before finally discovering and producing a folded piece of paper that he held up with a triumphant, “Ha!”
The second man craned his neck and squinted at it. “That it?”
“It is.” He tried bobbing his head, but it did terrible things to his vision. He caught at the bedpost to keep from falling over and thrust the paper closer to the prone man. “Just need your signature on the line.”
“You’re certain? Won’t take it back just because you offered while in your cups?”
“Insulting,” he huffed. “Made up my mind. I want her.”
“Well then, fetch me a pen.” The second man snatched up the paper. “You can have her.”
It was much later before Whit slipped away from Mirabelle and clambered down the ladder. He tossed the rope back up to the loft before seeking Christian in an empty stall at the end of the stable.
“You’ll see to it she’s back inside before the others wake?”
“Always have,” Christian replied as he tugged on his boots. “Near to dawn now, but they’ll not be up till well past noon. You needn’t worry.”
Needn’t worry, Whit thought, and nearly laughed. “You’ve been a good friend to her.”
Christian sent him a hard look. “Aye, well, she needed one, didn’t she?”
Twenty
The single redeeming factor of having a house full of men who spend eight hours of the day eating and drinking to excess, is that they have the tendency to spend the remaining sixteen hours in bed.
The house was quiet when Mirabelle went back inside a bit before noon, and quiet still after she had washed and dressed and slipped down the stairs to find herself a bit of breakfast in the kitchen.
She found bread that hadn’t gone completely stale yet and a small hunk of cheese with only a few bad spots. Her mouth watered at the thought of eggs and kippers, but those were for the guests. Wishing there w ere hot chocolate to be had, she made a pot of weak tea and settled down at a scarred table to eat her meager meal.
Whit found her there not ten minutes later. A wide beam of sunlight cut through the small row of windows, leaving the table, and her, in a soft glow. He’d wager, the way the light fell across her soft brown hair, that it would be warm to the touch. All of her would be warm to the touch—her hair, her skin, her mouth. He ached to reach out and take that warmth for his own. She’d feel like heated silk beneath his hands, warm cream against his tongue.
He closed his eyes and swallowed a groan. It had been hell last night, and heaven, to have her lying next to him. And he unable to do more than stroke her hair. He’d gone back to his room to toss and turn in bed.
He wanted her, more than any woman he’d ever known or desired, he wanted Mirabelle. But as appealing as a roll between the sheets was to him right now—and it was tremendously appealing—he needed to concentrate on her safety first and foremost. He took a moment to compose himself, then pasted on what he hoped was a friendly, but otherwise unremarkable, smile and stepped into the room. “Good morning, Mirabelle.”
She turned her head to smile back at him. “Good morning. I’d thought perhaps you’d sleep longer.”
Hard to do on a mattress that felt like a slab of rock beneath his back, while visions of her naked and moaning on a pile of hay danced through his head. “Had all the sleep I needed. Not much of a breakfast you have there,” he commented to change the subject.
She looked down at her plate and shrugged. “It was available. Would you care for some?”
“I’d prefer eggs. Where is your cook?”
“Asleep, I imagine, though I couldn’t say for certain.”
“No matter, I’ll make them.”
“You? You can cook?” She said it with such stunned disbelief, he couldn’t help laughing.
“I was a soldier, you’ll recall.”