“Secure your window against the breeze and I shall leave you to your rest.”
“Okay.” She reached for the zipper. “And, Robert?”
He stopped in the process of lying down again. “Aye?”
“Thank you.”
He offered her a tender smile. “Sleep well, Beth.”
She tried to. Sleep well, that was.
But she couldn’t. Not because of nightmares. The temperature kept her awake. It was even colder now than it had been when she had turned in. The ground beneath the tent radiated an almost wintery chill that seeped through the thin material and settled in her bones.
She wished she had a nice warm sleeping bag.
Beth tucked one of the blankets beneath her, using it as a bed of sorts. But it didn’t make much difference other than to leave the rest of her colder.
Tossing and turning, chafing her arms and legs, Beth’s frustration mounted. This was ridiculous! It was August! She should be sweating! Where the hell was she?
She blew on her fingers.
And what the hell did she have to do to get warm already?
Sitting up, muttering several curses, she folded each of the three blankets that covered her in half, then stacked them one atop the other. She might have to sleep in a fetal position beneath them, but maybe six layers would finally insulate her well enough to sleep.
Beth flounced back down, curled up into a little ball and tucked the folded blankets around her, pulling them over her head.
So they were a little itchy and smelled like horse. Who cared? At least they were warm.
Or they would be.
Given time.
Yep. The warmth would kick in any minute now.
Damn it! It’s not working!
How did those guys stand it out there? They all either slept on the ground or leaned against a tree, exposed to the wind with nothing but their cloaks for protection.
Movement sounded outside the tent, distracting her.
She jumped when the zipper at the tent’s entrance began to unzip itself. Struggling to unbury her head, she peered over the edge of the bunched-up covers. “Robert?”
As the man himself ducked inside and resealed the tent’s entrance behind him, she propped herself up on her elbows.
What had already been a small space now seemed positively Lilliputian.
“What’s wrong?” she whispered as he turned to face her.
Crouched down on his haunches to avoid scraping his head on the top of the tent, he smiled. “Your muttering and chattering teeth are keeping me awake.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t even realize I was doing it.”
Robert waved away her apology, then motioned for her to scoot over. “Move over a bit. We will have to sleep with our heads in one corner and our feet in the other if we are going to do this. Otherwise I will not fit.”
“I beg your pardon?”
He grinned at the challenge in her tone. “Do not question my honor again. I only wish to offer you the heat of my body, naught more.”
“Oh.” It seemed downright intimate as she scooted over to make room for him beside her. “So, we’re just going to sleep, right?” Best to put it right out there and make doubly sure.
“Aye.”
Robert was a big man and took up a lot of room as he stretched out as much as the tent would allow him. His arm pressed against hers. Their hips and thighs touched. Taking the blankets from her, he unfolded and shook them out to settle over their bodies.
Oooh. And he was warm, too. So wonderfully, deliciously warm. She didn’t even wait for him to finish getting comfortable before she eagerly turned toward him and tucked her frosty toes between his calves.
He hissed in a sharp breath as the cold penetrated the thin material that covered his legs.
Beth felt a shudder ripple through him and laughed. “That’s nothing. Wait until you feel my hands.”
He groaned. “You had best give them to me now and get it over with.”
She gratefully thrust her icy digits at him, sighing with pleasure as his warm fingers closed around them and carried them to his mouth to be bathed in warm breath.
“Saints, woman! Your dip in the river did not leave you ill, did it?” Freeing one hand, he pressed his palm to her forehead in search of aberrant heat.
“I might ask the same of you. You’re so warm! You aren’t running a fever, are you?”
“Nay.” The backs of his fingers touched her cheek, then her neck, before leaving. “You do not feel overly warm,” he murmured doubtfully.
“I’m fine. I’m just not used to this kind of weather.”
He grunted. “In truth, I do not find it unseasonably cool.”
“Well, you must have been born in Alaska or something.”
“Nay. I was born at Westcott.”
“Oh. Where is that?” Maybe that would give her a clue as to where she was.
A lengthy pause ensued, during which he stopped blowing on her hands. “You have never heard of Westcott?” His tone suggested she should have.
“Nay.”
“Lord Dillon, Earl of Westcott?”
Was he another medieval reenactment friend of Robert’s? “Nay.”
“Feared throughout the land for his ferocity?”
“Not by me.”
“Wed to a sorceress?”