I don’t, though, because something has wound itself around my wrists and ankles. A soft, low sound I feel more than hear. A gentle vibration that makes my jaw unclench.
“Good boy,” says a velvet voice.
I manage to fight the urge to say, “Who, me?”
Just.
Thank fuck for that because he’s talking to the horse.
The second the coast is clear, I scuttle back to the house at top speed.
Breakfast this morning is easily as torturous as it was yesterday. Possibly more so. I’ve been served delicious eggs Benedict on an English muffin, but unfortunately, it sticks in my throat when I attempt to swallow it.
The difficult man to my right seems to be in a mood this morning. There’s a crease between his brows and a heaviness about his eyelids that I can’t help feeling is about me. As I chew, chew, chew and struggle to swallow my food, I remind myself of my resolve to say less while I’m in England.
I’m still wholly on board with the plan. It’s just that I’m finding it a little harder to remain on course this morning than I did yesterday.
Lord Augustus eats in silence, handling his cutlery in a way that manages to be both infinitely refined and slightly comicalon account of how his hands dwarf his knife and fork. When he’s finished his food, the gray pants, white shirt guy pours him another cup of tea.
“Thank you, Sid,” says Lord Augustus with a small smile that, if I’m not mistaken, might actually reach his eyes.
“Anything else for you, Mr. Lawlor?” asks Sid.
It’s now or never.
I either ask for coffee or I die of unhappiness during the course of my stay here.
“Might I have a cup of coffee?” I ask, bowing primly from the neck and sounding like a fucking idiot.
Sid dashes off to make my coffee, and I’m left grinning inanely at the lord.
Fortunately, he doesn’t seem to be aware that I’m in the room.
The coffee arrives, and I drink it with the most intense gratitude imaginable. I’m so focused on the bitter, heavenly task at hand that I don’t notice that Lord Augustus’s attention has shifted until I set my cup down.
A hot, heavy gaze pours over me, spilling down my shoulders and running down my chest. I tense, though I don’t mean to. I don’t move as a pair of dark alpha eyes slowly work their way up my neck, then my face, and finally meet mine.
“Were you warm enough last night?” he asks.
There’s something unexpectedly soft around the corners of his mouth when he speaks, and the smooth timbre in his voice reminds me of what he said to the horse earlier. That, and having woken in the depths of a nest that would put most nests to shame, causes a flush to creep up my neck.
“Oh yes!” I exclaim, taking off at a canter. “I was warm enough, thank you. I wasperfectlywarm. Mrs. Thompson left some blankets in the cupboard for me, but I didn’t need them, because of…you know, being warm enough.”
I have a sip of water and manage to rein myself in.
I fidget with my napkin and take my time buttering a piece of toast with excessive care, making sure an even layer of butter reaches the corners perfectly. I eat it in much the same way, small, neat bites designed to kill time.
I pass at least ten minutes like this, my anxiety ratcheting up a little more each second from the strain of being alone in the room with an unpleasant, hard-to-read alpha.
When I’ve drained my glass of water, flattened my napkin, and folded it carefully, I sit, hands in my lap, sinking into an excruciating silence.
“Right,” says Lord Augustus when the tension in the room has become a spiky sculpture made of thinly blown glass. “Let’s get the day started, shall we?”
Oh fuck.
He’s been waiting for me to finish eating. Of course he has. Posh table manners and all that.
I’ve kept him waiting for ages. How embarrassing.
