Page 14 of How To Tempt A Bodyguard

When the sounds stopped, he heard her move towards the trunks. Of course. Those damned trunks.

He glanced over. She wasn't touching them, but her eyes traced the locks, the ropes, the positioning. Those same three trunks receiving the same careful scrutiny as yesterday.

"They're fine," he said.

She startled slightly, hadn't realised he was watching. "I know."

"Then why check?"

"Habit." She turned away, reaching for her dress. "Do you mind?"

Matthew rose, joints protesting, and faced the door while she changed. The sounds of fabric and laces. The soft grunt of a woman wrestling with a corset she'd normally have a maid to manage.

"You can turn around," she said after a few minutes.

He did. She was dressed in yesterday's merchant wife costume, her hair pinned back simply. The transformation was complete: comfortable, unremarkable, forgettable.

Except he couldn't seem to forget her.

"I need to wash," he said. "Stay away from the window. Don't open the door for anyone."

"I'm not a child."

"No. You’re not."

He crossed to the washstand, stripping off his shirt. The water was cold. Good. He needed cold. He splashed it over his face, his chest, his shoulders, letting it shock some alertness into his exhausted body.

In the small mirror above the basin, he could see her reflection. She was supposed to be checking those trunks again, or fussing with her hair, or doing any of the hundred things women did in the morning.

Instead, she was watching him.

Her eyes traced across his back. The scars, the muscle, the water dripping down his spine. He saw her lips part slightly. Caught the brief crack in her composure before she looked away.

Matthew finished washing. Took his time drying off, pulling on a fresh shirt, tucking it into his trousers. When he turned around, she was studying the ceiling with exaggerated interest.

Neither of them mentioned it.

A knock at the door made them both tense. Matthew held up a hand—stay—and positioned himself to the side, out of the line of sight.

"Who is it?"

"Begging your pardon, sir." A young voice, nervous. "Carriage is ready. Driver wants to leave within the hour."

Matthew opened the door a crack. A gangly youth in servant's livery, nothing more.

"Thirty minutes," Matthew said.

"Yes, sir."

The boy scurried off. Matthew closed the door and turned to find Mrs Archer standing by the trunks again, her fingers resting on the lock of the one with brass fittings.

"You keep touching that one," he said.

Her hand stilled. "Do I?"

"The brass fittings. It's heavier than the others. I noticed when I carried them."

She didn't deny it. Didn't offer an explanation. Just looked at him with those unreadable eyes.