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Why had he stopped her talking? It had been pleasant to listen to her, despite his exhaustion. Now there was nothing but silence, an awkward quiet full of a tension that Marcus wasn’t prepared to think about.
He cleared his throat. ‘You should sleep.’
‘I should.’
‘I’ll sleep by the fire. You may have the bed.’ Marcus paused. ‘If… if that’s...’
‘That will be perfectly adequate. Thank you.’
Perfectly adequate? The woman made him feel like the owner of a second-rate hotel. Marcus bit back a sarcastic reply, torn between annoyance and admiration.
‘Well.’ Abigail paused. ‘Good night.’
‘Good night.’
‘I hope you sleep well by the fire.’
‘I hope I do as well.’
‘Yes.’ Abigail paused. ‘So…’
‘So?’
‘So I must prepare for bed.’
‘Ah! Yes. Of course.’ Marcus quickly turned around, embarrassment tightening his throat. ‘When it comes to night things, I don’t--’
‘I’m well-aware you won’t have any women’s night things.’ Abigail sounded as embarrassed as he did, even if her strained tone suggested she was trying to be polite. ‘At least—I have assumed.’
‘And you assumed correctly.’ This situation was already strange enough—he certainly didn’t need Abigail thinking that he was in the habit of kidnapping women and offering them nightgowns. ‘So goodnight.’
‘Yes.’
‘Sleep well.’
‘Yes.’
‘And… and we will discuss things in the morning.’
‘The morning. Of course.’
Let her go to sleep, you dolt. Stop saying things. ‘Good… goodnight.’
‘You’ve told me that three times now.’
Oh, God. What was happening to him? Marcus, nodding even if his face was turned away from Abigail, walked away from the bed without another word.
As a duke, he was a master of words. He’d talked women out of their morals, convictions and very often their clothes before. But it was now painfully clear that now he was in his highwayman’s guise, he had left his silver tongue at home along with his fine clothes and servants.
Or perhaps Abigail was having some odd effect on him. Not least the fact that in Marcus’ head she was already Abigail, and not the far more appropriate Miss Weeks.
He took a quick glance back towards the bed before he could stop himself. Abigail was letting down her hair; Marcus watched her remove a shining pin, transfixed, before forcing himself to turn away.
All he had to do was keep Abigail Weeks hidden until she was spirited away by her friends. A simple enough job, even if it had been all but forced upon him. But as Marcus settled down by the fire, putting his cloak beneath his head to act as a makeshift pillow, he couldn’t escape the growing certainty that he’d taken on far, far more than that.
The night was clear. In the hills that surrounded the cave, far away from the sounds of men and following their own inscrutable plans, hares and badgers conducted their business as the nocturnal hours passed.
The cave looked undoubtedly beautiful in the moonlight. Abigail spent a long, dreamy stretch of time admiring the dips and hollows in the rock above her head, the shades of grey and brown given a pearly gleam, the hay mattress beneath her sending up occasional wafts of summertime scent that only made the atmosphere more eerily enchanted.
