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“I should return the miniature to my mother.”
“Yes, of course.” I placed it back in his hand, and his fingers curled around the painting, skimming mine and leaving behind a trail of blazing heat. My fingers moved to fidget with my mother’s ring, but I’d yet to remove it from the string about my neck and found, in the place it usually adorned my finger, nothing but naked skin.
“We’ll need an early morning if we want to be gone before the hordes awake.”
I looked again at the bed. It was large enough to fit both of us twice over, and there was only one blanket—if the thin item could even be called a blanket. With winter encroaching and a chill in the room the fire had not been able to fully snuff, it was impossible to ask Benedict to sleep on the cold floor without a blanket. I considered again the prospect of offering to share the bed and mattress, but the idea stuttered on my tongue, refusing to come out.
Benedict eyed me. “What are you refraining from saying?”
I swallowed, but tried to sound nonchalant. This wasnotan offer because I was grateful for the dinner or the intensity of Benedict’s search for me. It was merely a sensical solution to the dilemma that was our sleeping arrangements. “The only logical solution is to share the bed.”
He stood and took a step back. “Absolutely not.”
It hurt a little that the prospect was so disgusting to him, and I was tempted to let the matter drop, but this had nothing to do with how we felt toward one another.
“We can line our valises between us, and no one will ever learn of it.”
Benedict took another step back, as if he could physically remove himself from the idea I presented.
“Oh, do be reasonable.” I stood, fanning my arms. “I would be more than happy to let you suffer on the floor, but the bed is large and we will create a barrier between us.”
He tilted his head to the side, not unlike my mother’s terrier used to do. “If you are more than happy to watch me suffer, then why did you mention the”—he waved his hand toward the bed as though he could not bring himself to say the word aloud—“sleeping on that.”
Why, indeed? It was not because I cared for his comfort. He deserved a cold night on a hard floor after what he put so many women through—all the flirting and the false expectations he’d raised in countless other naive misses. My gaze moved again to the plate he’d brought me for dinner and I tore it away. I could not help the smallest tinge of gratitude in my mostly iron heart for the effort Benedict had made to seek me out. It was a shock to realize that anyone cared so much to find me. Regardless of whether he had done it for his mother or himself, he still did it.
For that, I could share a lumpy, straw mattress sewn for a family of six.
“For your mother’s sake,” I said.
“My mother?” His dark eyebrows drew together skeptically.
“Yes. For Lady Edith. She would be sad to hear that you’d spent an entire evening on the floor, freezing and uncomfortable. I suggest it because of her.”
“Hmm.” He looked disbelieving.
“Good heavens, Ben. It is the sensible thing to do,” I snapped. “One of us does consider the situation as a whole, you know.”
He lifted his eyebrows. “Yes, one of us does.Ido that often.”
I cast my eyes to the ceiling and rose, obtaining my valise. I moved to the bed and set it in the middle, then added Benedict’s bag and formed a barrier down the center of the mattress. “If anyone is to ask you about it later, now you can honestly tell them that I did not sleep beside you.”
“You do not call that sleeping beside one another?”
“No. I call that sleeping beside a valise.”
“Mere details.”
“Yes. Important details.” I blew out the last candle, and we were left in a dim room with only the orange glow from the small fire. It danced over his cheekbones, shadowing the cut of his jaw and the flexing muscles in his cheeks. “Good night, Benedict. I’ve given you the option, now the choice is yours.”
“Wait.” He stepped around me and pulled the drapes over the window to grant us some privacy, then ran a hand over his face. “This does not feel right. I do not wish to do anything that might compromise you—that might compromiseus.”
“At this point in our journey, do you not think we are a little beyond that concern? If we have irrevocably harmed our reputations, surely the damage is already complete.”
“Not yet. We could make it all the way to Cumberland, be spotted by a mutual acquaintance while stopping to change horses, andthenit will be over. We must be diligent to the very end.”
I put my arms out to the sides. “I am dressed as a boy, Ben. No one will catch us, and if they do, they will not assume I am a woman.”
His gaze followed the length of me, from my outstretched arms to my toes, and I fought the urge to squirm. “Your clothing is correct, but your form is not. If you are not careful, you could be spotted.”
