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“I’m taking you to an inn. Or a hotel. The finest establishment Ramsgate has to offer, whatever that might be.”
And wherever they stayed, he would demand the best room. Not merely a room, but a suite. An apartment with a soaking tub and a private dining room.
And, most importantly, separate bedchambers.
Last night, that simple goodnight kiss had nearly been his undoing. This morning he was slavering like a dog, after just one glimpse of her breasts. If he shared a bed with her again tonight, he’d risk losing all control.
“But Ramsgate is so popular this time of year. It will be full to bursting with ladies on holiday. Too many prying eyes. Someone will recognize us, and then the rumors will be all over England.”
“Unless we’re visiting the shops or the seaside, we won’t attract notice.”
She laughed to herself. “Sebastian, you are like a walking exhibition of Grecian sculpture. Wherever you go, you attract notice. Once we ride into town together, we may as well put a notice in theThe Times.Can’t we remain here and avoid the gossip? In just one morning, I’ve already improved the kitchen. Give it a few more days, and this cottage will be positively charming, you’ll see.”
He relented. “Very well. If that’s truly what you want.”
“It’s what I want. If it weren’t, you know I wouldn’t hesitate to tell you.”
“This is true.” He tapped a finger on the table’s edge. “But I have one condition. We must do something about our sleeping arrangements.”
“I wholeheartedly agree.” She pushed back from the table. “Which is why I’ve something to show you upstairs.”
Chapter 6
Sebastian followed her up the stairs, feeling strangely wary. Just what sort of surprise did she have in mind?
“I found it in the attic,” she chattered on the way. “It must be centuries old. We dusted it off with rags, and Dick carried it down to this room. It’s the largest.” She led him into a bedchamber branching off the corridor and made a sweeping arm gesture toward one corner. “See? It’s a bed.”
Sebastian blinked at the jumble of timbers. “That’s not a bed. That’s firewood.”
“It’s a disassembled bed. And I think you’d have a difficult time burning it. It’s heavier than bricks.” She lifted one end of a plank. “I don’t even know what kind of wood this is.”
He ran his fingers over the surface and examined the grain. “I’m not certain, either.” He picked up a lathe-turned wooden leg. Or was it a finial? Time had coated the wood in a dark, impenetrable patina that he couldn’t even gouge with his thumbnail.
“I don’t think it’s English. What style of carving do you make that out to be?” She leaned close to him, offering a piece decorated with a chain of stylized wildflowers.
He shrugged. “Swedish, maybe?”
“Well, wherever it came from, it’s going to be slept in tonight. I already told Fanny to stuff a mattress tick with fresh straw. We just have to put the frame together. All the pieces seem to be here.” She took hold of a board and lifted it, eyeing the dimensions. “Do you think this is a slat, perhaps?” She tipped her head to regard it from another angle. “Or a rail?”
With a shrug, she carried it to the center of the room and laid it flat on the floor.
Sebastian poked through the stack of planks and pieces. “Simple mortise and tenon joints. Shouldn’t take long.” He chose two pieces that looked as though they’d been hewn to fit together, and the tenon slipped into the mortise like a hand into a fitted glove. “That’s one joint connected.”
Mary paused in the act of laying a second plank next to the first, lining up their bottom edges for comparison. “Oh, no. We’re not going about it all higgledy-piggledy. We don’t know if those two pieces belong together.”
“Of course they do. They were made to fit.”
“You can’t be sure of that.”
He held up the joint for her, sliding the tenon in and out of its slot a few times. “Is that not proof enough?”
“Perhaps there are two that would fit the same hole.”
“Well, I don’t know how you propose to complete this bed without joining pieces together. Did you find a leaflet in the attic with instructions? In Swedish?”
“Of course I didn’t. That’s why we need a plan. Now, we’re going to arrange all these pieces neatly in rows first, laying them out on the floor so that we can count and compare. We’ll put a little mark on the similar ones. Plank A, plank B, and so on. Then we’ll chalk up a diagram on the floor and—”
“I thought you wanted to sleep in this bed tonight. Not next week.”
