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She plunked the salt down in front of him. “Just eat them. Eggs are eggs.”
His bushy eyebrows rose as he lifted his coffee. “What’s gotten into you this morning? You’re not your usual self.”
No. No, she wasn’t. What a morning. Thank goodness Rhys hadn’t shown his face for breakfast. She wouldn’t have known what to say to him. And considering her state of distraction, she probably would have served him burnt porridge with a side of soap.
“I’m sorry, Father.” She moved back to the stove and cracked two eggs into a buttered pan. “I’m just a little tired, that’s all. Perhaps I’m not sleeping enough of late.”
“You haven’t slept enough in years, Merry. You’re always working yourself too hard. Things will improve, now that Rhys is back.”
“I’m not engaged to Rhys.” Just how many times would she be forced to say those words before someone believed them?
“Even if you aren’t. He’ll give me a post, and I can support you for a change. The way it should be. You can rest.”
Meredith shook her head. As if she would allow her crippled, aged father to perform manual labor while she sat idly by. “I don’t want to rest. I want to keep my inn.”
Rhys had truly moved her earlier, with his little speech about building the house, and constructing it to last. The excitement shining in his eyes had been wonderful to see. She understood just what he meant, because she felt the same way about the Three Hounds. No, she hadn’t built it from the ground up, but she’d worked herself not just to the bone, but to the marrow to make the inn what it was today. She was damned proud of it, too.
This place represented independence, security, friendship, personal satisfaction … a home. Everything she’d ever wanted in her life, save one thing.
Rhys St. Maur.
And now, miracle of miracles, it seemed that Rhys wanted her, too. But only if she agreed to marry him. Only if she gave up the inn.
He simply didn’t understand. Her responsibilities extended beyond caring for her father. The Three Hounds was the financial and social heart of the village. Everyone in Buckleigh-in-the-Moor depended on it, and depended onherto manage it.
She slid the fried eggs onto a plate, then placed it in front of her father, switching out the coddled ones for herself. After pouring herself a mug of coffee, she sat down across from him. For a few minutes, they ate in silence.
When the eggs had fortified her sufficiently and she felt up to addressing the subject, she said, “Father, listen to me. Please don’t get carried away with wild ideas. We can’t be sure Rhys is here to stay. He’s a gentleman having a lark pushing stones about the countryside. When the amusement wears off, what then? He may decide his ‘fate’ lies elsewhere and leave.”
“Why would he do that?”
“Why wouldn’t he?” She lowered her voice and tried again. “Haven’t you noticed, Father? Everyone whocanleave this place, does.”
His brow creased. “When did you become so jaded, Merry?”
Ten years ago. When I married a man several years your senior, just to put a roof over our heads.
“I’m not jaded. I’m being realistic. Someone has to be.” Unfortunately, it seemed that someone must always be her. It certainly wouldn’t be Rhys, with his strange insistence on destiny. Would fate get the laundry done?
She pushed back from the table. “Mrs. Ware will look after anything else you need. I’d best gather the linens for Betsy.”
She went upstairs and gathered the bedclothes from each room, beginning with her own cramped, simple quarters, and continuing to her father’s slightly larger room, then proceeding through every guest room, whether they had been occupied in the past week or not. Meredith knew that people of means typically traveled with their own sheets, but she made it a point to dress the beds in clean linens, as a matter of aesthetics and pride.
She saved Rhys’s bedchamber for last, telling herself to invade the unoccupied room, whisk the sheets from the mattress, and make a quick retreat. But of course, the corner of one sheet snagged on the bedpost, and she had to climb atop the mattress to tug at it … and deuce it, the sheets were pitifully clean, when by all rights they should have been marked with passion.
And she was so very tired.
For a moment, she contemplated flopping onto the bed, snuggling into what lingered of his spicy male scent, and taking a long, luxuriant rest. She could all too easily imagine him lying next to her. She had a fair amount of practice imagining that. Except now, she had the benefit of much more information. She knew how his body fit against hers, solid in every place she was soft. She knew how his skin felt to the touch—weathered and sun-warmed atop his forearm, supple as kid on the inner side of his wrist.
She knew the taste of his kiss.
Oh, Rhys.
With a sharp yank, Meredith pulled the stubborn sheet free and roused herself from her fantasy. She understood dreams, sometimes even reveled in them. She wasn’t jaded, like her father had suggested. But she knew where to draw the boundary between dreams and reality.
The familiar titter of the washerwoman’s laughter floated up from the courtyard. Meredith tied the dirty linens in a bundle and went to the window, calling to catch Betsy’s attention. She stuffed the heap of linen through the window, and Betsy swooped quick to catch it in her basket—a move that earned her appreciative calls from a few of the men nearby.
“Excellent aim, Mrs. Maddox!” Darryl waved to her from the stables. The hounds yipped and wrestled at his feet.
