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“Perhaps even swimming in the lake.”
“Nothing so improper.”
She pushed a few strands of hair from her cheeks. “There was a time you would not think us swimming together improper, my lord.”
“I am baffled by the man you describe.”
And also clearly skeptical. Gradually her heartbeat steadied. She did not allow the parallels to give her too much hope. She began to wonder about the wisdom of her actions. She could have called upon him and respectably sought a reacquaintance. Fanny felt scared that he might not remember her and just as scared he might not learn to re-love her.
Simon Gracely was a man changed.
“I will sleep on the chaise longue,” he said. “For the seven nights.”
Drat. “You are too tall for it, I’m afraid.”
His expression was inscrutable when he considered her. “It will do, Miss Fairbanks, it will do.”
She sauntered over to the bed. “Are you afraid to sleep beside me?”
The cool way he studied her was rather unnerving.
Fanny pointed in the corner. “The valise that came down with you there holds sufficient clothes and toiletries to last for the duration of your stay.”
She tried very hard to not fidget under his unswerving regard. But as he turned away, Fanny thought she spied a smile.
“We will have no privacy, Miss Fairbanks.”
“Oh, dear,” she drawled. “Whatever are we to do?”
“I do not think you are alarmed at the prospect.”
I am delighted and determined.
He said nothing more, and she went to the small screen near the door leading to the kitchen and started to remove her gown. She was tempted to ask for his assistance in dressing but thought she might be pushing him too far and too soon. When she emerged dressed in a cotton nightgown, he lay on the bed still in his trousers, his hands behind his head.
With a silent gasp, she noted his naked chest and bare toes. Fanny hadn’t thought he would have been so informal before her. It was intoxicating, and she wanted to reach out and touch and breathe deep the scent of the essence of him. Greedily, she drank in the strong, powerful lines of his torso, the rigid sculpted muscles, trying to ignore the heat surging through her limbs. He was beautiful, sensual, and so graceful. She went around to the other side of the bed and clambered on. Their bodies touched. The bed was that small.
“You can have the pillow,” he said gruffly.
She trembled, fighting the instinct to move closer to his heady warmth. “Your arm will do nicely. You can have it,” she kindly offered.
He made a sound low in his throat, one she was unable to interpret. But he did not protest her arrangements, and she smiled privately. Reaching down, he tugged the coverlet around their bodies.
“Do you have an attachment, Miss Fairbanks?”
The question surprised her. “No.”
“Why not?”
“I was waiting for you,” she said with plain honesty.
“You thought I had died.”
“Yes.” She fought with the raw feelings of fear, heartbreak…anger.
“And you still waited?”
“I…I grieved.” Her voice cracked, and she cleared her throat, yet she could say no more, recalling the cruel days when the pain had laid her low.
“I am sorry for it,” he said. “So damn sorry.”
Fanny still could not speak. They remained silent, listening to the low crackle of the fire in the hearth and the drumming of rain on the roof. The worry and fear had exhausted her, and sleep that had eluded her for days slowly pulled her under. She turned into the cage of his arms, vaguely feeling his start of surprise.
“Sleepy,” she muttered, curving onto his chest, a place where she had always rested, secure in her safety there.
