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Especially not a pale yellow wall with tiny blue flowers painted on it and a long crack in the plaster at eye level.
Blast.
Her body jerked upright in the bed.
Eva. Seahorn.
Panic surging in her veins, she spun around, her eyes squinting at the bright light, fighting it but not having time for it.
Why was it so bright?
It took several blinks to realize it was the snow that had started falling the previous night. The snow had coated everything outside the window—the trees and the rooftops across the way—and reflected the rays of the sun into a thousand different directions. Blinding.
She had pushed the bed back into place against the wall last night, but she could have sworn she’d made sure the drapes were closed.
How late was it?
She flipped back the coverlet and untangled her ankle from the sheet, then swung her legs off the side of the bed, only to yelp when she finally noticed Rafe sitting at the small table across the room, watching her, his eyes holding their usual chill.A plate of rolls and jam along with baconsat next to him on the table.
He was in her room and he hadn’t woken her up?
She wasn’t sure what was more disconcerting, that he hadn’t woken her or that he was in her room unbeknownst to her.
No time to explore that.
“What time is it?” She jumped out of the bed. Never mind that she just had her chemise on. He’d seen more than enough of her body last night.Touchedmore than enough. And that had turned out horribly enough, so she doubted he would notice if she was stepping toward him fully naked.
He hadn’t cared for what had happened between them—he thought she was inexperienced and disgusting.
Fine.
She was humiliated by that fact.
Fine.
Contrary to him, though, she didn’t carry a hint of regret at what had happened last night.
She knew she should.
She’d dwelled on it for far too long after he’d left her room. But she didn’t regret it. Why her years of training in propriety—why the years of warnings about rakes—hadn’t taken over her mind and stopped what she’d let happen last night, she wasn’t sure.
Correction. What she’dmadehappen last night.
That was the crux of it. She had wanted it to happen. Rafe didn’t.
That’s why no warning bells had clanged loud and dangerous in her head.
Rafe’s dark brown eyes shifted from her to the window as she went to her skirt, shirt and spencer and started dragging all of her clothes onto her body in a flurry.
“It is late morning,” Rafe said.
“Late morning?” She screeched as she jammed her arms into her linen shirt, poking her head through the opening and glaring at him. “You let me sleep that long?”
He motioned toward the bed. “You are clearly exhausted. Do you think I want to deliver your body to Seahorn with a broken neck from falling off a horse?”
“You don’t get to make that decision for me,” she snapped. “I have to get there. I have to get help. The more I think on it, the more it doesn’t seem random. The way that man dropped me onto the road to discard me. They so clearly wanted Eva for some reason, which puts her in even more danger than I thought. So I need to get help for her—there isn’t time for you to sit around, not waking me up.”
“It was necessary, your sleep.” Her ranting didn’t send so much as a hiccup into his voice, his look addressing her coolly. “I told you I would help you get to Seahorn. This is how I do it. I deliver you in one piece.”
