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“I think Madeleine would be uneasy if I was out of the house.I’dbe uneasy if I was out of the house.” A pause. “You could stay here.”
He shifted next to her and she knew he was looking down at her in surprise, but she kept her eyes trained on the ground. He had coaxed her toward the center of his life, but she had steadfastly kept him on the fringes of hers. “That doesn’t seem like the sort of thing dona Madeleine would approve of,” he said.
Jayla snorted. “Herlover has moved into the house—and everyone knows they’re sharing a bedroom. She wouldn’t have any moral qualms.”
“Yes, but it’s her house. She can do what she likes.”
Unexpectedly, Jayla felt a smile play around her lips. It was so rare thatshewas the one trying to persuadeCodyto participate. “She has a vested interest in keeping me happy. And steady. If I tell her that I need you with me, she’ll write you an invitation in her own hand.”
“Don’t you share a room with Aussen?”
Now she was laughing. “I do. We would have to lie there very chastely, just sleeping.”
He bent in to press his lips against her cheek. “Well, then what’s the point?”
She turned her head just enough so that they were forehead to forehead, nose to nose, his eyes so close to hers she couldn’t entirely focus. “Really? You wouldn’t stay with me just to soothe my soul?”
“I would,” he said. “I will. I’d sleep on the floor at the foot of your bed. I’m just enjoying the novelty of having you beg me to be with you.”
She tried to hold back the smile. “I wouldn’t deign to beg.”
“Would you implore? I like imploring.”
“I was trying totemptyou.”
“By telling me there will be a child in the room with us? You have a lot to learn about seduction.”
And now she was laughing. She almost felt giddy. It was so odd. “There’s an empty room next to mine. It’s as small as a closet, but Aussen uses it to play in. I think she’d like to sleep there.”
He pretended to consider. “We’d have to ask her, of course.”
“Of course.”
“And receive Madeleine’s permission.”
Jayla thought of the conversation that morning—an hour that seemed so long ago now!—when Madeleine recommended that Jayla fight Rovyn for Cody’s affections. She was pretty sure Madeleine would be delighted by this particular development. Delighted to have something else to think about except danger and duty and death. “We’ll ask both of them,” she said. “But I think you’ll be going home to pack a bag.”
So, after all, it turned out the night wasn’t as bad as Jayla had feared. Madeleine had welcomed Cody with a flash of gaiety, saying, “It has become my goal to fill the house with ahundredpeople, so please make yourself at home!”
Aussen was pleased by the notion of having her own room, though she seemed to think it would be jollier if they all shared a space. “We could talk and sing and play games until we fell asleep,” she suggested.
“I’ll play a game with you in your own bedroom,” Cody countered. “And then you’ll go straight to sleep.”
And he did. And she did. And then he joined Jayla in their own room, and they did not go straight to sleep. But once Jayla closed her eyes, she fell instantly into dreaming, and didn’t wake till morning.
Madeleine was alone in the breakfast room when Jayla tracked her down. “How are you this morning?” Jayla asked.
Madeleine looked up from a mostly untouched plate of food. “Nervous,” she admitted. “On edge. My thoughts—” She made a circular motion beside her head. “They keep spinning.”
Jayla nodded. She could understand completely. “When does Reese get back?”
“This afternoon, I think. I hope.”
“What do you have planned for the day? Any visitors?”
“Nothing! No one! Three of my friends have sent notes asking to come by—because of course they want to hear all about yesterday’s dreadful ordeal—but I told them I wasn’t up to company. And Harlo was supposed to come by this afternoon, but I sent him a message and postponed. All I want to do today is sit quietly in my house, and think about my life, and not have anyone drop by and try to murder me.”
“That sounds like a good plan.”
