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“Until you fall asleep.”
She didn’t voice her disappointment, but it must have shown. Draven added, “I don’t require much sleep and I have duties to attend to.”
It would have to do.
“In that case, can you hand me the nightcap there?” she asked.
Draven passed her the silken bonnet, which she affixed over her hair to protect against tangles. Once done, they shifted on the mattress until Charlotte curled against his side, her head on his chest. Warm and floating on what they had done, Charlotte didn’t think she’d fall asleep.
She was wrong. Her eyes grew heavy. Draven’s heart was a slow, steady beat. Not fast, but regular. One beat for every three breaths she took. She counted them out until her mind finally quieted.
Chapter Nine
Charlotte
The Aerie
Charlotte’s Bedroom
A bang woke Charlotte.
Or that could have been the pounding in her head.
No. Someone was definitely pounding on the door.
She bolted upright in the bed, blanket clutched to her chest as the world momentarily spun. She had fallen asleep easily next to Draven. Now she was alone because headaches did not count as company.
The fact that she had slept so soundly had more to do with exhaustion than the companion in her bed. And she had been dosed with wormwood and who knows what else. Her deep sleep had absolutely nothing to do with how comfortable she felt next to Draven. He was a predator who drank human blood. No one could sleep next to that.
Except she had and now she was alone.
He told her he did not sleep and that he would leave, yet it felt like being abandoned. Try as she might to convince herself that she was not abandoned and alone the morning after her wedding, she failed. The situation was pitiful, and she loathed feeling that way.
The events of the last few days—especially that night—caught up with her. Now, her mind felt crowded. The headache did not help.
She longed for the calm of home, the murmur of her father muttering as he read, and the street sounds of the village that drifted in through open windows. All she had was the howl of the wind.
Charlotte sat still, listening. Had she dreamed the noise? Did wormwood cause hallucinations? She was almost certain it did not. Her head throbbed, making it difficult to concentrate, and her stomach felt unsettled.
There. Another bang, like fists pounding on a door. Voices rose in the corridor.
She reached for her spectacles on the bedside table, knocking over a glass of water. The glass hit the floor, shattering.
“Blast it,” Charlotte muttered, fumbling in the dark to light a candle.
She picked up all the broken fragments she could find in the flickering light. A jagged piece sliced her thumb. Hissing in pain, she hurried across the cold floor to the bathing chamber to procure a washing cloth to wrap around her thumb. She needed a bandage, but this would do until the bleeding stopped.
She shivered, cold and very much nude except for the sagging stockings.
Voices in the corridor got louder.
Charlotte grabbed her robe and slippers before hurrying to the sitting room. The air was bracing. The fire had long since died.
The corridor wasn’t much better.
“What’s going on?” she asked, drawing the robe tighter around her.
Electric lights flickered down the corridor, creating dim pockets of light.
