“Rory, you’re tired,” he said in coaxing fashion. “This quarrel can wait until morning. It must be past midnight. Come back to bed.”
“I’d sooner sleep on the floor.” But she hugged herself, already feeling a draft tugging at her nightgown, the insidious cold creeping over her flesh.
“Forgive me, my dear, but I am little unclear as to why you are sleeping in here at all. Not that I have the least objection, butyou’d best keep your voice down. I have a feeling that battle-axe of a woman who owns this cottage might toss us back into the ocean if she caught you in here.”
“She knows I’m with you. She thinks we’re married.”
“Where the blazes did she get an idea like that?”
“I told her so.” Rory raised her chin in defiance as a rumble of laughter escaped Zeke. “It seemed like a good idea.”
“Oh, an excellent idea. I’m beginning to appreciate that fact more and more all the time.”
She sensed his gaze warm upon her and realized that the mammoth nightgown had shifted, slipping off one shoulder down far enough to expose the curve of her breast. Rory yanked the fabric back up, clutching it together at the neckline. Zeke made a sudden move, and she tensed, fearing he meant to carry her back to bed. But he checked himself, resorting to pleading instead.
“Come on, Aurora Rose. You’ll catch your death of a cold. Look, I’ll move back to my own side and I won’t even try to touch you.”
Rory wasn’t sure how far she trusted his promise.
“It’s a long time yet until morning,” he reminded her.
It might be longer still if she spent it bundled into bed beside a man now fully awake and aroused. But as he retreated back across the bed, she took a reluctant step forward—although she was not certain which lured her more, the prospect of those warm blankets, or that even warmer voice, all too seductive. She gingerly eased herself back down on the bed.
Lying stiffly on her back, she dragged the quilt up to her chin. Zeke rolled to his side, propping himself on one elbow, resting his head against his hand, gazing down at her.
“I can hardly fall asleep with you staring at me,” she complained.
“Sorry,” he said, but he didn’t alter his position a jot. “I was just wondering if this was what it was like to be married.”
“I wouldn’t know.”
“It might not be as bad as I’d always thought, especially not if I awoke to find you beside me.”
Rory knew she shouldn’t encourage him to keep talking, especially not in this vein, but she couldn’t help asking, “Just how bad did you think being married would be?”
“Maybe not that bad, but certainly not a very attractive prospect. With Mrs. Van H. and her friends, it seems such a cold arrangement, more like a property merger. Back in the slums, it mostly involved a lot of arguing, hollering, smacking, throwing pots and pans.”
“It was never like that for my parents,” Rory said. “And what about your foster mother?”
Zeke lapsed into a thoughtful silence. Rory shifted to her side to face him. Zeke was never much disposed to talk about his past, so it surprised her when he finally answered.
“I guess Sadie was happy in her marriage. She was a widow by the time she adopted me, but she always kept her husband’s picture by her bedside and gazed at it kind of sad-like when she thought none of us kids were looking. I believe she missed him a lot.”
“It was the same with my Da when my mother died,” Rory said. After a pause, she ventured another question. “What was she like, your mother?”
He hunched his shoulder. “Sadie was one of those big, warm-hearted, Italian women. You know, always fretting you aren’t getting enough to eat, trying to make you wear a coat when it’s ninety degrees outside.”
Although he tried to make a joke of it, Rory could hear other emotions in his voice—tenderness, regret, a very real sensation of loss.
“You loved her very much, didn’t you?” she asked softly.
Zeke sagged back down against the pillows and stared up at the ceiling. “Yeah, I guess I did.” In some ways that old curmudgeon, Anchor Annie, reminds me of her, only Sadie was a lot more gentle.”
Rory shifted nearer to Zeke, closing up the distance between them. “Is that why you were persuaded to stay here tonight?”
“No, it was because Annie pointed out to me what a selfish bastard I was being, wanting to drag you back out again after you’d been through such an ordeal. I ought to be ashamed of myself subjecting a sweet little wisp of a girl like you to the dangers of flying in one of those balloon contraptions.”
Although she giggled, Rory had the grace to blush. Zeke reached out and twined one strand of her hair about his finger. “I am sorry, Rory. Annie was right. I was being blasted selfish, not considering your feelings. I haven’t been looking after you very well. I fear I have never been much good at that. Tessa always said?—”
