Page 72 of Unforeseen Affairs
“I cannot say,” she finally answered, sounding as blithe as usual. “I suppose it feels… correct.”
He scoffed. It was very much theoppositeof correct, but it seemed futile to say so just now.
“You could call me Charlotte, if you wish.”
Charlotte. Just as she’d signed her letter. Just as he’d called out to her when he’d taken himself in hand and imagined what it would be like to lie with her. And now here she was, so close to him and yet still beyond his reach.
“For now, though,” she continued, her skirts rustling as she moved about the small room, “you should concern yourself only with resting.”
He could not answer. All of his woes, his torment, had come to a head.
He heard the door to the room shut.
Before he drifted into an uneasy rest, his last thought was that he ought to have kept her from leaving on her own. But she would not have heeded his exhortations, willful creature that she was.
A warmth overtook his chest as he thought of her—of Charlotte—and he held tight to it.
Then, at last, he slept.
Chapter Twenty
Colinhadbeenasleepfor hundreds of years when he was roused by the sound of a closing door.
Christ, but his head was sore.
Slowly his mind caught up to his body, and he squinted his eyes open. The room was dark, lit only by the dim glow of a small lamp. Was it the middle of the night? Nothing seemed familiar. His body instinctively tensed into a state of high alert, a reflex he’d developed as a sailor.
Where in the world was he?
He sat up with a start, and immediately regretted it. The ache in his head turned into a throbbing, stabbing pain, as if his brain were trying to hatch out of his skull.
“Right,” he groaned aloud to himself. “The bloody train.”
“I’ve a cup of tea, if you think you could manage it,” said a low, soothing female voice.
Miss Sedley. Charlotte.
Colin rubbed his forehead with the heel of his hand, as if he could scrub away this blasted pressure, this damned soreness.
“Thank you,” he said, his mind suddenly filled with questions. Where had she gone off to earlier? How long ago was that? Had she been alright, wandering about in the village? Where exactly were they, again?
Even with the lamp casting shadows across her face, she appeared placid and relaxed as she rounded the bed and offered him an unadorned cup and saucer with a calming wisp of steam rising from it. Colin took it and asked for what seemed the most pertinent information at the moment.
“How long have I been asleep?”
She watched as he took a blessed sip, a slight furrow in her elegant brows betraying her worry. Worry for him? Colin lowered his gaze to the tea.
“Quite some time,” she finally answered, then turned away, skirts swishing. “When I was downstairs the clock read half past eleven. That must’ve been at least ten minutes ago.”
Colin almost choked on his second sip. “Quite some time?” He set the cup back on its saucer with a clatter. “Why, it’s practically the middle of the night!”
“Does it matter? You’ve improved,” she stated from the other side of the bed.
Colin dared not look at her.
“Besides, I told you to rest.”
She had. And it had done him a world of good. There was no spinning now, no uncertainty about whether his feet were on solid ground. Just the headache, the echo of the episode pulsing in his head.
