Page 43 of A Flaming Lady's Secret Valentine
Her father insisted the men share a nightcap of calvados. Once the drinks had been imbibed, Mr Travers made to leave.
“In this weather?” the duke lamented. “You will catch your death, Mr Travers.”
“We will find you frozen in place on the morrow at the bottom of the drive,” Edward said. “You may have failed to notice, but we have more rooms than we know what to do with here. Stay the night.”
“It is a five-minute walk,” Raphael argued, hovering in the doorway.
“A twenty-minute trek in this clime,” Edward rebutted.
“You are hardly an imposition, Mr Travers,” the duchess chimed in. “Truly.”
Daphne was too busy counting her losses to agree, but Cecilia saw her nod in support. Everyone else had thrown in their hat, it seemed only right that Cecilia try and convince him to stay as well.
“The maids can have a room readied for you in minutes, if your wish is to retire now.” She shrugged her shoulders. “This is a fight you will not win, Mr Travers. It seems you are stuck with us for the night.”
Raphael sighed and moved out of the doorway to the fierce clapping of the Norberts.
Cecilia had lied. It had taken the maids an hour to prepare a suitable room for Raphael, only because the men had waited another hour before calling for it to be made. Cecilia and Daphne had long retired by that point, huddled beneath the quilt in Daphne’s bed, gossiping.
They heard creaking in the hallway before light slipped beneath the crack in the door. Daphne shot up rigidly, mouth agape.
“The maids set Mr Travers up in the chamber next tomine! Of all the rooms in the house!” She threw herself back down, her ginger hair haloing around her head. “I do not know that I will be able to sleep with only a wall between us.”
“I do not know that Mr Travers will be able to sleep either with your snoring,” Cecilia said. She tended an anxious ear for Raphael. The nearest door clicked open and then closed. “Gosh, he really is sleeping here… I feel as though I am in a dream. This entire night has felt like something out of my wildest imagination.”
Daphne rolled over and grabbed Cecilia by the shoulders. “I am begging you Cecilia, on my hands and knees: do not compromise yourself in the room beside mine. Our friendship will never recover if I hear so much as one peep from you.”
“Daphne!” she hissed back, incredulous. “I have no plans to compromise myself at all. Especially not where you can hear.”
“Oh, piffle! We all say the same thing, when in reality the only thing standing between a woman and her ruin is her loneliness.” She furrowed her brow. “And you are growing less lonely by the minute.”
Cecilia rolled her head. She tried in vain to come up with some halfway witty retort. It was useless. Daphne was right. She could not see Raphael, could not hear him, yet just knowing he was meters away made her body pang with desire.
She fed her friend some self-righteous nonsense, successfully derailing their conversation. Daphne gave a loud yawn before long, practically forcing Cecilia out of her room. The girls parted with a peck, Cecilia assuring Daphne once again that she would go straight to her room, alone, and sleep.
Of course, once she was in the hallway, it was a different story entirely.
Cecilia shuffled on her feet, clutching her dressing gown tightly around her. She looked toward the staircase, then back at Raphael’s room. It was wrong to spy, she told herself as she stepped towards his room. It was worse to spy in the dead of night, she thought as she pressed an ear to the door.
Nothing sounded on the other side. Nothing except the sudden turning of a doorknob. By the time she registered the sound, Raphael was standing in front of her. She yelped, but he muffled her cry with his hand, shushing her soundlessly.
I knew it was you,he mouthed angrily, glancing down the corridor.What are you doing, Lady Cecilia?
Her heart had dropped into her stomach, but she gestured,Nothing at all!to the best of her ability.
He shook his head, his confusion written across his face.
“In or out?” he asked.
Cecilia hesitated until she heard movement from Daphne’s room. She pushed Raphael back through the doorway and closed the door behind them.
It was brighter in his sleeping chamber than in the hallway, though not by much. The guest room he had been provided was decently furnished, with deep blue wallpaper and matching bed covers. It smelled like dust and pot-pourri, and Cecilia had to pinch her nose to stop from sneezing.
She raised her voice by an iota now that they were alone. “Where were you going, Mr Travers?”
“You are asking me whereIwas going? I left my pocket watch in the drawing room and was headed down to fetch it. The better question is, what wereyoudoing in front of my door?”
“I was with Daphne. She occupies the room next door.”
