“Good evening,” Nick said, offering her a cheery smile and a covered white bowl. “Mrs. Pell says that Adam is late finishing up his chores, so we’ll have to eat en privé if we hope to avoid seeing him.”
The smell of leek soup swelled into the room, bringing Cyn’s mouth to instant attention. “Thank you for delivering the message. And the soup.”
He stepped farther into the room, looking around and making no move to give up the bowl. “Are you settled?”
Mrs. Pell had cleaned while they were out, and the extra chamber was now polished and dusted and smelled of fresh herbs. “All is well.”
“Mm.” He tilted his head. “Is that the diary?”
Her hands clenched with the instinct to snatch it up. “Yes.”
“It’s so small.” He took another step and stopped only six inches from her shoulder. “And is that a drawing of the site?”
Her heart froze. Her drawings weren’t meant for anyone but her. “Mm.”
“I’d suggest we study it for clues, but I daresay it’s hopeless. How old was your uncle at the time? Eight or nine?”
She snapped her head around to look at the sketch. An eight-year-old? Why, the rudeness of—
Nick reached for the paper and she snatched up the journal and sketch and shoved them into the drawer. “He was eleven.”
“Not much of an artist.”
“Yes, well…You can set the soup here, thank you.”
He tucked the white crock closer to his chest when she reached for it. “I’ve bread in my room. Will you join me?”
“I’m very tired.” She looked up to find Nick watching her, his eyes all warm pleading.
“Please join me.” His mouth quirked up. “I’ve wine as well.” He’d apparently shaken off whatever mood had come over him on the shore. Or perhaps he’d already indulged in a drink. Whatever the cause, the old Nick was back, and resistance was futile. Or she assumed it was. She’d never tried to deny him.
“All right. I want wine, and you have it. So I suppose I’ve no choice.”
She followed him into his room—the room where she’d lain last night—and looked around as if his belongings might be a message left for her to study.
A basin still steaming faintly in the cool air. A cloth that had washed his face, his neck. The bed, now neatly made and absent any evidence of her body. Two wine glasses on a table pulled close to the fire, one empty and one stained with the dregs of his recent consumption.
Nick waved her toward the table. “Sit. You must be tired.”
She glanced at the corners of his eyes, reddened as if he’d rubbed them h
ard. “You must be as well.”
As if to confirm her words, he collapsed as soon as she took her own seat. “I admit to a bit of trouble sleeping last night. Unearthly revelations, you know.”
My word, he already had her smiling. “I suppose.”
After he filled the glasses, they both set into their soup. Heat worked its way from her belly to her limbs. Quiet as they were, this was a hundred times more comfortable than their earlier hours had been. When Nick reached for the bread, his fingers caught her eye.
Long and blunt, they were not as elegant as the rest of him. They tore into the bread, ripping the crust, breaking the thin loaf in half. The firelight glinted off the golden hairs that dusted his skin. The muscles of his forearm flexed as he stretched across the table to deliver half the bread to her plate.
Those big fingers had been on her today. Stroking. Holding. “Thank you,” she managed to say.
“My pleasure,” he answered, the words soft.
Her gaze flew to meet his. Could he read her thoughts? Did he share them? But his smile was pure and free of flirtation.
Guilt turned the warm soup in her stomach into a hot coal. He belonged to someone else.