“So in case someone bursts in you can protect me?” She’d meant the words to be a jest, but the moment she said them, she wished she hadn’t. It sounded like she was referring to the night his wife died. “I didn’t mean—”
He had his back to her, and she couldn’t see his face, but he drew his shoulders up for a moment but then released them. “I will do all that I can to protect you.” Turning, he looked at her, and for just a second she saw the deep pain that was inside him.
I must make him laugh, she thought. His sense of humor was what drew him out of himself. She began to unbutton her shirt.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” he snapped.
“I’ve ordered a bath to be brought up and I’m going to get into a tub full of hot water.”
Alex looked shocked for a moment, then his face relaxed. Yet again, the pain was hidden. “And I’m going to wash your back for you.”
“Eliza’s going to do that.”
“Then I’ll wash her chest.”
Cay laughed, as he’d bested her. She couldn’t top that one. “Turn around. I have to remove this binding strip before I go to bed.”
“You slept in a corset, so why can’t you sleep in that?” he asked as he turned his back to her.
“A corset enhances what’s on top, but this thing . . . Oh, there. Yes, that’s wonderful. True heaven. You can turn back around now.”
Turning, Alex looked at her and wished he hadn’t. She had the shirt on and it was buttoned, but it left little to the imagination. “Why in the world those men thought you were a boy is beyond me.”
“Thank you,” Cay said as she sat on the end of the bed and removed her shoes and her stockings.
“That’s it. Not one more thing are you to take off.”
Cay couldn’t help smiling. She’d been paid many compliments in her life, but what Alex said seemed more real. He wasn’t saying nice things to her because he knew her family was rich or that she stood to inherit a lot, but because she was, well, desirable. For all the comfort of boy’s clothes, she liked being a girl better.
Still smiling, still mostly dressed, she got into the bed on the side by the window, pulled the light covers over her, and watched Alex as he moved about the room. She thought how someday she’d be married and alone in a bedroom with a man she loved and they’d be a true husband and wife.
Alex removed his boots and his vest, but as he started to unbutton his shirt, he looked at her and stopped. As she did, he slipped into bed wearing most of his clothes, blew out the candle, and pulled the cover over him.
Cay lay in the darkness, listening to him breathe. They’d spent several nights together, but, somehow, being alone in this small room seemed more intimate. Between them was the long, heavy round pillow, but she knew he was near her.
She was tired from a long day on horseback and wanted to go to sleep, but she could hear Alex’s breath coming on fast and strong and she knew that something was upsetting him. It took her a moment to figure it out, but then she realized that this was probably the first time he’d slept in a bed and a room since the night his wife had been murdered.
Had been murdered, she thought and realized she’d remembered it in terms that said Alex didn’t do it. “What was she like?” Cay asked softly.
“Quiet,” he said, and at first she thought he was saying he wanted her, Cay, to stop talking. But she could hear his breath and she knew she’d been right in guessing what he was thinking about.
“Not like me then?” she asked.
“No, not like you. She was quiet and gentle and refined.”
“She didn’t spend her days jumping back and forth on a horse, did she?”
“No. But I will say that I enjoyed some of your jumping quite a bit.”
Cay could hear and feel the uneasiness beginning to leave him. Her strategy was working. Turning on her side, she put her head on her hand and looked at him across the big pillow. He was on his back and she could see his profile in the moonlight that came in through the window. “Tell me about her.”
“What do you want to know?”
“Anything. Where did she grow up? What was her family like? Where did she go to school? How many brothers and sisters did she have?”
“I don’t know,” Alex said, and there was wonder in his voice. “I don’t know the answer to any of those questions.”
“You don’t know where she grew up?”