by J. Jay Kamp
* * *
This oppressive mood of his did improve somewhat when they ate the crumpets and drank the tea. Ravenna gave him time to stare at the fire, to brood over his awful situation a little longer and come to terms with it before she put to him the request she knew he wouldn’t like.
“I think it would be safer if we slept together,” she said. “Just in the same room, just for tonight, because what if I’m wrong? What if David has put us here? What if he’s planning to dress up as Christian and attack me in the middle of the night or something?”
With a grumble, Paul had to agree. So up the passageway and through the darkness they went in search of Killiney’s quarters. She knew, as David had told her, that the viscount had stayed in the Prince’s suite, and now she led Paul as quiet as a mouse to the great hall and on through the next chamber where, stiffening beside her, he tried and failed to pull her back.
Someone was snoring on a pallet in the corner.
After coaxing him past the room’s sleeping occupant, Ravenna explained that this was probably Killiney’s valet, close enough to do his master’s every bidding. With this matter cleared up, she left Paul with the bundle of clothes while she went to find Sarah; he tried to protest, but he was alone too soon.
The maid was waiting outside in the corridor, as if upon some secret signal. Indeed, Ravenna didn’t have to explain anything to the girl as they walked upstairs to what was obviously Elizabeth’s room. “I’ll fetch you from Killiney in the mornin’,” Sarah said. “Just as soon as Lord Broughton steps out, I will.”
Hearing this, Ravenna had the presence of mind to ask for the diary. After all, what other person might the maid mention whose name she needed to recognize?
While Sarah searched for the book in a wardrobe-looking cabinet, Ravenna spied a mirror on the nearby dressing table. Remembering the way Paul had stared at his reflection, it occurred to her then that perhaps she, too, looked different somehow. Was she in someone else’s body? There seemed only one way to find out, so bracing herself, holding up the candle, she stole a peek.
She had absolutely no make-up on her face. Other than that, she looked exactly the same.
Where Paul was concerned, she didn’t know if this were a good thing or not, but back downstairs she went nonetheless, through the great hall, the manservant’s room and into Killiney’s princely chambers where she found Paul sitting on a damask sofa at the foot of what was unquestionably the biggest, most elaborate bed she’d ever seen.
Set against the wall, its canopy must have been fifteen feet high. Its dome was ornamented with ostrich feathers and carved, gilded wood, and the damask curtains hanging from its roof were made to be pulled all the way around the mattress, protecting against drafts and prying eyes.
“This must be worth a cool million,” Paul said.
“It was slept in by George III, I think,” she said, remembering the hotel brochure.
Paul made a face. “Are you sure we should sleep on it?”
“Why do you say that?”
“Because I can’t afford to replace it, that’s why. Do you think I’d take the commuter train if I’d the money for a car? It’s all tied up in Swallowhill, keeping it from falling down around me ears, and…”
Listening to him talk about his troubles back home, she set the diary down and gazed around the candlelit room. Ancient tapestries lined the walls. Gilded cornices framed heavily curtained windows. As Paul rattled on about plumbing and wiring, she stared up at the painted ceiling, tugged at the waist of her dress without thinking. High in the corners, women draped in classical robes sat surrounded by angels and well-bred dogs, and as she admired them, her attention wandered from Paul’s words; her hands drifted to the back of her gown, reaching for the hooks that bound her so tightly.
It was then she realized just how truly uncomfortable she was in the dress. With all the excitement and running around, she hadn’t had time to notice before.
“—Three times a year, and the bills an’ that are—”
Barely hearing him, struggling to get the hooks in her grasp, she tried to unfasten at least one. She adjusted the dress this way and that, all the while the realization gaining strength in her thoughts: She’d have to sleep in this gown. Either that or the nightgown, as damp as it was.
She glanced at the heap of clothes beside Paul, embarrassed even by the thought of that nightgown. Better to sleep in the dress and be uncomfortable than draw attention to that thing, she told herself, and suddenly it occurred to her how she no longer heard Paul’s disgruntled voice.
There was a sulk to his mouth when she dared to look.
“Em, I thought we had a deal, here?” he asked her softly.
“What? I’m just trying to loosen it a little, that’s all,” she said, twisting her arms behind her back.
“You’re not taking that dress off?”
“No. Did you want me to?”
“No,” he shot back. “I don’t, actually. If I’m t’suffer, then I think you should suffer as well.”
“But you’re not crammed into a size-three waistline.”
Paul’s eyes lowered to Ravenna’s stomach, as if to judge the truth for himself; with the smallest flicker of interest to his brow, he looked her over, said, “All right then, can’t the girl bring you something?” Uncomfortable, that’s how he sounded. He shifted on the sofa when he made the suggestion, and his gaze wandered off in avoiding Ravenna’s.
She tried explaining it to him. “We’re supposed to be lovers. If I ask for a nightgown, Sarah is going to get suspicious, don’t you think?”
“You might be cold.”
“I’m just loosening it, OK? You won’t be in any danger if I open the back…if I can open it, which it seems I can’t.”
With his expression a mix of annoyance and fascination, he watched as she struggled with the hooks. It was at least a minute before he spoke again. “So you’re sleeping in that?”
“If you’re so worried about it, then why don’t you help me?” Turning her back on him, she heard the rustle of silk in the silence as she stood there and waited, holding out the seams.
Slowly, Paul got to his feet.
She imagined his thoughts as his hands slipped over hers and carefully took up the hook and eye fastenings—Ravenna had planned this, hired the kidnappers, the English actors and rented the hotel. She’d gone to such trouble and all for the sake of getting him to undress her. As if I, of all people, could seduce him.
Yet as he went to work on the stubborn hooks, ripping open one after another, she felt his movements slow. His knuckles lightly grazed her skin; he lifted his fingers to the closure at her neck and unfastened the first hook, then the second, until the fabric lay open all across her back and down to the lowest clasp at her waist.
Ravenna held her breath. She expected him to walk away, to throw himself down on the couch in disgust at the sight of her skin…but he didn’t. For the longest moment he hesitated. When finally he touched the small of her back and reached for the hook that held her skirts together, Ravenna shivered, tried to keep still. His hair brushed her shoulder. She felt him lean closer, fingering that clasp, as if contemplating the terrible sin he was about to commit against his wife.
“Is that guy still in the next room?” he asked.
“I’m not…he might be. I don’t know.” Burning up with the feel of his touch, Ravenna waited, wondering, hoping.
But just as abruptly as he’d begun, his hands slipped away; he stepped out from behind her, and glancing at her self-consciously, he gestured toward the door. “He might bring me a new shirt for tomorrow? You could sleep in that?”
She was shaking. Could he see it? Did he know?
“No,” she said, pulling her wits together. “No, I think we should leave him alone and stay put.” She felt Paul’s eyes skim over her again. The firelight within them shone sharp and bewildering, and seeing him glance at her neckline with dread, she realized the dress had slipped. The edge of it clung to her sho
ulder precariously, poised to fall with her slightest movement.
Crossing her arms, she looked away. Paul did too, gazing down at the sofa and the bundle of clothes. “Well, you can’t sleep in that,” he muttered, and she felt a jolt of anxiety when he reached down and tossed aside what appeared to be a sock. “Here, there must be something you can wear—”
He took up a lacy hem, began to pull. Ravenna was already fidgeting madly. The length of cotton came untangled from the rest, and when he lifted it, suggested that she put it on, she couldn’t help it; she grabbed for the nightgown. “Please, just let me wear the dress, all right?” Tugging at the cotton, fighting his hands, she tried to keep a normal voice when she said to him, “Trust me, there isn’t anything here, I’ve—”
Instantly, Paul froze with her struggle. Regarding her curiously, a glimmer of affection flashed in his gaze. “You know I have seen women’s panties before,” he said, arching his brow.
“Well no one’s ever seen mine,” she grumbled. Shame burned in Ravenna’s chest, for surely he felt where the cotton was soaked through, felt the dampness remaining from…from when they’d…
Dread gnawed at her insides as he looked down at the gown between them. His fingers moved in the cotton folds. His eyes narrowed, and with his lips tightened in a sober expression, he nodded to himself.
I’ll die, she thought.
Still, without a word, he gingerly set it back down on the sofa. He reached for the lapels of the coat he had on, began to slip out of it, and Ravenna wasted no time in scooping up the unguarded nightgown. “What are you doing?” she asked, watching him toss the jacket to the floor.
He started to tug his shirt from his trousers. “I’m givin’ you something to wear,” he said.
When he pulled the shirt over his head, again she was swept up in weakness when she saw his skin and the pattern of silky hair on his chest. How soft that tawny hair had been, on his legs and arms, on everything between.
Wrenching himself from billowing sleeves, Paul paused to turn the shirt right-side-in before handing it to her. “I’d no idea,” he said, his gaze locked onto hers with warmth. “It’s no big deal, you know you’ve no reason to feel scared about it. Someday you’ll get married and then you’ll understand about these things.”
“About what things?” she asked.
But his eyes knew, she could see it in the lingering glint of gentleness and the way he calmly shook his head.
“Nothing,” he said. Turning from her, he pulled the curtains from behind the sofa. He kicked off his boots with a clumsy lean against the bedpost, a balancing act that made the muscles in his back move in appealing ways. When he climbed onto the bed, began tugging the rest of the curtains out, too, Ravenna only stood there. She watched with his still-warm shirt in her fingers, trembling, exhilarated, until finally he called her from behind the curtains. “Get undressed, then. I’m not lookin’.”