“Have you upset anyone lately? Rejected any suitors of a vengeful nature?”
“No, I have been very good. Boringly so, if you want the truth. I did wonder if it was someone with a grudge against my father. A political grudge perhaps, for he and Cosland tend to be in alliance, and Cosland’s daughter Juliet was with me. Only… Someone could simply have forgotten to notify Hazel Curwen not to come, so she could just have been in the wrong place at the wrong time. But Deb Shelby was summoned, and her late father was merely a country vicar with no political interests at all. There is nothing that binds all three of us in common, let alone all four of us.”
“Except that you were with the princess’s household.”
“You mean the prince might have done it just to inflict the last bit of damage on his wife? But I don’t see how anyone can blame her when she was not there. Besides, by all accounts, he is so looking forward to being rid of her that he would not deign to look back.”
“Perhaps others might look back for him.”
“Perhaps,” she said doubtfully. “But it seems a lot of trouble to go to, even delivering the newspaper to my parents.”
“Hmm. You are right. It is bizarre. However, it must have been someone with a connection to the princess, who had access to her paper, her seal, and your direction.”
Meg frowned. “All of our directions. They even knew Juliet was staying with her betrothed’s family. I just cannot imagine anyone in the princess’s household doing such a thing. There is no reason for it.”
“We’ll get to the truth of the matter,” he said with quiet certainty.
“I feel we should. And yet… I’m ashamed to say part of me thinks the scandal might be just what I need in order to live quietly by myself.”
He seemed to consider the matter. “I’m not sure you would find that as much fun as you think it would be.”
“No, and it does also affect my family.” She sighed. “And Hazel and Deb who have no one to fight for them. And Juliet, whose betrothal might now be on shaky ground. It is a mess.”
“Well, you are used to those,” Harry said cheerfully, rising to his feet. “Would you care for a post-prandial stroll?”
The walk was a gentle one, merely round the inn yard, before they were shown to their bedchambers. Meg wondered if the stairs would trouble him, but he climbed them with apparent ease. She graciously accepted the best bedchamber, although she inspected the other to make sure it was comfortable.
The innkeeper’s wife left them to it. Meg sat on Harry’s bed, surreptitiously testing it.
“I’m sorry about this,” Harry said abruptly.
“Why should you be sorry? It was I who persuaded you to the journey in the first place.”
“It was always thus,” Harry said with mock self-righteousness.
“Actually, it wasn’t,” she retorted. “As I recall, you got us into several scrapes, although I’ll allow you got us out of most of them again. And took the blame for the others.”
A smile glimmered in his eyes. “They were not all my idea. You were an imp of a child.”
His smile had never used to cause butterflies in her stomach…
With a jolt, she remembered that it had. She had been sixteen years old, and she had not seen him for several months when he had strolled into Dearham Abbey and grinned at her. The flutter of her heart, along with the delight in his presence, had taken her by surprise. She had not liked the feeling. It threatened to change everything. She had avoided him for several days before she realized he was still the same Harry. And she would not allow herself or their relationship to change. He was her best friend.
“I was led astray,” she managed now, aiming for lightness. She stood up. “I think I shall go and lie down for an hour or so.”
“Good idea,” he said.
She hoped he would do the same but knew better than to advise him. As she passed him on her way to the door, she realized suddenly that she was alone in a man’s bedchamber. Of course, this was Harry. The whole pack of children from his family and hers had stayed often under the same roof and been quite used to popping in and out of each other’s rooms. But they were no longer children. Harry was very much a man, a veteran of war and, she was suddenly sure, affairs of the heart. A handsome, attractive stranger with a mere illusion of comfortable familiarity.
“I’ll knock on your door in an hour or so,” she said hurriedly and hastened from the room, aware of his wry, steady gaze on her until she closed the door.
Unaccountably agitated, she returned to her larger chamber next to his. This is silly. I must be very tired…
With difficulty, she fought her way out of her gown without assistance, draped it over the back of a chair, and slid into bed.
That summer, six years ago, when her heart and her stomach had behaved so oddly at Harry’s unexpected appearance, had also been the summer Lord Calvert had come into their lives. Her eldest brother, Johnny, had brought him to stay, and Meg and Martha had been allowed to associate with the adults for the first time. Calvert had seemed unattainably adult and sophisticated, and yet he deigned to notice the youthful twins. He had even flirted mildly with them both. She had preferred that to the treacherous flutter in her heart for Harry…
She was asleep in moments.
*
She woke with a start, disoriented and anxious.
Harry.
Although it was not quite dark outside her window, she had clearly slept longer than the hour she had intended. Hastily, she rose from the bed, dropped her gown over her head, and dragged her shawl around her to cover its looseness.
When she opened the door, she could hear low voices coming from the taproom below. But it was hardly noisy. She walked quickly to Harry’s door and scratched at it. Receiving no response, she knocked more loudly.
He must be asleep. I should leave him. And yet, the pain from his unseen wound bothered her. What if it had opened? What if he lay on the bed, unconscious and bleeding while she trotted back to bed and slept until morning?
The innkeeper would find it exceedingly odd if she sent him to investigate her “husband’s” health, rather than simply going in herself. So, with an unaccountable feeling of guilt, she opened the door and went in.
In the dusky gloom, it wasn’t easy to make out much detail. But she saw at once that he lay in bed.
“Harry,” she murmured. “Are you awake?”
The figure in the bed did not move. Her heart in her mouth, she crept nearer. His eyes were closed. She stretched out her hand until she felt his breath on her fingers and let out a sigh of relief, not unmixed with embarrassment at her silliness.
His face was peaceful, so achingly familiar that her lips curved involuntarily. Because she couldn’t help it, she touched his cheek with the very tips of her fingers so lightly that even awake, he would have barely felt it. She skimmed over rough stubble, then the smooth, warm skin that stretched over his cheekbone.
“I’m not asleep,” he said.
She jerked her hand away. “Then why are you lying there so silently as if you were?” she demanded.
His eyes opened. “I didn’t know it was you until you came in. What is it?”
“Nothing,” she said crossly. “I came to see if…if you wanted supper.”