Chapter 34
Thirty-Four
Kendra
ONCE THE MAID’S footsteps had faded, Kendra turned to Trick. “I should be the one crying, not Margaret.”
“Ah, lassie, it’s not bad enough to warrant tears from either of you,” he replied and wrapped her in a hug that was clearly meant to be consoling.
But she couldn’t help turning her face up for a kiss.
She wanted him so badly.
Unsurprisingly, it wasn’t long before the kisses turned into more.
Kendra inhaled Trick’s oh-so-familiar sandalwood scent and fairly melted into his arms. When his hands went to detach her stomacher again, she didn’t stop him.
As he unlaced her bodice beneath it, a ripple of excitement shot through her.
“Maybe we should try the bed without linens,” she murmured. “We can cover it with blankets. There were extras in the chest in the other chamber.”
Leaving her dress gaping open, she went back to the chest at the foot of the bed. And lifted the heavy lid. And found…
Nothing.
The chest was empty.
She dropped the lid with a bang. “I was sure there would be blankets in here.” The ones she’d seen in the other room had been wool and would have been itchy, but that was better than being poked.
He came closer and drew her bodice off her shoulder, kissing the skin he’d bared. “Maybe we can get them from our old chamber.”
Another faint moan sounded from next door. “I’m not interrupting that. Where is the counterpane, anyway?” She glanced at the soggy pile in the corner. “It’s not there.”
He was kissing his way up her neck, making her shiver—and not from the cold. “Margaret might have taken it from the room before we arrived.” His words tickled warmly against her throat. “It would have been even wetter than the sheets.”
“Perhaps,” she said with a distracted sigh. “The pillows are gone, too. I suppose everything on top would have been wetter. What now?”
He lifted his head and scanned the fancy red brocade bed hangings.
“No,” she said with a choked laugh. “They’re far too high to detach. And we can’t destroy Violet’s lovely new guest room—she dressed this bed so beautifully.”
“For all the good it’s done us.” Though the sentiment was negative, his tone sounded much less defeated than she felt. “Hell, leannan, are you going to let a missing sheet or blanket stop us?”
If he was still hopeful, perhaps she should be, too. “Maybe we don’t need a covering.”
Maybe she wouldn’t get poked as much as she feared.
“That’s my lass.” Wasting no time, he threw off his remaining clothes and backed her toward the bed, aiming for the side where the towels were laid out. When she felt the feather tick behind her, she sank onto it, reaching to pull him down with her.
“Ugh!” she exclaimed, bounding back up. She hadn’t been poked. Instead she’d got soaked. “How many pitchers of water did she spill on here? Five?”
Trick scooped up the towels and began dabbing at the mattress. For all of ten seconds. “The bed is drenched,” he said, stating the obvious. “We will have to wait for it to dry naturally.”
“That could take all night!”
“And half of tomorrow as well,” Trick agreed.
“We’ll be on our way home by then,” Kendra wailed. “This is so unfair!”
“Hush, lassie. People are sleeping in here.”
“Clearly they aren’t,” she said, rolling her eyes toward the other chamber. Disgusted, she headed to the wardrobe, pulling her dress off as she went. “Let me swap this wet gown for a nightgown, then we’ll head down to Cas and Pol’s room.”
“Kendra…”
Shivering in just her damp chemise, she turned back to face him in all his aroused glory. Her breath caught in her throat.
She swallowed hard. “Yes?”
“You’re giving up?”
“You’re not?” she asked, incredulous.
For a moment, he just gazed at her, commanding her attention.
A beat of silence passed between them. The pit of her stomach began tingling.
“There’s no smelly cheese in here,” he said at last. “We’re not overwhelmingly sleepy. The door is intact. I’m not seeing any cats. And I want you,” he continued, his voice taking on that tinge of a Scottish accent she heard when he got emotional. “And I’m thinking you want me.”
She found herself caught in his fathomless amber eyes. “I do,” she breathed.
“Then why should we give up?”
“The bed is soaked.”
“Since when do we need a bed?” he asked in a tone that sent her back to a long-ago day in Scotland, to an ancient dungeon deep in the earth. Like in a dream, she remembered him lifting her, wrapping her legs around his middle, a rough stone wall against her back…
She wasn’t sure whether the sound she made was a gasp or a snigger. “I’m not twenty-three anymore. And there’s no free wall space in here.”
She watched his gaze sweep the room—the big window, the fireplace, the many pieces of heavy carved furniture—before lingering on the small parquet table and its two plush chairs.
Now she sniggered for real. “I’m not making love on one of Violet’s brand-new velvet chairs. We don’t even have a blanket to cover it. And don’t even think about the table,” she added, figuring she was reading his mind. “It’s on a pedestal. It will tilt.”
That deterred him for but a moment. “There’s the floor,” he pointed out. “That won’t tilt.”
And before she knew what was happening, he was lowering her to it.
Slightly skeptical, she let herself sink to the polished wood. And when he came down beside her, she turned to face him and let him kiss her senseless.
Well, not quite senseless.
Before long she sensed her hip was hurting. A lot. The floor was hard, her thin chemise was useless as padding, and they didn’t have so much as a blanket.
Her shoulder was hurting, too. And the side of her knee. And her elbow.
With no pillow, her neck was bent awkwardly and beginning to ache.
She’d been right to be skeptical, damn it. Reluctantly, she broke the kiss.
“I’m too old for this,” she grumbled, pulling away and pushing herself to a sitting position. “I give up.” Both figuratively and literally, she threw up her hands. “I officially give up.”
Trick’s only response was a groan. He rolled onto his back and flung an arm over his eyes. Then he just lay there, still and silent.
She wouldn’t let her gaze move down his body. She wouldn’t. Instead, with more difficulty than she wanted to admit—even to herself—she raised her uncooperative forty-three-year-old bones and went to the wardrobe.
They remained silent while she changed into her thickest nightgown. Silent while she grabbed his robe and tossed it on top of him. Silent while she snatched up a candle and headed out of the chamber.
Silent while he followed her downstairs and into their sons’ room.
Silent while she tried and failed to wake Cas, then woke Pol and helped him stumble sleepily into his brother’s bed.
She and Trick crawled into the vacated bed, she in her nightgown, he in his robe. She blew out the candle. The single bed was narrow, and they didn’t fit well lying flat, so she turned on her side and snuggled into him. He snaked an arm over her, pulling her even closer.
She listened to the twins’ breathing, which synchronized as they settled back into sound sleep. Consciously relaxing, she breathed along with them.
In…out.
In…out.
Just as she was about to nod off, Trick broke the silence with a whisper. “This bed is much softer than the floor, is it not?”
Disappointed, defeated, and drained, she could muster only a vague noise of agreement.
He squeezed her tighter. “Feels good.”
“Hmm,” she murmured sleepily.
His fingers slipped out from under her and grabbed a handful of her nightgown. He began bunching it, pulling it up.
Horrified, she flipped to face him—never mind that she couldn’t see him in the dark. “What on earth,” she whispered fiercely, “do you think you are doing?”
“Are you serious?” he whispered in a cadence that suggested she must be addlepated. “What we’ve been trying to do for three days straight.”
“Are you insane?” she returned. “We’ve got two thirteen-year-olds five feet from us!”
“They’re sleeping.”
“You think that will last?”
“It’s pitch black in here. They won’t see anything.”
“I suppose you think they won’t hear anything as well?” Somehow she managed to whisper a snort. “I thought I’d made it clear I’ve given up. I’m going to sleep. I suggest you do the same.”
She turned her back on him again. He snaked his arm around her again. She laced her fingers with his, effectively stopping them from doing anything.
And then she did go to sleep.
WHAT FELT like five minutes later (but might have been an hour), Trick nuzzled her neck. “I have an idea,” he whispered warm in her ear.
“Hmm?”
“The ducal carriage is very plush…”
“I just fell asleep.” She blinked herself half-awake. “The coach house is across two courtyards. And it’s freezing out there.”
“It could be hailing cannonballs, for all I care.” She felt him roll to sit, then rise. She heard him walk to the door and open it, admitting a little light from the common room’s fireplace. In the faint glow, she watched him jerk his robe’s sash tighter. “I’ll be right back,” he whispered.
She closed her eyes and willed herself back to sleep. Or at least she tried to will herself back to sleep. Butterflies in her stomach seemed to be keeping her awake, not to mention a new yet persistent tingling between her legs.
He returned with shoes for her, boots for himself, and their two cloaks. “We could have used these cloaks for the floor,” he murmured with some measure of disgust at himself. “What was I thinking?”
“You weren’t. Neither of us were. And the carriage will be more comfortable anyway,” she added, warming to the idea as her body anticipated what would happen in that carriage.
Out in the common room, they donned their footwear and wrapped themselves in their cloaks. Trick lit a torch from the fireplace. They crept from the cottage as quietly as possible, then ran for it, crossing the two snowy courtyards in record time.