Chapter 6 #3
His eyes were deeply brown, almost black in the storm.
The rain had softened the precise lines of his hair, now curled into a slight wave about his ears.
The width of his jaw was shadowed with dark stubble, and I thought—vaguely and wildly and all in the space of a single second—how it might feel were I to touch my fingers to the sharp angle of his cheekbone.
My hand still balanced against his chest. My fingers twitched.
He stepped away, and my hand dropped. Without another word, he turned and strode toward the long counter at the back of the taproom.
I tugged my dampened pelisse straight with a jerk as I followed him, heat simmering just beneath the surface. I was frustrated with him—and myself. I should not be thinking such ridiculous things about him, not when he clearly cared not one whit about me.
Mr. Rawlings waved over a stout woman, who was serving a nearby table. She delivered the food and then came behind the counter. I refused to look at Mr. Rawlings, my temper still boiling.
“Needing a room?” she asked pleasantly, pulling a ledger toward her.
“Yes.” I spoke before Mr. Rawlings simply because I knew it would irritate him. “Two rooms, please.”
“Certainly,” she said. “I have several still available, and—”
“We need only one room.”
The woman and I both turned to gawk at Mr. Rawlings. He looked back with an unruffled countenance, leaning on the counter with his good hand.
The innkeeper darted a glance back to me before returning her gaze to Mr. Rawlings. “Are you quite certain? I assure you we have plenty of space.” I wasn’t sure if she was concerned for my sake or if she simply wanted the profit of letting two rooms.
“One room.” Mr. Rawlings left no room for argument. “The key, please. We’ve had a trying day.”
He’d had a trying day?
“Very well.” She turned to the row of keys hanging on the wall behind her. “Up the stairs, third door on the right.”
Mr. Rawlings paid without another word, then took the key—and my elbow—and guided me toward the stairs.
I tried to shake him off, but his grip was like steel. “One room?” I asked in a low hiss.
“How am I to keep an eye on you if we are in separate rooms?”
“I think the idea of separate rooms is to keep your eye off me,” I retorted.
“And if the murderer tracks us here?” He leaned closer to me, and I hated how my skin flushed at his proximity.
“I can scream very loudly, I assure you.”
“Yes, I recall.”
I pressed my lips together, remembering all too well the uncontrolled shriek that had escaped me at Vauxhall.
“Hearing you scream is not the problem,” he said grimly. “It is getting to you in time after you scream.”
Cold flooded my veins, sweeping away the heat of my anger. He urged me up the stairs, and I did not protest, my chest suddenly cinched tight.
“You do not think he has followed us all the way here?” I asked in a small voice when we reached the top of the stairs.
Mr. Rawlings moved toward the third door on the right. “We would be fools to rule it out.”
He slipped the key into the lock and opened the door. After a quick inspection, he hurried me inside. There was a weary-looking bed next to a dirty window, a wooden chair before a small fireplace, and a threadbare rug that did nothing to hide the splintering floorboards.
“Charming,” I said.
Mr. Rawlings ignored me and went to the window. He checked that the latch was fastened and rattled the frame besides. Then he turned and surveyed the rest of the room. “Secure enough,” he said, all business.
Mr. Barton arrived at the open door with my trunk, coming inside to set it down beside the bed. “Anything else, miss?”
I forced a smile, though it felt as false as a mask at the theater. “No, thank you.”
He bowed, then departed, leaving the door ajar.
I turned back to face the room, clasping my hands rather fiercely in front of me.
I refused to look at Mr. Rawlings, the reality of the situation finally settling around me, stifling and smothering.
We’d spent the entire day alone in a carriage together, yet this felt dramatically different.
Perhaps because there was a bed positioned so obviously in front of us.
“I’ll help with the rest of our things and see the driver settled,” Mr. Rawlings said, not seeming to notice the shift of emotions in the room.
“Then I will take a look around to ensure everything is as it should be. I’ll return in a quarter of an hour.
That should allow you sufficient time to prepare for bed. ”
“Very well,” I rasped, my throat unaccountably dry.
He glanced my way, as if wondering why I acted so strangely, but decided not to comment. He moved to the door.
“I will lock it behind me,” he said. “Do not open it for anyone else.”
“I am not a complete half-wit,” I retorted, some of my fire returning in the face of his heavy-handedness.
Mr. Rawlings paused, his hand on the doorframe. “I do not think anyone could accuse you of that, Miss Lacey.” He left, closing the door firmly behind him.
I stood there a moment, taken aback. That had almost sounded like a compliment. The thought nearly made me laugh. You are not a complete half-wit was precisely the sort of compliment Mr. Rawlings would extend.
The key turned in the lock, then Mr. Rawlings’s footsteps drew away. I gulped a deep breath, trying to regain control of my racing heart. But nothing I did made any difference. This sudden panic could not be contained.
I would be spending the night in this room with Mr. Rawlings.