Chapter 6 Abigail
Chapter six
Abigail
The morning dawned bright and early, and Abigail’s peace was disturbed by a wet nose sniffing in her ear.
“Good morning, Beastie,” she said with a sigh as a wet tongue began to lick her face. “I don’t suppose I could convince you to let me sleep for another twenty minutes?” she asked.
No such luck, as the dog padded toward the back door, having successfully woken her.
Abigail sighed and got to her feet, heading toward the back door and opening it to let Beastie out to do her business, leaving it cracked open so she could let herself back in.
Maybe she would convince Roan to use this time of forced productivity to finally put in a swinging door for Beastie that didn’t require a human.
It wasn’t really a problem, since Beastie usually went home overnight with Roan, where they had such conveniences—she would assume—or Roan had to deal with it, not her.
But this week had only proved to highlight the fact that Beastie needing to go out was an inconvenience that they could remedy relatively easily, with just a little bit of work.
And Abigail was all about doing just a little bit of work to make everything easier, especially when it could potentially allow her to get a few extra moments of sleep.
Not that she wanted this to last forever. In fact, hopefully they would break the curse soon and everything would go back to normal.
But just in case.
She stretched her arms wide and yawned as she made her way to the stove to stoke the fire so she could heat the kettle and make herself tea.
Perhaps today she could avoid walking in on a shirtless Roan. Her cheeks heated at the reminder. Maybe instead, she could find him wearing the blue coat he had worn in her dream last night.
It had been a grand coat, though it hadn’t compared to the pink dress she’d been wearing in her dream.
She grinned to herself as she reached for the tea set from the crates and began washing two of the cups.
It was silly to be so excited over a dress one had worn in a dream, but in her defense, it was a gorgeous dress.
Any girl would be privileged to wear it…and as soon as she tailored it, she’d be able to wear it for real.
It was hard to believe that Roan had given it to her. And if it wasn’t enough for him to give her a dress that was clearly sentimental for him, he’d shown up in her dream last night and danced with her.
Her cheeks heated at the thought. It had been a wonderful dream and would have been even if he hadn’t danced with her. The tavern had been full of light and laughter, and it was everything she had ever wanted for the tavern—
Not that it was her place to be dreaming about the Lucky Goat that way. The tavern was Roan’s, and she needed to remember that.
But it had been magical, seeing it come alive in the way she had so often thought it could.
The kettle heated before she’d washed the rest of the tea set, so she pulled out the old teapot and two mugs before the kitchen door swung open and Roan walked in.
“Good morning,” he said gruffly.
That was different.
“Good morning,” she said with a smile on her face. “I hope you slept well.”
“I slept as well as can be expected,” Roan said with a grimace, “though I did have a better dream than I usually do.”
Abigail eyed him warily. Had they shared a dream last night? She’d heard of such things happening to people who were caught in a curse together.
“What happened in your dream?” she asked, hoping that she sounded nonchalant.
“You were in it,” he responded.
“Oh?”
The door swung open and Beastie loped through, bounding toward Roan and pressing her head against his hand for attention.
“Yes,” Roan said. “You were there, and we danced.”
“That’s funny,” she said. “I had the same dream.”
Roan pretended that he didn’t find that extremely interesting. She could tell because instead of saying anything, he rolled up his sleeves and moved to the sink.
Abigail tried not to stare at his forearms. When had forearms become so interesting? It was only because he was about to wash dishes, she assured herself. That’s why it was so interesting—not at all because she was captivated by how his muscles moved.
“You’re washing dishes?” she asked. That was her job.
“I thought that since the only people you’ve been cooking for have been you and me, maybe I ought to help with something,” he said. “It’s not as if I’m taking care of cleanup out front, and I know cleaning is your least favorite job of everything you do here.”
Abigail tried not to warm at the thought that he’d paid that much attention to her favorite and least favorite jobs.
If he kept being so nice, she was going to start falling for him, and that was not something she needed right now.
“You’ve been so helpful with the cleaning over the past year, I’ve forgotten how much work it was—how much I did—until you took it over for me. And I’m not going to lie to you, I don’t miss it at all.”
He laughed, and Abigail stared at him in shock. Roan laughing—she’d never thought she’d live to see that day.
He stopped laughing when he saw the look on her face. “What’s wrong?” he asked.
“You were laughing,” she pointed out.
He had the decency to recognize how unusual that was, because he didn’t ask further.
He sighed and reached for another dish, plunging the teacup in his hands into the soapy water.
“I know I can be a bit of a beast sometimes.” He paused, pulling the cup out and staring at it. “It’s how Beastie got her name, you know.”
“I… I didn’t know that,” Abigail replied. She cocked her head at Roan and waited for him to continue as she grabbed a towel and took the cup from him to dry it.
“I was raised primarily by my father,” Roan said.
“He was worse than I am, and I know it doesn’t excuse me, but it’s why I am the way that I am.
When I was growing up, sometimes some of the other boys would call me a beast and say that none of the girls would ever want to marry me when there were other options for them.
And everything I experienced since then seemed to support their taunts. ”
Abigail’s heart hurt for the child that Roan had been. No child deserved to be taunted like that.
“So I thought, when I got Beastie, that perhaps she could make that memory sting a little less.” Roan wouldn’t meet her eyes as he handed her a wet bowl.
“I think it worked, but it doesn’t change the fact that I know I’m still a beast at times.
So I thought maybe I could help with the dishes for once. ”
“Well, you’ve never been a beast to me,” she pointed out.
“And I think those boys were wrong.” Her ears began to burn with embarrassment as she realized what she had just said.
“I mean, I suppose they were wrong—not that I want to marry you, but I wouldn’t not want to.
I mean, it’s not as if you’re so bad that I couldn’t marry you.
It’s just that…you know, you’re my employer, and I shouldn’t be thinking about marriage when it comes to you, and I would be silly to even think about it.
” She cut herself off as Roan looked at her in amusement.
“I’m not trying to trap you into marriage by sharing woeful tales of my childhood,” he said, “so no need to fret.”
“As long as nobody realizes that I spent all this time alone with you and all those other men,” Abigail said lightly, the realization sinking in that it might be exactly what everyone thought if they found out about this—her reputation would be in tatters.
But maybe Beastie’s ball had been an example of the fact that they had gone back in time, and perhaps no one would notice, except the six men who would hopefully wake up in the storage room…though perhaps they could convince them it had merely been a batch of bad ale.
There was a loud thud as something hit one of the windows above the sink, and Abigail and Roan looked at each other. “Was that a bird?” Roan asked.
Abigail’s eyes widened. “Was it?” she asked.
A bird had hit the window two days after Beastie found the ball in the garden.
She remembered because Beastie had found it, too.
If it was…it was further evidence that they had gone back in time, as opposed to simply being caught in a curse.
But she didn’t want to talk about curses and magic right now. Not when they were already talking about something uncomfortable.
“I should hope you’re not trying to trap me, anyway,” she said, realizing the silence had gone on for far too long. “I can’t imagine why anyone would go to such lengths to force me into a marriage. Nobody has ever wanted me.” She said the words as lightly as she could.
It was true. She hadn’t wanted to marry the man her father had tried to force her to marry, but he hadn’t exactly been keen on the idea, either, and neither had any other young man before or after.
Now it was Roan’s turn to watch her uncomfortably. “You know it’s not because of you, right?” he asked. “Any man would be lucky to marry you. You’re smart and kind and…beautiful.”
His voice caught on the last word, and he turned to Beastie, who was lying next to him. “Did you want to go outside, Beastie?” he asked the dog, who sat up immediately at the word “outside.”
So, it was his turn to use Beastie as an excuse to leave a conversation.
Abigail’s lips twitched in amusement at the sight of Roan, quite literally running away from her. He could say all he wanted that any man would want to marry her, but in her experience, no man had ever wanted her—and it looked like he was included in that list.