Chapter Nine #2
He laughed again, the sound halfway between honey and gravel.
Harriet swallowed thickly and rewashed her left leg for perhaps the eleventh time.
A towel and a robe sat on a stool a few feet from the bath and Harriet scrunched her nose at the distance.
Perhaps after he finished his meal, she could ask him to leave again.
“Either way, I am sorry for all the nattering; I’m always talking nineteen to the dozen. I’m aware it’s entirely unladylike,” she responded, hoping she sounded prim enough to balance out the rest of their conversation.
“Some of my favorite women haven’t been very ladylike,” Alexander replied.
He picked up his drink then and quickly drained it, before settling the mug back down with a heavy thud.
Which Harriet should not have seen as she was not looking through the screen.
“Besides, I’ve come to like your prattling. ”
“Have you been drinking gin?” Harriet inquired, rather meekly. Alexander didn’t answer for a moment, as if puzzling over a tough question. Harriet’s heart dropped. Her father had taught her well how men lie about drinking; here poor Alexander wasn’t even very good at it.
“Only a bit.”
“I see,” Harriet answered. The bath suddenly seemed colder than ever, and she was eager to escape its frigid waters. “Can you see through the screen, my lord?”
“Not very well, I’m afraid.” Harriet rolled her eyes at his practiced and no doubt drunken flirtation. The blandishments had returned.
“Do you mind averting your eyes so that I may dress for bed?” she asked haughtily, putting her hands on the sides of the tub to stand. Then she realized her folly. “That is … if you were actually … I don’t want to assume you were looking. At me. I apologize for the implication.”
“I was,” he answered simply. At her silence he continued, “And I will. Avert my eyes, that is. No need to make you more nervous. I’ll only get a monologue on the origins of the word bath or a lecture about how I’m using an adverb incorrectly.”
Harriet was so heated at his admission that he’d been watching, she barely registered his jest. She clamored out of the tub quickly and dried off with her back to him.
Facing him seemed much too wanton, screens and averted eyes be damned.
She donned Giuliana’s too-small chemise and peeked from behind the screen to see him at the table simply swiping his thumb around the lip of his glass, staring off into the far corner of the room, where no bathing or nudity had taken place.
She tiptoed to the bed and climbed in. Only once she was under the covers did he blow out the candle on her nightstand, plunging them further into darkness.
Harriet couldn’t help but listen to the sounds of him undressing.
She felt embarrassed to be overhearing something so intimate, although certainly he didn’t consider the act private, if one were to go by his boldness in disrobing in daylight in front of her that very day.
At the thunk of his boots hitting the ground and the sound of his trousers following, Harriet felt herself start to heat again.
She tried her hardest to stay still, in hopes he’d believe her to be asleep, although her legs felt particularly restless.
She felt a desperate need to squirm, to rub them together when she heard him get into the tub. Christ, but this was inappropriate.
As she fell asleep, she found herself wondering at the fact that his speech hadn’t been slurred at all when he spoke. Nor had he had trouble undressing or bathing. And he certainly didn’t smell as her father did after a night of drunkenness. Perhaps he had been telling the truth.
Harriet was disturbed from her sleep a short while later by movement in the bed next to her.
Alexander was lying down, but he seemed to be tossing and turning.
Or not turning, but moving. It was as though he was having a nightmare, except he was silent and still, other than for his arm.
He lay facing away from her and his arm was working.
Quickly too. This wasn’t the action of someone asleep.
It seemed purposeful, intentional. Harriet shut her eyes tightly; then, with effort, relaxed them and slowed her breathing, so he might believe her truly asleep should he turn over. Whatever was he doing?
With her own breath quieted, she was better able to overhear his, which was growing heavier and more rapid in time with whatever he was doing with his hand.
She dearly hoped he was all right. After a few moments, he let out a low groan, which would have been quiet if not for the silence of the room and the fact that every cell in Harriet’s body was attuned to him.
Seconds later came an exhausted sigh, the contented, tired sound one made when finished with a difficult task.
Harriet’s tongue stung with the impulse to ask him if he was well, but an even stronger one compelled her to continue to feign sleep.
After a few moments of heavy breathing, he got up out of the bed, crossed the room to the washstand, and then came back and lay down again as if nothing had occurred.
What had he been doing? Surely, he could have done this when he was downstairs if it weren’t private?
Or in the bath if it were? Was this something men normally did at night?
To be sure, Harriet would not know about it if that were the case.
Was this a particular habit of Lord Alexander’s?
An old injury? She kept turning the event over in her mind.
Was he hurt, or satisfied? It sounded as if he’d gotten relief—at least at the end.
And most of all, why was she so certain that if he’d known she was awake, he wouldn’t have continued?