course not, but you have the same symptoms, Perry says. Now, I’ll hold the cup for you. Try a sip.”
It was, of course, utterly improper for her to be alone with him in his bedroom. She had, in her typical careless way, closed the door. Anyone could think anything, but…
The tea felt marvelous in his mouth, and even better as it began to soothe his aching stomach. He drank it slowly, unsure if it would cause another bout of sickness. It didn’t. He didn’t feel well, precisely, but he felt strong enough to say, “Thank you, Miss Allington. But you shouldn’t be here, in a gentleman’s bedroom with no chaperone.”
“Don’t be silly,” she said briskly. “I knew what you needed, and I brought it. You’re feeling better, isn’t that true? That’s what matters.” She bent forward to place her hand on his forehead. “You’re much too warm, my lord. Let’s get some air in this room.”
She crossed to the window and pulled back the drapes, then opened the window with impressive ease. James knew how stiff that latch was. She exclaimed, “There! So much better,” as fresh air poured through, replacing the staleness with the scents of summer flowers and freshly cut grass.
She came back to the bed to take the empty teacup from his hand and replace it in its saucer. She stood by his bed for a moment, her hands on her narrow hips, assessing him.
She was in her riding habit, her hair pinned up, ready for her hat. She was wearing a pearl choker with a large moonstone in the center. It was out of place in her ensemble, of course, but he didn’t care. Her skin glowed in the sunshine from the open window, her pale freckles like gold dust on her fine straight nose. He couldn’t imagine he had ever thought her plain.
Annis was nothing like the rosy, beribboned girls he so often met in London. She didn’t fill every silence with torrents of words no one needed to hear. She stood looking quietly down at him, elegant in her height and slenderness, her eyes full of intelligence. She was better than pretty. She was much, much better than pretty. Even as shaky as he was from having been sick, as discomfited from being found lying in bed like a hapless boy, he wished she would stay with him so he could see her, talk to her. He wished she would touch him again.
He suspected it wasn’t her ginger tea that had eased his illness. It was her presence. It was the matter-of-fact touch of her fingers, the glisten of sympathy in those forget-me-not eyes, the musical sound of her voice.
He still didn’t know if he liked her. The stunning thing, despite that, was how much he wanted her.
Of course he couldn’t possibly say that. Even the idea of it embarrassed him. He had the odd thought that she knew what he was thinking, and that embarrassed him even more. He hoped very much he was wrong.
She said, “If you feel ill again, have Perry send for me.”
“Very kind, Miss Allington,” he said.
She suddenly grinned, her face lighting, her freckled nose crinkling. “Couldn’t you call me Annis? Now that I’ve been in your bedroom?”
His cheeks warmed unbearably. “I—well, of course, if you wish it, I—”
“Good. And I will call you James. That’s settled, then.” With the teacup and saucer in one hand, her skirts lifted in the other, she turned to the door. It opened just as she approached, and a scandalized Perry stood back, eyebrows lifted and mouth open, watching her stride past him. Over her shoulder she said, “Remember, James. Send for me if you feel ill again.”
Then she was gone, leaving Perry staring after her and James groaning in confusion.
23
Harriet
In her slant-ceilinged room at the Four Fishes, Harriet slept for no more than two hours before a jolt of anxiety woke her. Her heart thumping, she got out of bed and went to kneel in the window nook to look out.
The roof of the inn was a thatched one, glittering now with drops of morning dew. The early sunshine illuminated the weave of wheat straw and reeds and gave her glimpses of other things here and there—heather, perhaps, or sedge. She gazed into the thatch’s pattern, one hand at her throat as she tried to slow her breathing.
What had gone wrong?
She tried to convince herself she had imagined this rush of unease, that the late night and her fatigue had caused it,