from her fingers to her shoulders as though he could calm her sudden skittishness.
She stared at him for half a second longer and then with a muttered, “Oh my God,” stepped from his embrace and turned her back.
“Sophia?”
“That shouldn’t have happened. I’m sorry.”
Of course it should have happened. “Why not?”
“I... I’m so sorry, I can’t do this.”
Blake didn’t say a word. He let her run up the stairs, her door slamming just before thunder once again shook the inn.
He shook his head and looked heavenward. What had he done?
Chapter Twelve
All night Sophia castigated and tossed and turned and called herself ten different kinds of fool. Why had she kissed him? Why did he have to be nice to her right when all she wanted to do was fight? At least if they were fighting, she wouldn’t think of his strength and safety. His half-naked chest, his comfort when she’d needed it the most, his cheeky grin and smug shrugs.
Damn her traitorous body! It really wasn’t her fault that she craved human contact once in a while. It had been months since she’d been held intimately. When Blake had wrapped her in his arms, the feeling was so much like coming home. Then the events of the past few days had caught up to her and she couldn’t stem the flow of emotion. What had started as her needing comfort had ended with her hands in his hair and her back against the wall.
In the early hours of the morning, when she beat the stuffing around in her pillow in an attempt to get comfortable, she blamed her vulnerability on him. It was all Blake’s fault that he made her feel. Why couldn’t he tease and taunt and fire her fury? It was a better alternative to this!
Sophia had learned very early in her career as a courtesan that feelings were simply not the done thing in London. If she was happy she had to look nonchalant. If she was sad or angry or homesick, she had to appear nonchalant, bored even. Overeagerness would lessen her value and seeming not eager enough would cast her as coy. Even here, a place she should be able to express her emotions, she could not. She wondered if perhaps all the years of switching them off had somehow broken them. Perhaps that was why she couldn’t decipher her own mind?
By breakfast her eyes were scratchy and swollen. She’d slept barely a wink. She’d given up and risen early to see to the animals in the barn, gather the eggs and cut enough bacon for the morning meal and the pie she had to prepare for lunch.
After returning the rest of the bacon to the icebox, she chopped wood for twenty minutes until her muscles burned and her breath came in short pants. But even looking over her shoulder constantly, even with the distraction of waiting for someone like Roger to amble along, she still couldn’t get the taste of Blake from her mouth. She couldn’t forget how he’d filled her senses and scrambled her thoughts. How could she face him over coffee? How would she work when he sat there in the corner of the kitchen watching her every move? It was impossibly complicated. She thought about hiding. A headache or some other feminine malady would help her avoid the whole damned situation. But she had meals to make and at some stage over the day, she would have to get close enough to check his wounds and change his dressings since the doctor had been called away.
With a deep sigh, she dropped the axe, picked up the poorly hacked timber and carried it to the kitchens through the washroom door.
Surprise filled her when she finally gathered the courage to look toward the chair perched in the corner. It was empty. All day yesterday, Blake had sat in that chair and stared at her. His gaze had drilled into her shoulder blades until she’d wanted to scream and send him to bed.
Her cheeks warmed at the vision of Blake in bed.
Sophia pinched the skin on the inside of her wrist to snap herself out of the sudden breathlessness that claimed her. To blame it on anxiety would be lying to herself.
Taking the wood through to the taproom, she stopped and nearly dropped the load at the sight that greeted her. If she hadn’t been so lost in thought, she might have heard the sounds of twenty or so women milling about in the common