“You know we would.” He sat up, lowering the hem of her nightgown as he did so, and pushed himself to his feet without using his canes. High mattresses were always a blessing to him.
“And yet,” she said, “it is quite acceptable for a widow to have an affair, provided she is discreet about it. I learned that when I was with Matthew’s regiment. I think it would be a grand use of freedom—to have an affair.”
“With me?” He did not turn to look at her.
“With a man who wanted one with me as much as I wanted one with him,” she said. “Perhaps with you, Ben. One of these days. But not tonight. You are right about that. It would seem slightly sordid.”
He drew a few slow breaths. “Now,” he said, “if you would get beneath the covers and pretend to fall into an instant sleep to spare my modesty, I will slip out of a few of my clothes and climb in on the other side. And tomorrow and for every other night of our journey, we will continue on our way, even if the distance is a hundred miles, until we find an inn that can properly and separately accommodate us.”
She got down from the bed, climbed beneath the covers so far to her side that it was a miracle she did not fall off, pulled the covers up over her head, and snored softly.
He smiled and made his way around to the other side.
“The only trouble is,” she said when he was slipping out of his waistcoat, “that by the time one of these days comes along, you will be long gone from my life.”
“Hush,” he said, and she started snoring again.
He blew out the candle and climbed into bed, as far to his side as was possible.
He would be laughed out of any officers’ mess tent, he thought, if he was ever unwise enough to give an account of this night’s doings—or absence of doings.
Not that he would ever again be in any mess tent.
He stared at the pale outline of the bay window.
He would never again be in any mess tent.
The army did not take cripples.
13
Samantha’s first impression when she awoke was of warmth and comfort. She had surely just enjoyed her best night’s sleep in a long time. And then, as she woke further, other impressions intruded. Her nose was virtually pressed against a naked chest that rose and fell to the steady rhythm of its owner’s breathing. His body heat enveloped her and made her want to move her whole body closer though she was alarmingly close as it was. One of his arms was about her beneath the covers.
So much for a sleepless night as they each clung virtuously to their respective edges of the bed.
Samantha had never before slept with a man. Slept, that was, as opposed to having marital relations with. For close to four months after their marriage, Matthew had come to her bed almost nightly, but he had always returned to his own afterward. Somehow, this seemed almost as intimate as those brief sessions had been, perhaps because they were so long ago that she had forgotten just what real intimacy felt like.
They had come close to making love last night—until conscience had smitten him. She was not sure if she was glad or sorry.
He was sleeping. She could tell that from the deepness of his breathing and the warm relaxation of his body. She was tempted to fall back to sleep herself. But good sense prevailed. What she really needed to do was remove herself from the bed, or at least from this particular part of it, before he too woke up. He might believe she had done this deliberately.
She considered her strategy. His arm was heavy across her. One of her legs was trapped beneath one of his. One of her hands was splayed across his chest. The other was resting on the side of his waist—she had only just realized that. It was full daylight. Goodness only knew what time it was. It might be dawn or it might be noon. She really had slept deeply.
She wriggled her leg free. She lifted her hand from his waist and removed her nose from his chest and then her other hand. She inched backward under his arm. She did it all in no more than five or ten minutes. He inhaled deeply, exhaled audibly, and fell silent. She edged back a little farther. If she turned now, she could swing her legs over the edge of the bed and sit up and then stand and be safe even if he then awoke and saw her in her rumpled nightgown, her unbraided hair in loose tangles about her head and shoulders and along her back. He would not know …
“I suppose,” he said just as she sat up, in a perfectly normal, everyday conversational voice, “you did not sleep a wink all night.”
“I slept a little,” she admitted in a tone to match his own. She did not turn her head to look at him.
“Did I leave you enough room?” he asked. “I did not inadvertently touch you?”
“Oh, no,” she said. “There was plenty of room.”
“Samantha McKay,” he said, “you will surely burn in hell one of these eternities. You are lying through your teeth.”
She let out an enraged shriek and whisked her head around to glare at him. She grabbed her pillow and hurled it at him.
“You, sir,” she said, “are no gentleman. You might at least pretend to believe that we kept to our own edges of the bed.”
He clasped the pillow to his chest. “I woke up at some time in the night,” he said, “to find that I had rolled to the center of the bed and that you had done likewise. To be fair, I do not believe either of us was the aggressor. You grumbled some nonsense and grabbed me when I would have beaten a strategic retreat back to my edge, and, being the gentleman I am, contrary to your unjust accusation, I remained where I was and allowed you to burrow against me.”