He’d been in his cups.
But he had also been too foxed to return safely to his own room. Why he had sought out hers instead, she couldn’t begin to guess. Perhaps, even in his inebriated state, he had been intent upon locking her in her bedroom again. If so, he had failed at his task.
He’d pulled his face out of her neck, told her she was beautiful, and asked her to kiss him. Then he had promptly pitched face forward into her bed and begun snoring. Of all the times she had dreamt of the Duke of Richford coming to her bed in the darkness of the night, not once had she envisioned it unfolding in quite such a manner.
She’d been left to tug off his shoes, coat, and waistcoat, struggling and out of breath beneath his dead weight as he had muttered something about Gorgons and an octopus whilst she had labored over him, her unbound hair falling in his face.
Finally, she had curled up at his side beneath the bedclothes, listening to his snores split the air, oddly pleased that he was with her even under such unusual circumstances. In a moment of utter stupidity, she had told him she loved him.
The memory returned now, making her faintly ill.
She could only hope he had been too soused to notice or remember it if he had.
The reminder made her prod him with more force than necessary, her finger poking sternly into his shoulder until he stirred, eyes fluttering but refusing to open. He snorted out a half snore.
“Richford, you need to wake up,” she told him loudly.
At last, he opened his eyes. “What the devil…” He jolted when he saw her frowning down at him. “Rhiannon? Why are you in my bed?”
His bewilderment was apparent. The foolish part of her that had ascribed some meaning to his appearance at her door withered.
“You’re inmybed, Richford,” she pointed out, pulling the counterpane to her neck, suddenly all too aware that she was clad in nothing other than a prim nightgown.
And they were indeed sharing a bed, as he had pointed out. Not that Richford appeared in any condition to make romantic overtures, of course. His skin was pale, his eyes bloodshot. She would have liked to say he looked dreadful, but Rhiannon was reasonably sure the infernal man was incapable of it.
Even in his ragged state, he was beautiful. Full, sensual lips, eyes the verdant green of spring grass, his lashes unfairly long, his cheekbones sharp slashes, his jaw stubbled with gilt- and cinnamon-tinged whiskers. The top three buttons of his shirt were undone, revealing a mouthwatering vee of his bare chest. His hair was tousled.
She didn’t know which she longed to do more, kiss him or box his ears.
“Yourbed,” he grumbled, flattening a palm over his chest and rubbing it. “Oh thank Christ, I’m wearing clothes.”
“Of course you are. I had a difficult enough time removing your coat and waistcoat on my own. I wasn’t about to attempt further disrobing.”
A furrow formed between his golden brows. “You undressed me?”
“Do you truly recall nothing of last night?”
He groaned. “What should I recall? How the hell did I come to be here?”
She pursed her lips. “You walked here, I would imagine. I don’t know for certain. Perhaps you ran. I shouldn’t like to think you rode a horse down the halls, but given your state, I reckon even that is possible.”
“My state?”
“You were foxed,” she informed him coolly.
“To have spent the night in your bed, I should hope I was.” He scrubbed a hand over his annoyingly handsome face.
Box his ears, she decided. That was the correct first choice of what she wanted to do to the infuriating man.
“Never fear,” she said, summoning her pride to keep the hurt from her voice and expression both. “I would have to be deep in my cups myself to allow you into it. As it happens, I hadn’t a choice. You knocked at my door, fell upon me, made a lewd request, and then toppled into my bed face first and started snoring like an old cow.”
“Do cows snore?”
“I wouldn’t know. Butyoumost certainly do.” She was being rude and unkind, but she didn’t particularly care.
He winced. “Forgive me. It wasn’t my intention to come to you last night. I can’t think of a single reason I would have done so, other than that perhaps I was so soused I got lost on my way to my own chamber.”
His bedroom was in an entirely different wing of the manor house from hers, but Rhiannon didn’t bother to point that out. He would likely only counter with something else that insulted her vanity in equal measure.
