She hadn’t noticed Donnan entering the inn after she’d spoken to him, but when she reached the second floor she saw another staircase leading down to the back of the inn. She was glad that the brothers had a room nearby, not that she thought she’d need them, but she couldn’t deny she always went right to sleep when she knew they were close. For all her bravado about being able to defend herself—and she didn’t doubt she could—it was still comforting to know she didn’t really have to.
“Two blokes and the bed is big enough for two,” Monty noted as they entered the room where two lamps were already lit.
He was right, two blokes would indeed share the bed and think nothing of it. And it did look inviting—but she wasn’t getting in it.
“I snore,” she said.
“I’ll punch you if you do.”
She narrowed her eyes on his back as he went to the bedside table and unloaded the sack he was carrying. “You would, wouldn’t you?” she said churlishly.
“Don’t I owe you one, boy?”
“The hell you do. You’re lucky I didn’t challenge you to a duel for your insult today.”
“No,you’relucky you didn’t,” he returned. “But by all means, suit yourself. You’re welcome to sleep on the floor.”
She swiped the quilt and one of the pillows off the bed, then tossed them against the wall on the other side of the room. When she looked back his way, she noticed that he’d put at least a half dozen pistols on the table.
“What are those for?” she asked.
He didn’t turn around as he said, “Just in case.”
“In case of what?”
“An ax pounding at the door.”
She snorted. “If you don’t want to say, just tell me to mind my own business.”
“So why don’t you do that?”
Had she really found him interesting? He was a bloody rude gentleman, probably a lord, condescending, curt, quarrelsome when impatient. And then with his back still to her, he started to undress.
Her eyes got wider and wider as she watched him. He tossed his jacket aside, then his shirt. Made of such fine linen, it floated for a moment before it landed on the floor. But her eyes veered away from it, going right back to the wide expanse of sinewy brawn. She noticed a scar, round and dark like a bullet hole, on the upper left side of his back. Had he been shot in the back? Or had it gone straight through his chest? Obviously it had missed his heart, but not by much.
She wanted to ask him about the scar but didn’t want to own up to looking at him long enough to have noticed it. He sat on the edge of the bed to remove his boots, then stood to remove his trousers, leaving only his short small clothes. Her eyes flared even wider and she choked back a soft gasp. That much bare skin was simply too much for her senses to experience all at once. Heat flushed up her cheeks, her belly fluttered, and she felt the oddest desire to touch him and feel those muscles ripple under her fingertips. Last summer in Fraserburgh she’d seen bare-chested Scotsmen lifting and throwing massive larch poles while competing at a Tossing the Caber event, but never before had she seen such a handsome man with such a magnificent body up close like this.
Fascinated, she wondered aloud, “How’d you get that bullet wound?”
He turned toward her. Not what she wanted! She bent her head quickly, enough to conceal her face in shadow but still able to peek up under the edge of her hood. Standing as far across the room as she was, she probably could have met his eyes, but hers rose no higher than his shoulders. She really couldn’t help it. Now she had a perfect view of his wide chest, thickly muscled arms and legs. She was getting exactly what she’d wanted when she’d decided not to protest sharing a room with him—a chance to satisfy her curiosity about what a magnificent male body looked like.
Instead of answering her, he said, “Why are you still wearing that cloak?”
“It’s drafty in here.”
“No, it’s not.”
“Well, it will be for me. You’ve never slept on a floor to notice how cold it can get down there?”
“I just gave up my quilt, you’ll be warm enough.”
“Take it back if you want and stop procrastinating. Or does talking about your wound bring back painful memories you don’t want to recount?”
“Does stubbornness run in your family?”
“No, I think I got all of it.”
He finally chuckled, giving up. “My regiment was sent to the Peninsular War, tasked with taking that territory back from the French and then defending it. I’d been shot before, a minor wound that hadn’t fully healed when I was shot again. But the second shot went clean through and laid me low for several weeks. My condition wasn’t improving, so they finally sent me home to recover—or die. I don’t think the army surgeons were sure which would happen. But I convalesced with my family, and my father got me to promise I wouldn’t go back. I think he did it when I was delirious with fever, because I really don’t remember making that promise, but he swears I did.”
