Grateful he hadn’t dropped the whole thing on the floor, he peeked into the darkened room.
On the bed, Anne snored softly.
He couldn’t help but smile as he remembered how she argued with him, saying she most definitely didnotsnore. After placing the tray on her bedside table, he pulled back the curtains.
Morning sun streamed in, casting a glow on Anne’s sleeping form. Her eyes squeezed in protest at the intrusion. She gave a pitiful moan, then stretched and rubbed the sleep from her face. “Is it morning, Joan? What is that delicious smell?”
“Hot chocolate and breakfast.”
At his voice, she blinked and turned toward him. “Colin. I thought you were Joan.”
“Obviously.” He poured her a cup of hot chocolate. Wisps of steam curled above the cup. “Here. Sip. Careful. It’s hot.”
She gazed up at him, and his heart lurched at the dark smudges under her eyes. “Of course it is. That’s why it’s calledhotchocolate.” The smile she attempted turned into a grimace as she pushed herself up to a sitting position.
“Still painful?”
She glared at him over her cup as if he were an imbecile, which he very much felt like.
He watched her every movement as she blew the hot liquid to cool it and then sipped. Her eyes closed in pleasure, the expression not unlike the one he witnessed when they made love.
“I found some willow bark for your pain. Rupert, the groundskeeper, is preparing it now. But first, before it grows cold, breakfast.” He took the cup from her hand and replaced it with the tray, then took a seat in the chair by the bed. Attentive to her needs, he handed the chocolate to her when she asked and watched as she devoured every morsel of her breakfast.
They both turned at the soft knock on the door where Mattie stood with a tray holding a teapot and another cup. “Rupert took the liberty of telling Cook how to prepare this, my lord.”
“Did she put honey in it?” Anne asked.
“I’m not sure, my lady.”
However, when she took a sip, her expression provided the answer.
Colin rose and bit back the chuckle at Anne’s scrunched up nose. “I’ll get the honey.”
“Sir,” Mattie said. “I can go.”
Colin shook his head. Sitting by Anne’s bedside and seeing her wince in pain only made his guilt from not protecting her harder to bear. He not only needed some distance, but he needed to dosomethingfor her. “Stay with my wife.”
At the door, he only stopped a moment when Anne said, “Colin. Thank you.”
If only he deserved it.
CHAPTER 32
Anne’s healing progressed well, and within a week, she was able to walk without pain. But the easing of the pain in her ankle didn’t negate the growing pain in her heart.
Colin had carried her downstairs for supper each evening those first few days, and he arrived in her bedchamber each morning precisely at eight to enquire how she was faring. However, the firm set of his jaw and the cool, distant gaze in his eyes belied his polite attentions. Even amid the noise of repairing the wall, he spent the majority of his time locked away in his study, and she’d spent precious little time alone with him.
For the first week after her horrible entrapment, he refused her invitations to her bed, stating he didn’t want to further injure her. When she’d proven she could walk without wincing, he’d acquiesced and made love to her. Although still a generous lover, he seemed to hold back the part of himself she’d glimpsed that day on the folly.
She needed to tell him Greene and Mrs. Campbell were conspiring against her, but how could she when he’d been so angry with her? He’d no doubt think, due to her vivid imagination, she’d made the whole thing up. She needed to soothe the waters between them first.
As she lay in his arms the second night he’d returned to her bed, she asked, “Are you still angry with me?”
He stared up at the ceiling. “I’m not angry with you, Anne.”
“Then what is it? Why won’t you talk to me?”
He turned toward her. “I thought I was talking to you.”
