“We’re ready for them,” Smith assured her. “And their dinner shall be warming, indeed.”
He was likely going to ask her more. Ask her about tea or showing her to her room. But before he could, Ewan stepped into the foyer. Well, into it was going too far. He stepped up to the edge of the foyer and stopped, just staring at her from across the room.
And she stared back. She couldn’t help it. Every time she saw Ewan, he was more beautiful than the last time. He was tall, well over six feet, with broad shoulders and trim hips. He had blond hair, but it was too long and he never wore it in a queue, so it fell around his face. A face he tried to cover with a beard, but that never worked. There was no covering up perfection.
His brown gaze never moved from her and she swallowed hard as her body reacted to his presence and his stare and…just him. Always him. Only him. He was her everything, and he had been for her entire life.
She shivered and shook off her thoughts. “You are lurking, dear Ewan,” she said, forcing herself to be light and airy so he wouldn’t see that he made her shake far more than any stormy winter’s day could.
He smiled. A small smile, but it brightened his face and made him even more handsome than before. It was quite unfair, really.
Smith nodded to her. “Excuse me, my lady, I will oversee the unloading.”
He left the foyer and then they were alone. She swallowed hard as Ewan stepped closer, closer until he was right in front of her, towering over her, staring down at her and smelling of warmth and man and clean skin.
“You’re soaked,” he finger-signed in the old language they had concocted over the years. It had been meant to make it easier for him to communicate with his friends, but it had become so complicated that no one else seemed to be able to learn it.
And so, as Meg had suggested a week ago, it was theirs.
She shifted at the words he’d used. If only he knew. She was soaked, but not just from the storm. She wanted him. His double entendre, even if it was unintended, did not help matters.
“I am,” she whispered, her voice husky in the quiet room.
There was a flicker over his face and then it was gone. He swiftly spelled out, “Smith will see to everything. Let me show you up to your room so you can get warm.”
She nodded. “That would be wonderful, thank you, Ewan.”
They stood for a breath, and then he slowly extended his elbow. She reached for him, everything coming in half-time, and when she touched him, her body jolted with electric awareness. It was always like this with him.
He guided her through the foyer and up the stairs as she said meaningless words about the roads and the weather and the bridge that one had to cross to get to his estate.
He didn’t sign anything in response, but nodded in the appropriate places of her prattling. Finally they reached a door and he released her to open it. She stepped inside and took a breath. It was the same room where she had stayed on her last visit. A beautiful room that overlooked the garden and, farther off, the sea. Or it would once the storm stopped obliterating all evidence of the ocean in the distance.
When she had visited before the room had been plain, but now it was bright and happy. The walls were a soft pink, and there were somehow flowers on the table, despite the time of year. Everything was perfect.
And once again she got that sense that she was home.
She pushed it aside and turned toward him. “Lovely, Ewan. So beautiful.”
He held her stare for a beat too long and then nodded.
“When do you expect the others?” she asked, running a finger along the edge of a pitcher that had been set on the table beside the window. “I hope soon, for the roads are so very treacherous. I worry about Baldwin and mother and Matthew and your aunt.”
There was another flicker across his face, and then he signed, “They may not make it, Charlotte. My servants closed the bridge behind you after you crossed. It is too treacherous for anyone to try to make it over now. The rest will be stopped at the inn in Donburrow and accommodated there until it is safe to travel again.”
“Oh,” she said, blinking as shock settled over her at this unexpected news. “I see. Well, of course, the river was so high under the bridge, it could be overrun.”
He nodded. “It was last year.”
She continued, “And all that ice. So tomorrow then?”
He swallowed, and she watched the action with fascination. Every move he made was so very…elegant. And yet still strong and masculine. Even a swallow obsessed her beyond reason or decorum.
“The rain is expected for a day or two more,” he signed. “It could take even more than that for the water to recede enough to pass the bridge. It might be up to a week before they can pass.”
Her mouth dropped open. What he was saying was sinking in and her reaction was so complicated that she could hardly parse terror from joy from excitement. “Oh. Oh, I see. Are you saying you and I will be…alone…for up to a week?”
He nodded, and to her surprise his gaze slowly flitted over her, from the top of her head to the hem of her skirt. In that one slow stare, she saw what she could not deny.
