When he suggested they pretend to be a married couple — “for safety’s sake and your reputation, too,” he’d explained — she went along with it. Thus, at the Louis Defleur winery, where her grand-père had said she would be able to stay, Serena found herself shown to a spacious room with one bed.
“You are most welcome here,” said Monsieur Defleur.
“You certainly are,” agreed his round wife. “The granddaughter of Henri and Adèle! You’re the very picture of your mother. Except for your hair.”
Everyone always said the same thing. For a moment, she feared Madame Defleur knew her father was English, but instead she exclaimed with delight that they’d come so recently from the capital.
“You must tell us all the news of Paris over supper. I imagine there are celebrations going on every night.”
Glancing at Malcolm, Serena nodded after he gave the slightest shrug. After all, the kind vintners were hardly going to hold them and try to turn them over to Bonaparte’s Imperial Guards.
“We have seen little difference so far,” Monsieur Defleur said when they sat down to eat. “Nothing much happens this far away, and it is said the emperor traveled through the Rhone valley without opposition, all the way to Paris.”
She and Malcolm took turns telling what they knew, even about the Seventh Coalition, carefully remaining neutral until Madame Defleur exclaimed what a shame that the peace of the land might be disturbed again.
“The other nations should stay out of it,” her husband declared.
“On the other hand,” Madame Defleur said, “Bonaparte took us to war many times and King Louis did not.”
Serena let the two of them debate the matter. It was all out of her hands now anyway. Malcolm, too, seemed content to let the Defleurs come to their own conclusions as to the best ruler.
When she yawned broadly, hiding it as best she could behind her hand, their hostess jumped up.
“You newly yoked young people must wish to go to bed, yes?”
Serena had managed to put aside the thrilling yet nerve-wracking situation that awaited her upstairs, a single bed for the two of them.
“Thank you,” Malcolm said. “We hate to be rude, but we have to get up early and be on our way.”
Far too quickly, she found herself alone in a bedroom with Lord Branley, a viscount’s son, a self-confirmed rake, a man who was grinning from ear to ear.
“Stop it,” she said.
“Stop what?” he asked, as innocent as a babe.
***
MALCOLM DECIDED HEwas going to be a saint. He was going to lie quietly beside the most enticing woman he’d ever known, with her luscious curves and sweet valleys, and he was going to do absolutely nothing. Not even sleep if his overly excited body had anything to say about it. But he was certainly not going to make advances toward her.
After they each took a turn at the washstand, using toothpowders and washing their faces, he undressed discreetly in one corner. Facing away from her to give her privacy, he shrugged out of his braces and slid his breeches down his legs. His shirt hung low but still he heard her gasp.
Whipping around, he found her staring at him, looking at his bare legs and anything else she could see beneath the hem of his linen shirt.
“I thought you would turn around,” he said, feeling unfairly spied upon.
“I thought you would let me get undressed and under the covers before you started baring yourself,” she said.
“I’m not baring myself,” he protested. “I’ll sleep like this.”
“How do you normally sleep?”
He made a wry face, giving her the answer.
“Never mind,” she said. Then she frowned. “Even in winter?” she asked.
“Maybe you’ll find out some day,” he quipped. It was only May, and he hoped by the winter they really would be a wedded couple, and she could see for herself he slept bare all year round.
When she still stared at him, he had to ask her.
