Chapter7
To gird one’s loins.According to one of Benedict’s tutors, it was a term that came from Africa. Tribesmen would wrap the fabric skirts they wore up tight around their groins before battle to keep them from tripping as they ran.
Right now, Benedict needed to do more than wrap his balls in fabric. He needed steel armor around them.
Taking a deep breath, he opened the door between their rooms. She didn’t stir. He was transfixed for a moment as he took in the sight of her sleeping. Blond hair was loose over the pillows, scrunched in rough, uneven waves. She had one pillow hugged close to her body. In sleep, she looked small and innocent. It almost made him regret what he was about to do. But it was for the best. He’d already watched his mother waste away in this bedroom, dreaming of a better life. He’d be damned if he let his wife suffer the same fate.
Which brought him back to his current task. She would engage with her new life until it was no longer new. She would be an active participant in this family until she no longer wanted to leave it. And she would start today.
He coughed.
Nothing.
He banged the door into the wall.
Nothing.
Bloody hell. The woman could sleep through a dozen steam trumpets. He dumped the bundle of clothes he was holding on her dresser and strode to the curtains. “Rise and shine, Mrs. Asterly.”
He yanked the curtains open. The sun was just starting to rise, a wash of yellow through the pine trees and over the snow, creating ribbons of light and long purple shadows. It was his favorite time of day. Perhaps, in time, it would be an opinion they shared.
“Mmmhpmph.” Amelia turned over to face the wall, bringing the pillow over her head.
“It’s eight o’clock,” he said in his most annoying, sing-song voice.
“Then why are you awake?”
Awake? He’d been up for three hours, despite a night spent tossing and turning. “You’re in the country now, Mrs. Asterly. Time to get used to country hours.”
She burrowed so far under the covers that he could barely hear her response. “You have until the count of three to exit this room.”
He laughed, leaning against the wall, trying to paint a picture of nonchalance, despite the unreasonable anxiety that bubbled away. “You’d be a little more terrifying if I hadn’t seen the trail of saliva on your pillow.”
Emerging from her cocoon, she glared at him. “You are no gentleman.”
The smile he gave her was intentionally goading. He preferred her spitting mad; it made him feel less of a cad for doing what he planned to. “I think we’ve established my lack of breeding well enough. You have a busy day. Time to get up.”
She flung herself back down and pulled the blankets over her head.
This is for her own good.With three quick strides, he reached the foot of her bed, grabbed a fistful of downy quilt in each hand and pulled.
Her nightdress might have covered her to the chin, but it had ridden up over her knees and left her long, lithe calves exposed.
Distracted, he didn’t see the pillow she flung at him until it hit him square in the face.
“You boor.”
He deserved that, but he was pushing ahead regardless. “I’m not going until you’re up and dressed, so you might as well get on with it.” He grabbed the clothes from the dresser. “These are for you,” he said, tossing them to her.
She shook them out and held them up with a sour look. “And what are these?”
“I assume you don’t want to be working in your dresses. You only have three.”
She clasped her hands in her lap and leaned forward, fixing him with the type of look adults generally used on the very young or the very crazy. “I don’t work,” she said in a matter-of-fact tone.
“You do today. Here’s the roster.”
“Roster?”
