If Maurice the Imposter Prince had been authentic—if he’d come to Ryan and said that he was short on funds, had no remaining relatives, and was adrift in a country that hated royal cousins, it was possible she would’ve determined some way to help him.
Meanwhile, Gabriel Rein, also known as His Serene Highness, Gabriel d’Orleans, the man now stalking silently behind her, had genuinely confided in her. He’d shared an elusive, fleeting blink of honesty. And it had been enough.
He described his love for the forest, and a need for safety, and the obstacle of losing control over his own life. It wasn’t anI won’t—it was anI cannot. And hearing this was enough to soften her heart, just a little.
Meanwhile, her body cared nothing for soft hearts or obstacles. Her body wanted more of the waterfall.His hands. His attention. His coiled strength kneeling before her. What had begun as a hodgepodge of attractive qualities had piled up for Ryan like logs on a fire; now she felt ablaze. His eyes, for one thing. He gazed at her with an intensity that made her stomach flip. And thepowerof him—the height and muscles and broad shoulders. He’dcarried herthrough the forest and into his waterfall and she did not hate it.
Also, his home was tidy and warm, with thoughtful touches like rugs and a little curtain on the window.
And his nose was so very proudly French.
And the bread he’d served her with soft butter and a small dish of salt was delicious.
And the way he’d touched her—
“Will you be comfortable in the nightshirt?” he asked from behind her.
And that was another thing, she thought. The intimacy of wearing his loaned nightshirt made Ryan so very aware of her half-dressed body. The shirt was enormous but smelled clean. The fabric was rough, and it brushed against her nipples in a way that made her tingle. And it belonged to him.
“Oh yes, thank you very much,” she said. “If I’d worn the soggy dress, I wouldn’t have slept, not really, and it would’ve ruined your sheets.”
“I hope the nightshirt will keep you warm,” he said. “There is no fire in the bedchamber.”
“No I don’t suppose there is. I hadn’t realized about the fire.”
“No way to remove the smoke,” he said. “The chamber is too deep in the hillside for a stovepipe or chimney. A window would be impossible. It can be chilly without a fire. I’ll fetch another blanket.”
“Thank you. But how do you know when it’s morning if there is no window?”
“Rooster,” he said.
“Of course. Rooster.”
The bedchamber was dimly lit by the sconces, half of them now burned out. Around the corner, the waterfall splattered. Ryan eyed the bed. Should she simply draw back the covers and crawl in?
“Did you find the waterfall suitable?” he asked.
“Oh yes. I should love to have such a thing at Winscombe. The maids resent lugging buckets of heated water upstairs, and I don’t blame them. I’ve converted a little side parlor on the ground floor into a bathing room. And we use a trolly for the buckets.”
“How many floors have you at Winscombe?”
“Five. If you count the cellar and the attic. It’s the largest home on the island, actually. Plenty of space for ancestors to tack on leaky additions and impossible-to-heat solariums.”
She’d reached the edge of the bed and stopped. She could feel him standing behind her, as tall and thick as a stone wall. She need only drift backward to ever so idly lean against him.
In the kitchen, they’d sat across from each other, talking across his table. Her gaze had been drawn to his big hands on the small cup. She’d thought of him holding her foot, massaging her ankle; she’d fought the urge to reach out, to feel the roughness, to see her own hand disappear inside of it. Her parents had held hands, she’d remembered. When her mother had been alive and her father had been well, they’d walked hand in hand to the village, they’d danced together at assemblies, and her father had put his arm around herat church. Ryan remembered her naive childhood assumption thatshewould grow up and one day marry the Prince d’Orleans, and they would hold hands, and dance, and snuggle together on shared pews.
But her mother had died, and the prince had gone missing, and her father had fallen ill. For whatever reason, suitors had not come—not the missing prince chosen by her father, and not the sons of the small circle of local gentry. Ryan had realized that there were no guarantees. She was not the sort of woman that men viewed as... well.
She was not the sort of woman whom men looked upon with interest. To presume some man might court her? Marry her? These were fairy dreams.
By the time she and Diana discovered that Winscombe was in debt, Ryan had forgotten all about the Prince d’Orleans and any other man. Her life was full of sisters, and her ailing father, and the grief of a mother who had fallen very ill, very quickly, and then died the next week. She took on the responsibilities of managing a household when she was barely out of the schoolroom. Her life had not been without trials, but it was very full; and she truly believed it was a privilege to be so very needed and to have the cleverness and energy to provide for everyone in it. Ryan had been given many gifts, she knew this.
Butoh.
Oh, how this deep forest, and this dark cave, how thisgiant manplucked and pulled at some long-overlooked yearning inside of her. It was like the errant string on the sleeve of this nightshirt; her fingers returned to it again and again, fingering, twirling, tugging gently until it snapped. She wanted to be touchedand twirled; she wanted to have her strength tested. She wanted to snap.
In this moment, it didn’t matter so much that he’d refused to oust his cousin. In this moment, she was crawling into a bed located beneath ahillside. Surely she could indulge in the fantasy of snapping. Just for one night. If only in her mind.
