Twenty
Despite having a good deal of practice sleeping in a chair, Alasdair slept fitfully. Finally, he heard some stirrings in the house. Arabella’s breathing continued deep and even in the dark room. He crossed to the windows and twitched the drapery aside slightly. The sun was up but it was a gray light. Snow still fell. He crossed back to his chair and dressed himself in the dark. Then he sat and waited.
Just as he was dropping off into a doze again, he heard Arabella stir.
“Alasdair?”
“Aye?”
“Is it morning?”
“Aye.”
“Would you light a lamp or pull the drapes so I can see you?”
He crossed back to the window and pulled the drapes open. The gray light filtered in. He turned back to her.
She was sitting up in the bed, her hair a wild, golden mass around her head. “Is it still snowing?”
“Aye,” he said and smiled at the sight of her. She was heartbreakingly beautiful.
“Come sit next to me.” She patted the mattress. He saw that she had his brown scarf next to her.
He crossed to the bed and hovered for a moment before sitting down next to her.
There was a warm, sweet scent around her in the bed. It was the smell he had come to think of as Arabella’s.
The bedcovers were at her waist. The nightdress was the only thing shielding her breasts from his eyes, and he thought he could see a shadow of her areolas and her nipples under the thin fabric. But he wasn’t sure.
“Am I so frightening, Alasdair?” She reached out and straightened the tartan scarf at his neck that he had worn through the night.
“Nae,” he said and forced himself to look at her face. “But ye do have the mane of a lion this morning.”
“Yes,” she said but she made no move to arrange her hair. “I always have in the morning. All of my lady’s maids despaired of me and my hair.”
He permitted himself to touch her hair as a reward for not spending the night in her bed, for not touching her breasts now. He put one of his hands up to her head and he stroked a tendril, pulling it lightly so that it straightened and then releasing it so it curled back again.
“Yer hair is like an alive thing.” He brushed another tendril near her temple with his fingers.
“Yes, you will see that it is quite untamable.” And she turned her face into his hand and kissed his palm.
Her lips on that sensitive place. Warm. A small lick of a soft tongue. His cock throbbed and he thought of ripping off the covers and her nightdress, baring her entirely to his eyes, his hands, his body.
After a moment, he withdrew his hand and got up from the bed.
A fortuitous knock. A rattle of the knob of the locked door.
“It will be yer friend’s lady’s maid,” he said. “I will leave ye and find a razor.” He bowed.
Her eyes looked hurt.
“I look forward to breakfasting with ye, Miss Lovelock. Will it cause a scandal do ye think if I feed ye at the table?”
“Certainly,” she said and laughed. “But I hope that you will do it anyway.”
At the breakfast table, Alasdair made a very good breakfast of ham, toast, smoked haddock, black pudding, porridge, tea. There were no eggs, he was informed by the butler Andrews.
“The chickens do not seem to like the snow, Doctor.”
