“Especially since I leave again before dawn.”
The words landed hard enough that I felt them physically.
Before dawn.
Of course. This wasn’t Geoffrey returning home for good. Something in my face must have shifted because his expression gentled immediately.
“Harper—”
“Sit down before you fall down.”
The corner of his mouth moved faintly.
“Yes, Lady Harper of Thames.”
I ignored the entirely unreasonable effect that title now had on me and pointed toward the chair beside the hearth.
He lowered himself into it with the careful slowness of a man whose body had stopped reporting injuries to his brain several days ago.
Up close the exhaustion was worse. His eyes were shadowed. Stubble darkened his jaw. One shoulder moved stiffly beneath the soaked cloak. The wool gloves had gone nearly black with rain.
Without thinking, I crouched beside the hearth and added another piece of wood to the fire.
Heat bloomed upward immediately. Steam began lifting faintly from the hem of Geoffrey’s cloak.
“You’ll ruin the chair,” I said.
“The chair has survived politics. I suspect it can survive rain.”
I moved behind him before I could overthink the decision.
“Your cloak.”
Geoffrey went still as my fingers brushed the wet wool at his shoulders. The fabric was heavy with rainwater, colder than I expected. I worked the clasp loose carefully while trying very hard not to think about the simple reality of standing this close to him.
His hair brushed the back of my wrist as the clasp finally loosened and I pulled the soaked cloak slowly from his shoulders. The dark tunic beneath was damp through at the collar and laced open slightly at the throat. Rain had soaked the linen beneath it nearly transparent at one shoulder.
My brain chose that exact moment to stop functioning.
“You rode hard,” I said quietly.
“I received a letter.”
My hands paused against the weight of the cloak. The room suddenly felt very warm.
“You receive letters constantly.”
“Not usually ones informing me that the writer has become attached to me.”
I closed my eyes briefly. “Oh good,” I said. “Excellent. Wonderful. I was hoping never to recover from that embarrassment.”
A soft laugh escaped him then. Real. Tired. Warm.
“You should know,” Geoffrey said, “I read that sentence three times before sleeping.”
“You slept?”
“Briefly.”
