IT HAD NEVER occurred to Lark that the train wouldn’t run on time. She’d expected to arrive at Berwick-upon-Tweed early enough to have supper with Seaton before he dropped her off at the Courts’ home. Instead, the train pulled into the station long past midnight, following an endless delay caused by the need to replace a missing rail. They were lucky the engineer had noticed the problem in time to prevent a terrible accident. It had been necessary to back up to the nearest town and send for the supplies that were needed to make the repair.
Lark felt hot and tired and cranky. The cough she’d thought was merely something caught in her throat had persisted, and even gotten worse. Her eyes were watering, and her nose had started to run so much that she’d used up not only her own handkerchief but Seaton’s as well.
“I don’t see how I can show up at the Courts’ home in the middle of the night. Everyone will be in bed,” she explained to Seaton. “I’ll have to get a room in town for the night.”
“Your brother will kill me,” Seaton muttered. “After he stands me before an altar with you by my side.”
Lark would have felt more guilty, if getting Seaton to the altar wasn’t the main reason she’d come on this adventure. “I’ve stayed at an inn before.”
“With your grandmother and your sister and an abigail or two, I have no doubt,” Seaton said curtly. “What is the innkeeper going to think, when I ask for a room for a single young lady with no chaperon in sight?”
Lark blushed. When he put it that way, it made the situation sound licentious. “Maybe I could be your sister.”
“Traveling without a maid for respectability?” he said, arching a disdainful brow.
“Then I’ll have to be your wife.”
Seaton choked on whatever it was he was about to say and had a coughing fit before he could speak again. “Are you suggesting we stay in the same room? Together?”
“I trust you not to take advantage.”
“That’s big of you. Where do you propose the two of us should sleep in a room with a single bed?”
Lark pursed her lips in response to what she considered an idiotic question. “If you give me a pillow and one of the blankets, I can sleep on the floor. I’ve done it before, when Lindsey and I made a tent of our bed linens and pretended we lived in a harem in Arabia.”
Seaton rolled his eyes, then lowered his head in defeat. “I will sleep on the floor, of course.”
Lark blinked to clear her blurred eyes and pressed Seaton’s handkerchief against her runny nose. “Then we’re going to share a room?”
“Against my better judgment. Just let me do the talking.”
Lark slid her arm through Seaton’s as they entered the closest establishment to the train station, a place called the Black Swan, and tried her best to look like his wife.
“I’d like a room, please,” Seaton said when the sleepy innkeeper showed up in response to a bell that rang when he’d opened the door, adding belatedly, “for myself and my wife.”
Lark gave the innkeeper her most brilliant smile. “We’re newlyweds.”
She heard Seaton moan softly beside her.
“Then you’ll be wantin’ the bridal suite,” the innkeeper said with a grin.
“That’s not necessary,” Seaton replied in a quelling voice.
“Surely you want the best room in the house for your bride,” the innkeeper said. “It’s only a little more blunt than a regular room.”
Lark figured the bridal suite was likely larger than the run-of-the-mill room, and they would be needing the space to make a bed for Seaton on the floor. “Please, darling?” she said, fluttering her eyelashes in a way she’d seen Lady Frockman, her grandmother’s crony, do when she wanted something from her husband.
Seaton made a sound in his throat that could have been a groan or a moan, but was definitely disturbing, since it suggested he wasn’t pleased with her interference. “Very well, my dear.”
It might have been thrilling to hear Seaton call her “my dear” for the very first time, if she hadn’t also discerned the sarcasm that accompanied the cherished address. She felt so hot and so very, very tired. She just wanted to lie down on cool, dry sheets and go to sleep.
Seaton took the key the innkeeper offered, listened to his directions for how to reach the room, then pulled his arm free of hers, as he picked up both his bag and hers, and headed up the stairs.
The bridal suite turned out to be on the corner at the end of the upstairs hall. Seaton opened the door and lit the lamp, before gesturing her inside.
All she could see was the enormous bed that took up the entire room. There was barely room to walk around its edges. A small dressing table and chair had been crammed in one corner, but it was clear where the occupants of this room were expected to spend their time. Lark gulped and turned wide eyes on Seaton, whose lips had thinned to nothing.
He dropped both their bags on the floor and said, “I’ll be staying downstairs in the taproom, of course.”
“What is the innkeeper going to think when you show up downstairs again?”
“That I need a drink,” he said flatly.
She pressed Seaton’s handkerchief to her nose, which was dripping again. “We could share the bed.”
He barked a laugh that didn’t sound the least bit amused. “I will remain downstairs by the fire. I may not get any sleep, but at least I’ll be warm.”
“David, it’s silly to spend the night sitting up in a chair when you can be comfortable in bed.” She saw his eyes widen at her use of his first name and flushed. Her slip had only made the situation worse.
“Comfortable?” he snarled. “In bed with a single young lady to whom I’m not married? My best friend’s sister, in fact? Are you really so naïve, Lady Lark?”
She coughed, then took a step closer to the bed and began pulling the pillows from under the counterpane and arranging them down the center of the bed. “We can make a barrier. We’re both adults and—”
“That’s questionable,” he interjected.
She continued without acknowledging the jibe. “And I trust you to respect my person.”
“It isn’t done. Traveling alone was bad enough, but this will put you beyond the pale. Your grandmother—and your brother—will want to know where you spent the night. They’re sure to discover I’ve hired a single room, after telling the innkeeper we’re man and wife. What you’re suggesting simply won’t do. If I stay in the taproom, I won’t have to lie to your brother about sleeping in the same bed with you.”
“Marcus won’t think the worse of you,” she argued.
“Your brother knows me rather too well,” Seaton said. “He’s seen me with enough young women to know my tastes.”
Lark was suddenly alert, staring intently into his warm green eyes which, she admitted, looked troubled. “And I match the sort of woman to whom you’re attracted? Is that what you’re saying?”
She was surprised to see him flush. Which was when she noticed the dark beard growing on his cheeks and chin. And that his suit was rumpled and his hair in disarray. She’d never seen him look quite so disheveled. Or quite so alluring.
Lark took a step closer without realizing what she was doing and saw his gaze focus on her mouth for a moment, before it shifted back to her eyes. She hoped they didn’t look as red and swollen as they felt. He gazed into them as though he couldn’t get enough of looking at her, as though he would be happy to continue what he was doing for the rest of his life. So she was taken aback by the words he spoke, in a voice that was harsh and cross.
“I have no desire to be married, Lady Lark. Not now, and not for a very long time, if ever. So the sort of young lady to whom I’m attracted, while she might be a joy to look at, like you, and have black silky hair and sapphire eyes, like you, does not expect a ring on her finger, like you. She’s satisfied with a few pounds or a few baubles.”
Lark had been protected from the world beyond her grandmother’s parlor, and it took her a moment to register what Seaton had said. She couldn’t believe he’d spoken to her about something that was no part of her world. She wasn’t sure how to reply. She wasn’t sure how to react. The only thing she could think to say was “Oh.”
He must have seen her shock, because he continued, “I never intended to speak so frankly, but it’s better that you understand why it’s imperative that I keep my distance.”
Lark saw the chagrin on his face, as he realized what he’d admitted. “So you are attracted to me.”
“Whether I am or whether I’m not should mean nothing to you, since I’m not a prospective bridegroom.”
“Won’t you need an heir someday?” she asked. “Won’t that require a wife?”
“Maybe. Someday. But you’ll already be an old married lady with a half dozen children sitting at your knee when that day comes.”
Lark frowned. She’d had no idea Seaton was so opposed to marriage. She couldn’t resist asking, “Why?”
“What?”
“Why don’t you want to get married?”
“You saw what your brother went through with Fanny. He barely survived the pain of it. I don’t think I could bear to lose a wife and child.”
“Not every wife dies. Or every newborn, for that matter.”
“Enough do die to make loving a wife—and having her bear your children—a risky business. I refuse to do it.” He heaved a sigh. “How did you get me started on this?”
“I asked you to share my bed.”
He pursed his lips. “Yes. An invitation not to be refused, if I were a dishonorable cad. Or if I had aspirations of becoming a married man. Which I don’t. So I’ll be spending the night downstairs. Have a good sleep, Lady Lark. I’ll see you for breakfast in the taproom in the morning.”
A moment later he was gone, and Lark was left alone in the bridal suite. What had she expected? Of course he hadn’t stayed in the room with her, when there was no room for either one of them to sleep on the floor. He was a gentleman. Not to mention a good friend to her brother. He wasn’t going to take the chance of ruining her and forcing the two of them into marriage, especially when he had such a fear of the institution.
So where did that leave her? Should she give up and spend the rest of the week with the Courts’ servants? Or should she fight for the man she loved?
With the very last of her energy, Lark prepared herself for bed, pondering the task ahead of her. How did you convince a man that loving a woman was worth it, despite the chance of losing your loved one at some point in the future? How did you convince a man that the risk of a wife dying in childbirth was worth it for the joy of holding your child in your arms?
Lark didn’t get a great deal of sleep over the next several hours. She was miserably hot and, for some reason, itchy, and got up to open the window. Then she was thirsty and got up to pour herself a glass of water from the pitcher, which turned out to be empty. She was too tired to call someone to bring her water, so she went back to bed thirsty, and more tired than she could ever remember being.
She tossed and turned under the covers, as her troubled mind tried to figure out a way she could possibly convince the man she loved—a man who had no intention of ever getting married—that she was the one woman he had to have in his life.