The Virtuous Widow Read Free Page B

bedroom.

    “Bend your head again.” This time she was ready when he lurched forward and stumbled into her room. She managed to steer him to the small curtained-off alcove where her bed stood. He sprawled across it with a groan and lay there, unmoving. She collapsed beside him, gasping for breath, weak with relief. Her breath clouded visibly in the icy air. She had to get him covered, while he was still warm from the exertion of the climb.
    She had no nightshirt for him to wear. He was too broad in the shoulders and chest for any of her clothing and she had long ago sold anything of Hart’s that remained. The few thin blankets she had did not look warm enough to keep an unconscious man from catching a chill. The thickest, warmest coverings were on Amy’s bed.
    She wrapped him in a sheet and tugged the covers over him. She took all the clothes she possessed and spread them out over the bed—dresses, shawls, a faded pelisse, a threadbare cloak—any layer of cloth which would help keep out the cold. She fetched the hot brick and set it at his feet. Then she stood back. She could do no more. She was shivering herself, she realised. And her feet were frozen. She normally got into bed to keep warm.
    But tonight there was a strange man in her bed.
    Amy’s bed was only a narrow bench, as long and as wide as a child. No room for Ellie there. Downstairs, the fire was dying. Ellie sat on the wooden stool, drew her knees against her chest and wrapped her shawl even tighter around herself in an illusion of warmth. She had used up all her extra clothes to make the bed warm for the stranger. She stared across at him. He lay there, warm, relaxed, comfortable while she hugged herself against the cold. He had collapsed. He was insensible. He wouldn’t know she was there.

    She crept to the edge of the bed on frozen toes and looked at him. He lay on his back, his breathing deep and regular. In the frail light of the candle the bandage glimmered white against his tanned skin and the thick, dark, tousled hair. There was a shadow of dark bristle on his lean, angular jaw. He seemed so big and dark and menacing in her bed. He took up much more of it than she did. And what if he woke?
    She couldn’t do this. She crept back to her stool. The chill settled. Drafts whispered up at her, insinuating themselves against her skin, nibbling at her like rats. Her chattering teeth echoed a crazed counterpoint to his deep, even breaths.
    She had no choice. It was her bed, after all. It would do nobody any good if she froze to death out here. What mattered propriety when it came to her very health? She ran downstairs again and fetched her frying pan. She took a deep breath, wrapped the sheet more tightly around herself and stepped into the sleeping alcove, frying pan in hand. Feeling as if she were burning her bridges, she closed the curtains which kept the cold drafts out. In the tiny, enclosed space, she felt even more alone with the stranger than ever…
    Outside, pellets of hail beat against her window.
    Carefully, stealthily, Ellie tucked the pan under the edge of the mattress, comfortingly to hand, then crept under the bedclothes. He wasn’t just in her bed, he took up most of the space. And almost all of the bedclothes. Without warning, she found herself lying hard against him, full length, his big body touching hers from shoulder to ankle. Threadbare sheets were all that lay between them. Ellie went rigid with anxiety. She poked him. “Hsst! Are you awake?” Her hand hovered, ready to snatch up the pan.
    He didn’t move; he just lay there, breathing slowly and evenly as he had for the last fifteen minutes. She tried to move away from him, but his weight had caused the mattress to sag. Her body could not help but roll downhill towards him. Against him. It was a most unsettling sensation. She wriggled a little, trying to reduce the contact between them. Her frozen toes slipped from their sheet and touched his long legs…and she sighed with