Page 13 of The Duke's Sinful Deal
The room was modest but sufficient. A small hearth. A single chair. A narrow table.
And one bed.
CHAPTER 5
The inn was smaller than Arabella had expected, and far louder.
Voices carried easily through the main room, laughter rising and falling in uneven bursts, the scrape of chairs against wooden floors adding to the restless noise. It was not unpleasant, only unfamiliar. She had been surrounded by people often enough, yet this felt different from the controlled gatherings of the ton. There was no restraint here, no sly observation beneath polite smiles. Everything was immediate and unguarded.
She sat across from Maxwell at the narrow table they had been given, her hands folded neatly in her lap for a moment before she reached for her fork. The food had been placed before them without ceremony, simple but warm, the scent of it enough to remind her that she had not eaten since morning.
Still, she found she had little appetite.
Her gaze drifted, unbidden, to him.
He had not changed the way he sat, nor the way he carried himself. Even here, in a place that did not belong to him, he seemed entirely unyielding, as though the space had simply arranged itself around his presence. The mask remained in place, the rest of him composed in that same controlled manner she had come to expect.
And yet?—
Her attention caught, briefly, at the line of his shirt where it stretched across his chest.
She looked away at once.
The memory returned before she could stop it. The warmth beneath her fingers. The solid, unyielding strength had not matched the coldness of his voice. She pressed her lips together, lowering her gaze to her plate, willing the thought away.
This was absurd.She thought and took a small bite, though she barely tasted it.
“You are not eating?” he said.
The observation was quiet, but it startled her enough that she glanced up. “I am,” she replied, though her fork had not moved again.
“Not sufficiently.”
Arabella let out a small breath, setting her fork down. “I am not accustomed to traveling in such a manner,” she said, though that was only part of it. “It will take some adjustment.”
He did not press further, though she could feel his attention linger for a moment longer before he returned to his meal.
The silence that followed was not uncomfortable, but it was not easy either. It carried too much awareness, too much of what had already passed between them in the short time they had known each other.
By the time they returned to their room, Arabella’s thoughts had settled back onto the fact that there was only one bed.
She had known it the moment they stepped inside, but it felt different now, after the quiet of the meal, after the memory of his presence pressed too closely against her thoughts.
The room itself was modest, though clean. A small hearth crackled faintly, casting uneven light across the walls. The bed stood against one side, neatly made, its presence impossible to ignore, no matter where she directed her gaze.
Arabella moved first, stepping toward the chair near the hearth, removing her gloves with careful precision. “I shall take the chair,” she said, her tone composed. “It will suffice for the night.”
Maxwell did not look at her immediately. He set his coat aside, his movements unhurried. “You will not,” he said.
She stilled. “I beg your pardon?”
“The bed is sufficient for two,” he replied, as though stating a fact of no consequence. “You will take it.”
“And you?” she asked.
“I will manage.”
Arabella hesitated, her fingers tightening slightly around the fabric of her gloves. “This is unnecessary,” she said. “I am perfectly capable of?—”
