Lessons from a Scandalous Bride (Forgotten Princesses #2)(41)

Then Logan was there, sliding his hand along her cheek, pulling her to him. “Are you all right?”

She nodded, a lump forming in her throat. For some absurd reason, she felt the urge to weep. A hint of a sob broke free from her lips before she managed to swallow it back. With a deep breath, she reclaimed her composure and pulled away. “Forgive me. I’m rather emotional.”

She made out his crooked smile. “You’re entitled to that. A man just held a pistol to your head and threatened to kill you. Most females would weep under such circumstances.”

“I’m not most females,” she countered before she could consider her words. “I’m supposed to be stronger.”

“Who says so?”

She held his gaze for a moment, resisting the rejoinder: Me.

She’d always expected more from herself. The eldest of her mother’s children, she was responsible for keeping everything and everyone together—from shattering within the walls of her stepfather’s house.

She was still that. The responsible one who would save them all. She could show no weakness . . . allow no vulnerability in. Not then. Not now.

“It’s okay to feel fear.” Something flickered in his gaze—a shadow of some emotion she’d never seen from him. “God knows I did when I saw him put that pistol to your head. It took everything for me to stay my hand and wait for the moment when I could get a clean hit on him.”

He’d been afraid? For her?

Suddenly his hand on her face became everything, her entire world, where all sensation ended and began. He bowed his head until their foreheads touched. His breath mingled with hers until it felt as though they were one. She closed her eyes against the fanciful thought . . . tried to push it back to that place where she had long buried her dreams.

“We’d better get moving,” she suggested, stepping away from him.

His sigh floated on the air. “Very well.” He helped her remount, and she heaved her own sigh of relief to escape his touch—to be on their way. One step closer to putting this night behind.





Chapter Sixteen

The village was as still and silent as a tomb. They passed a vicarage at the far end of the lane. Not a single light flowed from its windows. A dog woke and barked as they approached the small inn. If it could be called that. It appeared little more than a house with a crooked shingle hanging outside. A candle glowed from an upstairs window and Cleo took comfort in that. Someone would answer their knock and treat them to a modicum of hospitality. Hopefully, at this late hour they would face few questions.

The door was flung open and a bedraggled woman stood there, a lacy old-fashioned cap askew on her head. A gray-streaked plait hung loose and unraveling over her well-padded shoulder.

She lifted her lantern high to better inspect them. “What can I do for you?”

“We need a room for the night, if you please.”

“Late, isn’t it?”

“Quite. And we’re very tired. We’d prefer a warm bed to the hard earth.” Logan flashed her a handsome grin. Cleo rolled her eyes, feeling certain that smile could get him most anything.

The woman looked them over anew, missing nothing. No doubt she was running the odds of them being murderers through her mind. Apparently satisfied with whatever she saw in them—or didn’t see—she flicked a hand toward her stable. “The lad is gone for the night. You’ll have to tend to your own mount. Our lodgings are small. I’ve only four bedchambers and all are taken save one. Fortunate for you. Your lady can follow me and I’ll see her settled whilst you tend to your mount.”

Cleo opened her mouth to object, but Logan sent her a swift shake of his head. “That would be much appreciated,” he said smoothly.

The inn mistress’s already ruddy cheeks deepened in color. “Yes, well, if you’re hungry I suppose I can light the stove and—”

“Please, don’t trouble yourself,” Cleo assured her.

Right now she merely wanted to fall into a bed and lose herself in sleep . . . where she didn’t have to contemplate what was becoming the longest night of her life.

And she especially wouldn’t have to ponder the wondrous and confusing feelings the man beside her stirred inside her heart.

As Logan headed off for the stable, the proprietress led her inside, past a small parlor with a dying fire and up the creaking stairs. A man with wild, sleep-mussed hair peeped out from a room as they walked down the narrow corridor.

“Back to bed with you, sir. Just another guest arriving.”

With a grunted mutter, the man disappeared inside his room.

“My name is Mrs. Cantrell,” she declared as she opened the door to a small gabled room—obviously located at the corner of the house—that smelled of lye.

Entering the room, Cleo rotated in a small circle, surveying where she and Logan would spend the night together. Her gaze drifted to the bed and away. It didn’t look big enough for one person. It couldn’t possibly fit two. At least not comfortably. Heat swamped her face. Not that she was concerned with it holding two bodies. She certainly wouldn’t be sharing the bed with him. Logan might insist they share this room, but she would not share a bed with him.

Her chest tightened almost painfully and she quickly distracted herself by facing Mrs. Cantrell. “Thank you, Mrs. Cantrell. We won’t be needing anything else.”