Hidden Affections (4 page)

The first thing Annabelle saw when she opened her eyes was the figure of a man bathed in a soft glow of light coming from the dying embers of the fire. To her horror, he was lounging in the metal tub next to the bed, with a bandaged wrist dangling over the side. It took several moments before she could remember where she was and why she was there and that the man in the tub was no stranger.

He was her husband.

With her heart still pounding, she slammed her eyes shut again. Fortunately, Harrison’s face was turned toward the dying embers in the hearth, which meant he had no idea she was even awake. In the weak light, all she had actually been able to see was the outline of his broad shoulders, just a hint of dark wavy hair that spread across his muscled chest, and his bent knees. But her cheeks burned nevertheless.

With her senses reeling, her mind grappled with the very aggravating reality that she had actually gotten married again and wondered what Harrison would say if he knew he had married a divorced woman instead of a single maiden. Memories of the scandal that erupted when news of her divorce spread through the small community she had called home for all of her life were still so raw, anguishing pain tore through her very soul and stole her breath away. She would never forget the harsh comments and cold rejection she suffered from people who had been her friends and neighbors, and it had taken many long months of prayer to forgive them.

Determined never to experience that sort of rejection from anyone again, she held on to Harrison’s promise that their marriage would simply be annulled and regarded as if it never existed. With a glance his way, she tugged, as quietly as she could, at the oversized flannel nightgown Mrs. Lawrence had lent to her that had risen up to her knees.

She did not know how long he had been in the tub, but she was certain she did not want to disturb him, either. Not this man. He was far too comfortable in his own skin to care that she might see him while he was still bathing.

Minute after anxious minute, she held absolutely still, too afraid to move a single muscle and half afraid to breathe while she waited to hear him resume his bath. When her muscles started to ache and she still had not detected any sound, other than that of his heavy breathing, she wondered if he had actually fallen asleep. She herself had drifted off while bathing on occasion, but nonetheless she found it hard to believe he might have done the same thing. Hopeful that he must simply be resting a bit or thinking, she forced herself to wait him out and stay awake in the process.

Eventually, however, curiosity overwhelmed her common sense, which told her he was far too tall to extend his legs, slide under the water, and drown. She risked another peek from beneath the quilt, but the air in the room was so chilly, she quickly slid back under the covers again.

Confounded man. He had not moved at all. Either he had heard her wake up and was feigning sleep in some twisted attempt to embarrass her, or he had actually dozed off.

When he began to snore, however, she knew the latter was true and faced a difficult dilemma. If she let him continue to sleep in a tub filled with water that must be chilled by now, in front of a fire that had been reduced to embers, he could end up with lung fever. Added to the injuries he had suffered—one of which she was partly responsible for—he could very well become so ill that he would not be able to travel for a good week or more.

On the other hand, if she woke him up, she would be within arm’s reach of a naked man, and there was no telling what he might do, particularly since he was legally her husband.

Since she had to be in Philadelphia in a matter of days or lose her one opportunity to make a new life for herself, she knew her situation was desperate. She sighed in frustration, turned her face in the opposite direction, and snapped the quilt down from her face again. “Mr. Graymoor! Wake up!” she whispered and waited to hear the water slosh to let her know he had heard her.

Drat! Not a sound.

She cleared her throat and tried again, raising her voice as loud as she dared without startling him overmuch.

Still no response, except for footsteps just outside the door.

Moments later, a thin ribbon of light appeared beneath the bedroom door, and she heard someone she assumed to be Mrs. Lawrence clang some pots together. Within moments, the tantalizing smells of frying bacon wafted into the room, and Annabelle groaned. The innkeeper’s wife was making breakfast, which meant Annabelle must have slept clear through the night to the next morning.

The only question that remained to be answered was whether or not Harrison had spent the entire night in that tub.

Frustrated when he continued to snore, apparently oblivious to the increasing noise in the kitchen and tantalizing aromas that made her stomach growl, she scooted up into a sitting position. She worked as quietly as she could to fashion the top half of the quilt into a cape of sorts, letting the tip of the quilt fall forward, much like a deep hood would have done. Satisfied she was as properly dressed as she could be, considering Mrs. Lawrence had taken all of her clothes away to be freshened up, she narrowed her gaze and glanced around the room looking for something to toss at him to wake him up.

She opted for one of the pillows, caught her breath, and tossed it in Harrison’s direction. When it fell short and landed on top of his boots, she grabbed the other pillow and aimed for his knees again. Instead, it landed squarely on top of his head.

Cringing, she saw his arms flail. Water sloshed over the rim of the tub, and before she could avert her gaze, he scrambled to his feet, slipped, and fell sideways. Her heart nearly leaped right out of her chest when his torso landed on the bed. In his frantic attempt to break his fall, he yanked at the bedclothes and pulled her makeshift cape right off of her, along with the rest of the blankets and even the sheet as he struggled back to his feet.

Yelping, she scurried to reclaim the sheet and cover herself. “Stop! Right now! Stop!”

He groaned as he untangled himself from the bedclothes and tossed them back onto the bed. “W-why is it so c-cold in here?”

“The fire is nearly out, although I rather think that the fact you fell asleep in the tub has something to do with it,” she replied, trying to push the wet blankets away without looking directly at him.

“It’s been a rather trying two days, in case you’ve forgotten,” he snapped.

“Unfortunately, I doubt I’ll forget the past two days if I live to be ninety.” She sniffed her displeasure as she felt the mattress give way, and she assumed he had sat down on the bed. But she didn’t dare look his direction. “What are you doing now? I . . . I thought you were making arrangements with Mr. Lawrence for a separate room for yourself.”

He huffed. “I failed, which shouldn’t surprise you, since I’ve been nothing but inept for the past two days. And if you must know, I’m removing my dripping wet trousers, then I’m going to crawl into this bed—which, sad to say, is the only bed available—and try to get warm.”

She scooted to the far side of the bed. “Is it customary for men from Philadelphia to wear trousers when they bathe, or is that just one of your many odd personal habits—in addition to toying with the affections of married women like Camille Jenkins?” She was horrified to think that she was mere moments away from having a naked man in her bed, even if he was her husband. She’d only shared the marriage bed once during her previous weeklong marriage.

“Are you deliberately trying to be difficult, or is that simply part of your nature?” he grumbled. “Never mind. I spent enough time handcuffed to you to know it’s an annoying combination of both.”

“Actually, it’s neither. I’m merely curious.” She started shivering and yanked a dry blanket free from the tangled mess of damp ones to try to get warm again.

He sighed. “First, I didn’t toy with Camille’s affections. I merely listened to her and made her feel important, which is something her husband should have a mind to do once in a while. Second, I didn’t remove my trousers before I got into the tub for a very simple reason. The blood was so caked around the hole you poked into my thigh with those knitting needles of yours that I thought it might be better all around to let the hot water soak the blood free first before I tried to remove my trousers.”

“You wouldn’t have had that problem if you’d listened to me and stopped to see Dr. Marley. We practically passed his home on our way here. And that wound in your thigh isn’t entirely my fault. You wouldn’t have been hurt in the first place if you’d held still while I tried to fiddle with the lock on those handcuffs to see if I could force it open,” she argued, determined not to let him add another layer to the guilt she already felt for injuring him.

Coughing, he eased into the bed and covered himself with the blankets and quilts, which sent her scooting to the very edge of the mattress. “I don’t need a doctor. All I need is a good warm bed and an equally good night’s sleep. I’m too cold and too tired to argue, so I’d appreciate it if you’d leave me to suffer in peace.”

She slipped out of bed, horrified to think he was lying there naked, mere inches away from her, and kept the blanket wrapped tightly around her. He was shivering so hard now that he actually shook the mattress. “In point of fact, it’s morning, which means you’ve already missed out on a good night’s sleep, and unless I get that fire going strong again, those blankets aren’t going to be enough to warm you up. Not after spending most of the night in that tub,” she suggested.

“I’ll take care of the fire. I just need a minute to—”

“Don’t move. I’ll do it,” she insisted and she worked her way around to the foot of the bed.

“Are you sure you know what you’re doing?”

She sniffed, tripped over one of his boots, and barely caught herself before she pitched forward onto her knees. “I grew up on a farm and had plenty of chores to do. Tending the fire was one of them,” she explained and carefully loaded more wood onto the fire from the large stack of wood stored next to the fireplace.

Satisfied with her work, she made her way around the tub and back to her side of the mattress. She was reluctant to get back into the bed when he was lying there, even though it appeared he had already fallen asleep, but she had no desire to spend the next few hours standing around wearing a blanket, either.

In all truth, she really wanted to get a bit more sleep, which she could not do when he was in the bed, too. Desperate, she suddenly remembered something her mother had once told her about the days when Annabelle’s father came courting, and she knew exactly how to solve her problem. She made several more trips back to the stack of wood, choosing the straightest logs she could find, and started lining them up in a row that ran from the head to the foot, right down the middle of the mattress.

He roused, took one look at what she was doing, and bolted up into a sitting position. “W-what are you doing? Planning to set the bed on fire?”

She covered the logs with a blanket and slipped back into bed. “If you must know, I’m making a bundling board of sorts. It was common practice years ago when couples who were courting lived miles apart and—”

“I know what a bundling board is, but we’re not courting. We’re married,” he argued. Shivering hard, he slipped back down under the covers.

“Only temporarily,” she countered.

He coughed again. “Finally.”

“Finally?”

“We actually agree on something,” he managed before he sneezed.

“Get some sleep. I’ll keep the fire going to keep the room warm,” she promised.

He sneezed again. “Your kindness is appreciated.”

“I’m not being kind,” she insisted. “Merely pragmatic. When the stage for Philadelphia stops here tomorrow, I want to make certain we’re both on it. I’m prepared to do everything and anything I have to do to make that happen, even if it means waiting on you like a servant.”

The stage came and went twice over the course of the next several days, but Annabelle and Harrison were not on board. Dr. Marley visited frequently, but Harrison refused to let the doctor get close enough to treat him, sending him away every single time.

Whether it was lung fever or an infection from his wounds that ravaged his body mattered little to Annabelle. Reducing his fever, tending to the wound on his wrist, and getting her stubborn patient to take some nourishment proved to be all-consuming tasks that had drained her stamina, as well as her patience. Fortunately, the wound in his thigh was healing quite well, which saved her the embarrassment of having to apply poultices to that part of his body.

Six days after their arrival, she awoke at dawn after getting her first full night of sleep. She glanced up from the cot Mr. Lawrence had put next to the sickbed for her, eyes widening the instant she found Harrison was leaning up on one elbow and staring down at her. “Y-you’re awake,” she murmured, surprised to see that the sparkle was already back in his eyes, since his fever had only broken yesterday afternoon.

“Quite so,” he murmured, grinning when she clutched at her blanket and held it just below her chin. “I’m feeling much better now, so I should warn you that I’m well prepared to defend myself if you make any further attempts to torture me,” he said with a shudder, although he never lost that twinkle in his eyes.

“It was my pleasure to torture you,” she retorted. “I just can’t decide which I enjoyed more: packing towels with the snow that fell over the past few days and using them to help bring down your fever, or using that awful-smelling ointment from Dr. Marley on my hands, which ended up being chafed from handling all that snow.”

“Wrapping me in towels filled with snow was particularly barbarous treatment. There must have been another way to bring down my fever,” he argued.

“I tried. Nothing else seemed to be working,” she countered, noting how easily he dismissed her own discomfort and focused on his own. “I might argue that changing the poultice Dr. Marley recommended for the infection in your wrist was rather barbarous from my point of view, considering I ended up with a blackened eye for all my efforts,” she quipped.

“I’ve never hit a woman. Not ever!” he exclaimed. He got back up on his elbows again, leaned forward, and studied her face. His voice grew husky. “Are you quite certain I actually hit you hard enough to blacken your eye?”

“It wasn’t really your fault,” she assured him, regretting her quick words. Annabelle turned her face so he would not see the bruise encircling her eye, even though it had already faded from deep purple to a pale but garish yellow. “You were fevered, and you reacted instinctively when you tried to yank your arm away while I was cleaning the wound you got from those horrid handcuffs. I just didn’t get out of the way fast enough. I did every time after that, though,” she added, trying to keep her tone light so she would not appear to be whining.

“I’m sorry. Truly, truly sorry for hurting you. And for complaining, as well. Instead of being ungrateful and dwelling on my own discomforts, I should be thanking you for taking care of me all this time.” He lowered himself down and rested his head back on his pillow.

“Everyone helped. Besides Dr. Marley, who was very kind and very interested in your welfare despite the fact that you dismissed him every time he tried to come near you, Mrs. Lawrence was very kind to us both. She prepared all our meals, including the broth you had to be cajoled into swallowing in order to rebuild your strength. She helped me change the bedclothes as well and tidy up the room,” she gushed, feeling guilty for taunting him a bit when he really could not be held responsible for his behavior. He had been a very sick man. In point of fact, when he was not sleeping, he had rarely been strong enough to talk to her, except to ask what day it was.

“Where did you get that cot you’re resting on?”

“I have Mr. Lawrence to thank for that. He also filled buckets with the snow so I wouldn’t have to go outside, and he made sure we had enough wood to keep the fire going. He . . . he said you spoke with him once or twice while I was in the kitchen with Mrs. Lawrence taking a meal,” she prompted, hoping he would tell her what they had been talking about, since Mr. Lawrence had been so closemouthed about their conversations.

“As a matter of fact, I did,” he admitted, without offering her anything more. “Today’s date. Do you know it?”

“It’s Thursday, which means it’s the first of December,” she whispered, unable to keep the disappointment out of her voice.

“You missed your appointment.”

She cleared her throat and batted back tears of disappointment. “It was yesterday. Mr. Saddler has surely offered the position to someone else by now.” She stared up at the ceiling. Although she would have been satisfied working in Mr. Saddler’s candy shop, she was still deeply disappointed she would never be able to teach again. Since divorced women were not permitted to teach, her first husband had taken that right away from her when he divorced her to marry someone else. “I’m hopeful there will be other opportunities. In a city the size of Philadelphia, there must be more than one shopkeeper who needs to hire someone.”

“I promised you a settlement once our marriage is annulled, which should allow you to live comfortably for the rest of your life without worrying about finding a position,” he said firmly, although his voice sounded much weaker than it had only moments ago. “In the meantime, I can hardly abandon you to your own resources when I have more than enough to share with you.”

Although she had agreed to let him replace what she had lost during the robbery, she had no intention of relying on this man who had so reluctantly been saddled with her as his wife—regardless of how he felt about it. “For a man who prides himself on being able to really listen to women, you certainly haven’t listened to me, even though I’ve tried several times to make myself very clear. I’m not interested in a settlement from you of any kind. Just an annulment, thank you. And the opportunity to live independently through my own labor,” she added.

“And I’ve tried to make it equally clear that you have no say in the matter. In the first place, I was the one the thieves targeted when they decided to rob the stage. In the second, if I hadn’t taken ill, you would have arrived in Philadelphia in time for your appointment. That makes it my obligation to see that you’re taken care of until we’re both freed from this marriage of ours.”

“Then consider yourself relieved of any responsibility for me at all,” she argued. “But since I’m completely unfamiliar with the city, I would appreciate it if you could help me find a suitable place to live.”

He let out a long sigh. “I can’t risk inviting questions by having you stay at my home, even for a short period of time. I’ll make arrangements for you to live quietly, using your own name, in a respectable boardinghouse. Other than having to wait until my lawyer has the marriage annulled and trying to convince you I truly do have your best interests at heart, I can’t foresee any problems that might arise. Do you?”

She shook her head, fully confident the only possible problem that could arise would be her former husband, Eric Bradley, though he would have no reason to suspect she was anywhere other than in Four Corners, where he had abandoned her. Even if he did, he had told her himself he was well-established with his new wife in New York City, eliminating any fear she might have had that she would encounter him in Philadelphia. “No, I suppose I don’t, but—”

“Good. Now get some sleep. I’d like to leave after breakfast, and we’re not going to stop until we’re in the city again, which I suspect will be sometime tomorrow afternoon.”

“We can’t leave today. The stage isn’t due to stop here again until tomorrow,” she offered and wondered whether he was getting fevered again or was simply anxious to be rid of her company.

“We’re not taking the stage. We’re—”

“Well, we certainly aren’t going to ride that far. I’ve been astride quite enough lately, and you’re definitely in no condition to ride. Like it or not, you’ll have to be content to wait for the stage. . . .”

“Do you always leap to conclusions, or do you simply enjoy arguing for the sake of arguing?”

She huffed. “I didn’t leap to any conclusion, and I’m not trying to argue with you. I’m simply trying to point out that we don’t have any logical way to travel to Philadelphia other than by stage.”

“I never said we were taking the stage. By now my private coach and two of my drivers should be parked somewhere in the vicinity of the inn’s stable, waiting for us. I promised Mr. Lawrence a handsome reward some days ago to send word to my staff in Philadelphia that I needed both. Unless I was dreaming last night when I spoke to the innkeeper, which I most definitely was not, he assured me that all would be ready for us to leave this morning after breakfast.”

“He never said a word!”

A chuckle. “I told him not to tell you.”

“You might pray that the drivers you sent for are closemouthed. Otherwise, you can add yet two more names to the list of people who know about our marriage.”

Harrison snorted. “I don’t need to rely on prayer. I pay my staff extremely well to be discreet.”

“Given your reputation, I shouldn’t be surprised,” she snapped.

“Go to sleep. And stop sounding like a . . . like a wife.”

She pursed her lips and wondered if this man prayed for much of anything at all.

There was indeed a private coach nearby, ready to take them both back to Philadelphia.

By ten o’clock, Harrison had dressed in the clean clothes his drivers had brought for him. While he ate a solid meal for the first time in many days, Annabelle slipped back into the room they had shared. Grateful for the privacy she needed to dress and get ready to leave, she was surprised to see that her travel gown, which Mrs. Lawrence had freshened and pressed, was lying on the bed next to a hunter green cape.

When she picked up the soft woolen garment, she grinned when she saw that it had a full hood and deep pockets that held a pair of leather gloves dyed to match the cape. She was so happy she would have something to keep her warm during their journey, she wasted little thought on his extravagant gift or how he had managed to secure it for her on such short notice.

Instead, she dressed quickly, making sure the certificate for her first marriage and divorce decree, along with her first wedding ring, were safely tucked away inside a thin cotton pouch she pinned to her chemise. Her knitting stick was secured at her waist.

After brushing her hair with her fingers, she twisted the long, wavy tresses into a thick braid she let fall down her back, donned the cape, and met him back in the kitchen with her gloves in her hands. “I’d like to say it wasn’t necessary for you to provide me with such a fine cape to wear, but that wouldn’t be altogether true. I appreciate that you thought of my comfort, and I . . . I thank you,” she murmured.

When he smiled, his dimples deepened and his eyes glimmered with satisfaction. “The color becomes you. I’m glad you’re pleased.”

His gaze was so intense, she felt her cheeks warm, and she looked beyond him to see Mrs. Lawrence standing next to the table holding a pair of wooden baskets. She was wearing a grin so wide it nearly reached her ears.

“Mr. Lawrence is out at the coach with your drivers setting in those warmed bricks you asked for, and I’ve got enough victuals packed up in here for everyone to last the entire trip, just like you wanted,” she offered, handing over both of the baskets.

Harrison grasped them, and when he looked down and smiled at her, the innkeeper’s wife actually blushed. “You’re a good, good woman. Thank you,” he said and pressed a kiss to her forehead.

As Harrison exchanged a few words with Mrs. Lawrence, Annabelle was fascinated by the transformation that had taken place in their relationship. When they had first arrived at the inn, the woman had made it perfectly clear that she thought he was the worst kind of scoundrel. That he had been able to charm the woman into changing her opinion of him, only hours after emerging from their room, merely added more credence to the claims about this man’s reputation she had heard from both Sheriff Taylor and Mr. Jenkins. If Harrison could charm this elderly woman, Annabelle had no doubt he would have an even greater effect on women his own age.