Chapter 28

CHAPTER 28

" W hat are we going to do about sleeping arrangements?" Cressida asked.

It was an easy question, of course. "You'll take the bed," Matthew said, picking up one of the pillows. "I'll sleep on the floor."

"I can't let you do that," Cressida objected. "This is your room."

"Don't be silly. This is our room."

"Well—but I was supposed to sleep with Victoria. You ought to have had it to yourself."

"Victoria didn't want you in there with her. We don't need to act as if that was a true possibility."

"She didn't want me to stay with her, but she would have allowed me if I'd asked again," Cressida said. "I could have pushed for it, and I didn't—that shouldn't mean you have to give up your bed."

"The situation in which we find ourselves is that we have one room and one bed, is it not?" Matthew asked patiently.

"You know it is."

"And what sort of gentleman would allow any lady to sleep on the floor while he took the bed for himself? Much less his own wife! You know that isn't the sort of man I am, Cressida. You must know that's not an option for me, and you insult me by suggesting it."

"I don't mean to insult you," she said. "I'm trying to be kind, that's all. If you offer to sleep on the floor, surely I can offer the same."

"And I reject the offer. I'll be the one to sleep on the floor—I insist upon it."

"What if I tell you I don't want the bed? That I would prefer the floor?"

He stared at her.

Her lips twitched, and eventually she began to laugh. "All right," she said. "I don't really mean that."

"Of course you don't. Who would prefer the floor?"

"You don't prefer it either."

"I don't prefer to sleep on floors," Matthew allowed. "I certainly do prefer that I be able to take that sleeping arrangement when the alternative is turning my wife out of her bed."

Cressida hesitated for a moment. "It's a very large bed," she said.

"What are you getting at?"

"I'm saying…there's plenty of room for the both of us," she said. "Nobody has to sleep on the floor at all. I know that would be different for us, of course, but we could do it. We could share a bed for one night."

Matthew looked at her.

He kept his face perfectly arranged. He couldn't allow her to see the way her suggestion had stirred a flood of excitement within him, for he knew he shouldn't want to join her in bed. Kiss or no kiss, the two of them simply didn't have that relationship, and it was wrong of him to want to take advantage of this situation.

And yet he did want it. He wanted to be close to her. He wanted to feel her relax beside him, against him, the way she had the night of the storm. He wanted all the tension that usually existed between them to fade away as they fell asleep together.

He wanted to hold her.

And he certainly didn't want to sleep on the floor. He didn't enjoy that thought at all, even though he had enjoyed joking with her about it.

Still, Matthew felt on the verge of something irresponsible. "I don't know if it's a good idea," he said.

"It wouldn't be doing anything wrong," Cressida said. "We're husband and wife, aren't we? We're more than permitted to be close to one another in that way. And besides, it would only be for one night, and only for the convenience of the shared bed. I know you'd rather be on this mattress than on the floor. It would be so much more comfortable—such a better way to spend the night."

"Even so…I don't know if it's a good idea."

"Come and sit down," Cressida suggested. "Just sit, and we can talk for a while. If you still feel it's a bad idea, you're more than free to move to the floor at any time. But there's no reason you need to be there right now. I don't know about you, but I feel miles from sleep, and it would mean a lot of me if we could spend some time talking about things before I try to close my eyes."

Matthew nodded slowly. He could do that much. Sitting up talking together into the night was nothing more than they had already done together, and the fact that this time they would be sitting on a bed instead of in the sitting room of his house surely didn't change things in any significant way.

He moved slowly over to the bed and sat down beside her.

The movement of the bed as he sat caused her to shift toward him slightly on the mattress, her shoulder pressing against his. He thought about pulling away, trying to respect a bit of distance, and then gave up on the idea. They were in bed together, after all. There was no sense in acting as though they were keeping a proper distance from one another—this had gone beyond that now.

So instead, after a moment's consideration, he wrapped an arm around her shoulders and pulled her against him. She rested her head briefly on his shoulder, and a thrill went through Matthew. This was what he would have imagined it would have been like to have a wife, to hold a lady in his arms and feel her against him at the end of a long day. In reality, it had never been like this, and it had been a very long time indeed since he had indulged in fantasy. But if he had done that, this was what it might have looked like.

"Are you all right?" he asked her softly.

She sighed. "I don't know if I am," she admitted. "This has been a very confusing day. It feels like nothing has stopped. From the moment I received my sister's letter, I have been in motion, and I don't know how to slow down now. I feel like there's something I ought to be doing right now even though I know the threat is gone and she's safe in her room."

"That's right, she is," Matthew agreed. "She's going to be fine, Cressida. A good night's sleep will be just the cure she needs, and in the morning, she'll be feeling much better for the ride home. Even so, I'm sure it's very difficult for you to leave her alone at a time like this."

"Very difficult," Cressida agreed quietly. "I don't know how to express the extent of my worry about her. It's all I thought about when I lived at home. And then I got married and came to your house and I feel as if I've neglected my sister since then."

"Neglected her? Of course you haven't," Matthew said. "She was with your father. You know that it's his responsibility, not yours, to raise his daughter and to care for her needs. He's the one who should have been taking care of everything—it wasn't your duty to do that."

"It has always been my duty," Cressida countered. "It has always fallen to me to take care of her. You understand this. You and I have discussed it—how hard it is to be the responsible party."

"I do understand," Matthew agreed quietly, tightening his arm around her. He wished he could make it easier for her somehow, for he could see that she felt as if she had failed her sister. He wished he could help her see that it wasn't that way. She was the one who had saved her sister. If it hadn't been for her involvement and quick thinking, something terrible would have happened tonight.

"You can't always be there," he said to her. "Nobody can always be there. Eventually your sister will need to learn to survive on her own, without your help or involvement."

"She will never have to be without me," Cressida countered. "I'll always be there for her. I'll always help her, whatever she needs."

"I know you will," Matthew assured her. "I know you'll always go to her if she needs you. Of course I do. That isn't what I meant. I'm only saying that as you each get older, you won't be able to be there in the same way all the time. You have your own life that you must attend to, and so will she. It's different from when you were children and could focus on one another at all times."

"You speak as if you know this from experience."

"Of course I do. You've heard my sister Edwina talk about her marriage. You know how I objected to that arrangement at the time. But the two of them were adamant that they wanted to go ahead with things, and I eventually realized I couldn't say no to them. I was used to protecting my sister, but I needed to let go of my desire for control and allow her to manage her own life. Now that I've done that, Allan and I get along very well."

"I wish it was someone like him who Victoria had met. I can't stand to think of her heartbroken, on top of everything else. Just this morning she believed she was in love and ready for marriage, and now it's all gone so horribly wrong."

"You would be surprised by how resilient people can be," Matthew said. "It seems horrible tonight, but she really is going to be fine. There will be a day when we'll look back on all this and it will feel very far away."

Cressida sighed and leaned farther into Matthew.

He felt very warm, as if an ember had sprung to life deep within his chest. It was startling, but in a good way, to realize how much he was capable of feeling for her. He found himself wishing that the night would never end.

And he knew for sure that there was no chance of his getting down from his place on the bed and sleeping on the floor. Not willingly. If she was content to have him here beside her, he intended to stay here throughout the night.

She had been right. It was only one night.

It wouldn't change things in their marriage. Tonight was a rarity, a pause in their lives, a break from the world. The usual rules could not be expected to apply. Tomorrow they would go back to the marriage they had had so far, the marriage that didn't have room for this sort of thing. Tomorrow they would resume the distance that had existed between the two of them up until now. But for tonight, he would allow himself to hold his wife in his arms, and he would pretend that they were a different sort of couple. She needed comfort and he would provide that. She wanted him, and he would be there for her.

It wasn't such an unreasonable thing for a lady to want from her husband.

It wasn't an unreasonable thing for Matthew to want either, he thought as he allowed himself to move a little bit closer to her. Just for tonight, they would step out of the roles they had been living within all this time. Just for tonight, they wouldn't worry about what they were to one another or what anything meant. They wouldn't worry about where things were going. They would just enjoy being together. After all, they had been through enough hardship that he thought they more than deserved the break.

He breathed in, inhaling the scent of her, and felt his body begin to relax toward sleep.