“Nor have I.” She curtseyed to him, holding her skirt out to its full width.
Stepping away, he looked at her, thinking that she was so very pretty in her long white dress—and he wanted to remember her like this. She was the girl who’d saved his life.
“You’ll have to help me,” she said.
Alex was still staring at her. In all the years he’d spent writing her brother, Nate hadn’t mentioned that his little sister was so beautiful. “Help you do what?”
“Undress.”
It took Alex a moment to realize what she’d said. “You want me to help you . . . undress?”
She smiled sweetly at him. “If we’re going to travel together, then you have to act as one of my brothers.” She turned her back to him and lifted her hair. “You can start by unfastening the buttons down the back.”
“There must be a thousand of them. We’ll be here all day.”
“You’re a married man, so you must know how to unfasten the back of a gown.”
“I was married for just a few hours,” Alex said as he struggled with the fourth button. They were tiny and the little loops were slippery.
Cay glanced at him over her shoulder. “A few hours? Then you didn’t . . . ?”
“Not that it’s any of your business, but no, we didn’t.” He was frowning at the buttons.
“Hope said that you fell asleep on your wedding night, but I didn’t believe her.”
“I did not ‘fall asleep.’ I was drugged.”
“Ah, yes, glass of wine, then sleep. Who drugged you?”
“If I knew that, I could have saved myself at the trial.” He was two-thirds of the way through the buttons.
“Hope said the door was locked from the inside and that only you and your wife were in her room.”
“That’s about the only thing the lawyers got right.” Alex pulled on the last button. “There, now, get out of that dress and let’s get going. Someone may come in here.”
“On a Sunday? Surely not. Not even my father works on Sundays.”
“So I guess that means that no man does,” Alex said in a derisive way. He was looking at the back of her dress as though he’d just climbed a mountain and was proud of what he’d done.
“Turn around,” she said. “I’m still a girl and you’re a man and . . .” Breaking off, she stared at him as though she was just realizing that he was in new clothes.
“You like this?” he asked, holding out his arms.
“You look like a planter,” she said softly. “Those clothes suit you.” She turned back around to face the mirror but kept looking at him in its reflection. “Of course the fact that you’re the dirtiest man in the country, and that you have nits in your hair takes away from the overall effect.”
He ran his hand over his hair. He used to keep it neatly trimmed and tied back at the nape of his neck with a black ribbon, but now it had grown wild and long, and she was right that it was very dirty. “Maybe I can wash it when we get to where we’re going.”
“No. You’re going to take a whole bath today or I’m not going to put on boy’s clothes.”
Alex smiled at her. “Too late for that. You’ll never get those buttons done up without my help.”
Cay grabbed a dress from a shelf near her and held it up. It was a plain thing, made of brown plaid, with black braid around the collar. There was a look of threat in her eyes.
He wasn’t going to tell her, but if she was going to continue wearing a dress, he much preferred the white one she had on. He’d grown used to the way it flashed in the sunlight. The surprise was that she’d seemed to know, through some mysterious female way, that he wouldn’t like for her to wear the plain brown dress.
“You have to take a bath.”
“I promise that I’ll wash.” He was smiling at her. “I’m not a barbarian, even if you think I am.”