Royal Bastard (Instantly Royal 1)

She let out a sigh as she stood in the doorway, looking a little more dejected than she had when they were driving back to the manor house. “I told you at the pub that this was the only room available for me, since you insisted I stay. There wasn’t time to get it cleaned up before we arrived, so that’s what I’ll be doing while you sleep off your jet lag.”

Damn, he really was tired if he’d already forgotten that they’d be sharing a door. He glanced back at the shine and clean of his room and then out at the dust-covered sheets on top of the furniture in her room. “There isn’t another room?”

“Unfortunately, no,” she said. “The earl is the lone inhabitant of the east wing and the other rooms haven’t been open to guests for decades.”

Her lips pressed into a firm line as she walked past him into her room. It took all of about half a second before she started sneezing and her eyes got watery and red rimmed.

“Allergies?” he asked, being the keen observer of the obvious.

“Nothing major.” Covering her mouth, she let out four tiny squeaks of a sneeze in a row.

The woman looked miserable and stubborn enough to make him realize that she wasn’t going to ask for another room or go back on her promise to stay at Dallinger Park. Instead, she’d suffer with a stiff upper lip in as much silence as her allergies would allow. That wasn’t gonna happen.

Crossing his arms, he stepped directly into her presumably blurry line of vision. “You can’t stay in here.”

Up with that chin. “There aren’t any other options.”

“Think again.” He wasn’t backing down. Not on this one. His mama would come back from the dead to skin him alive if he did.

“Mr. Vane, this is highly irregular and I don’t—” Whatever else she would have said was canceled out by a rash of sneezing.

The woman needed a Benadryl blast just to walk within four feet of the door; she’d never make it all night no matter how stubborn she was. Arguing the point with her, though, wasn’t going to get him anywhere. So he went at the puzzle of Lady Lemons another way. Curling his upper lip just slightly, he looked down at her with what he imagined was a close approximation to the snarl the earl had tried to use on him earlier.

“Even though I’m half dead on my feet, you’ll keep me up with that sneezing racket. You’re staying in my room and I’ll sleep in here,” he said, his voice gruff

, continuing even as she began to voice her objections. “As much as I’m sure someone like you would rather think that I’m doing this to be nice, I’m not. I don’t want to listen to that all night when what I need is to be dead to the world. I need my sleep more than you need to be proper.”

Pivoting, he encroached on her space. As expected, her eyes flared wide and she began to backpedal until she was on the opposite side of the door in his room. She wet her bottom lip with that teasing pink tongue of hers—a move that drew his attention like a question mark.

He grasped the door before she could reach it. “Night, Lady Lemons. We’ll battle more in the morning.”

Knowing she’d only gear up for an argument if he waited any longer, he shut the door on her as she stood there gaping openmouthed at him. Another rash of squeaky sneezes sounded from the other side of the closed door. He waited a minute, half expecting her to charge the door. But she didn’t. She also didn’t sneeze again.

Allowing himself a self-satisfied smile, he grabbed the sheets and began to do the tug-and-pull war of putting the fitted sheet on the mattress. It was a pain in the ass but worth it. Brooke would get some decent shut-eye tonight. But him? He hoped like hell that the jet lag would kick his ass as soon as his head hit the pillow, because otherwise he was going to spend the night imagining what Lady Lemons looked like in his bed.

…

Brooke could sleep in her clothes. In her contact lenses? Only if she wanted to spend the next day feeling like her eyelids were glued shut or blinking madly in an attempt to wet her dried-out contacts so she could focus.

She needed her contact stuff.

Which was in her suitcase.

Which was next to the dust-covered bed where Nick was sleeping.

Which was a problem.

In the middle of her oh-so-professional allergy attack, she hadn’t thought about retrieving it before he’d shut the door in her sneezing face two hours ago. After that, she’d been busy tracking down Kate, the only full-time household servant at Dallinger Park, to work out the logistics of her stay and had gotten waylaid by the earl, who’d informed her he needed her help tying up a few loose ends on his behalf before he left for London to meet with his solicitor in the morning. So she’d gotten the earl sorted and had gotten back to her room—really Nick’s room—as soon as humanly possible. Now she just had to get her suitcase.

Too tired to be nervous—or to think about what he was or wasn’t wearing to bed, really she wasn’t—she tapped on the connection door. “Mr. Vane?”

Nothing.

She rapped against the door again. “Excuse me, sir?”

Zilch.

The temptation to tuck tail and scurry into a bed despite her already itchy eyes was strong. She glanced over at the four-poster bed bordered by long curtains of navy and cream hanging from the wood canopy that could be closed to block out the morning sun. Really, would it be so bad to sleep in her contacts? Unconsciously, she pressed a finger against the corner of her already dry right eye, catching herself before she started rubbing the eyelid in earnest. An eye infection was the last thing she needed on top of everything else she’d be dealing with over the next few weeks. She all but stomped her foot in frustration. Oh, this was just ridiculous. Nick was asleep. All she had to do was quietly go in there and retrieve her suitcase. She could do that.