The Courtship (Sherbrooke Brides 5)

“What do you mean by everyone?”

“I must keep my sources private. I believe there is a fear of possible retaliation.”

“Spenser, you must let me go. If you do it now, I swear not to hurt you.”

“That’s nice that you’re calling me by my given name again. Does that mean you are no longer trying to hold me at arm’s length?”

She jerked on her arms. Nothing happened. She was becoming very red in the face.

He patted her cheek, sat down in the chair beside her bed, and said, “Would you like butter and jelly on your scone?”

“I would like to feed myself.”

“All right.” He released one hand. He watched her flex her fingers, bend her wrist back and forth.

“Would you like butter and jelly on your scone?”

She nodded. At last her attention was on the food and not on killing him.

She ate two scones, both slathered with the apricot jelly, then lay back against the pillow and sighed. “That was delicious. Thank you. Mrs. Toop makes the best scones in the area. Now, I should like to be back at my inn by luncheon. May we leave now?”

“Would you like some tea now? Lemon? Milk?”

She got the very same look in her eyes as when she had confronted all those drunk young men from Cambridge in her taproom. It was blood. She had blood in her eyes.

He never should have given her the tea, particularly with added milk. She threw it in his face. Then her face scrunched up. “Oh, dear, I didn’t think. I should have taken a drink first.”

“Probably so,” he said, and rose to clean himself off. “That,” he said to her from the far side of the room as he dipped a cloth into the bowl of warm water atop a commode, “will gain you punishment, Helen. What do you think? Level Five?”

“Don’t be ridiculous. That was nowhere near a Level Five.” She realized what she had said and closed her mouth fast.

“All right,” he said, a man so agreeable, so reasonable, so ready to compromise, that the air reeked with it, and if she could have, she would have kicked him across the room. “What do you think is fair? Level Three?”

“You will not make sport of me, Spenser.”

“At least you are still using my given name.”

“If I call you Lord Beecham, it is horridly embarrassing. I am lying here in my nightgown, on my back, with my arms and legs tied down.”

His eyes nearly crossed. He closed them and patted his face dry. He pulled his wet shirt out of his britches and unfastened it.

He knew she was staring at him. He wasn’t wrong. There was lust in her eyes if he wasn’t mistaken—and he wasn’t. That was nice.

When he was naked to the waist, he spread his shirt over the back of a chair to dry, then walked back to the bed. “You like me, Helen?”

“You are a man. What is there to like?”

“You were staring at my chest. Now you are having a very difficult time keeping your eyes on my face. What do you think? Do you like the way my manly parts are put together?”

“I’m thirsty.”

“If I give you another cup of tea, do you promise to drink it and not hurl it at me?”

He saw it was a struggle, but finally, she managed to say, “Oh, all right, I promise.”

He kissed her mouth, straightened, and poured her another cup. He didn’t add milk or sugar. He helped her sit up. He handed her the cup.

She drank slowly, not looking at him. When she finished, she handed him the cup. “This is madness, Spenser. You cannot keep me here tied down to this damned bed.”