“Shhh, Alyssa. If you need to sit up, I’ll help you, but you’re perfectly fine where you are.” His voice calmed her. It was warm and familiar and as soothing as the touch of his hand on her hair.
She relaxed, shifted her weight onto her back, and smiled. Looking up at him seemed the most natural thing in the world. “Where are we?”
Griff leaned forward and returned her smile. Feeling an almost overwhelming urge to kiss her, he bent close enough to feel the whisper of her breath against his mouth. He paused, waiting for some sign that she wanted him to continue. But she didn’t seem to notice his desire, so Griff sat back and answered her question with words instead of kisses. “About a mile past Shepherdston Hall. If you need to make a privacy stop, I’ll order Myrick to turn the coach around.”
Alyssa remembered Griffin mentioning that Shepherdston Hall was a little over halfway between London and Abernathy Manor and that he often stopped there to rest, refresh, and change horses. “Why didn’t we stop there?”
“We did stop.” He brushed her hair from her forehead and smiled indulgently as if she were a little girl. She’d managed several hours of sleep, but her eyes were still ringed by dark bluish circles that spoke of extreme exhaustion. “We changed horses, and I changed into more comfortable traveling clothes.”
She smothered a yawn and blinked up at him. That explained the change from trousers and black shoes to breeches and Hessian boots. It didn’t explain why he hadn’t awakened her. “You promised to wake me.”
“I did wake you,” he told her. “And you told me to go away and let you sleep.”
“You left me sleeping alone in a coach while you changed clothes?”
Griffin shrugged his shoulders. “It seemed the thing to do, short of bundling you in a lap robe and carrying you inside.”
“I could have walked inside,” Alyssa replied.
“Not unless you were awake and not in your current state of undress,” he said, eyes twinkling.
Alyssa glanced down, surprised to find that she was not only using Griffin’s thigh as a pillow, but that until she’d been jolted awake by the movement of the coach, she’d apparently been sprawled all over him wearing nothing more than her chemise, stockings, gloves, the very brief and thin pair of lacy drawers the dressmaker insisted she wear beneath her traveling dress, and a soft wool lap robe with his jacket draped over it. Alyssa shivered, enveloped in the musk and citrus scent of the cologne emanating from the collar of his jacket. “You removed my dress?”
“I did,” he admitted, tucking his jacket and the lap robe more firmly around her shoulders to ward off the cool air. “Before it became hopelessly crumpled, I might add.” He made a wry face. “I didn’t think you would want to arrive at Abernathy Manor looking so travel worn.”
“Where is it?”
“Abernathy Manor?” he asked. “It’s in Northamptonshire.”
“No,” she said. “Where is my dress?”
“There.” He nodded toward the opposite seat, where her dress and jacket were neatly folded. Her bonnet lay atop her dress and beside it lay his hat, gloves, and neckcloth. Her shoes were beneath the bench seat.
Alyssa realized that she was nearly naked, while he remained fully dressed except for his hat, gloves, and cravat. “Oh.”
“It started raining two hours out of London—”
“Rain on our wedding day,” Alyssa interrupted. “I don’t think that’s a good sign. I believe it means we’ll have bad luck.”
“I believe it means we live in England where it rains quite a bit.” He tilted her chin toward him with the tip of his index finger. “If everyone in England who had rain on their wedding day was destined for bad luck, we’d have been overrun by plague and pestilence centuries ago.” He smiled at her. “I believe we make our own luck.”
“I suppose you’re right.”
“We only stayed at Shepherdston Hall long enough for me to change clothes and for the coachmen to change horses. I didn’t want to tarry because of the rain. Because I want to get home as soon as possible. And you were sleeping so soundly when we arrived, I saw no reason you shouldn’t continue.” He paused for a moment. “I left you sleeping while I changed clothes and the coachmen and grooms exchanged the spent horses for the fresh ones. But you were never alone. Durham and Eastman took turns watching over the coach while I was inside the hall. And I’ve been with you ever since.”
“How long?” Her throat was dry and scratchy, and her voice sounded foreign to her ears.
Griffin shifted his weight to his left side in order to reach his watch pocket. He pulled out the watch, flipped open the cover, and stared at the hands. “A little over four hours.”
“Four hours!” Alyssa covered her eyes with her forearm and groaned. “I can’t imagine what came over me.”
Griffin tinkered with a tiny knob on his timepiece, then returned it to his watch pocket. He stretched his arms overhead, scraping the ceiling of the coach with his knuckles. “It must have been my scintillating company,” he said dryly.
Alyssa giggled.
“Or exhaustion.” He yawned. “You’ve been working practically around the clock for the past six days. Flitting about town seeing to an overwhelming number of details like a hummingbird going from blossom to blossom in the garden. But even hummingbirds rest.” He frowned. “I’m not sure when or how they rest, but I’m convinced that they do—sometimes. After all your hard work and sleepless nights spent planning the wedding, it’s perfectly natural to for you to need a nap.” He stretched his arms over his head once again. “In fact, I was tempted to stretch out beneath you and take one myself.”
“Why didn’t you?” She surprised herself with the question, and he surprised her even more with his answer.