Free Slightly Wicked by Mary Balogh Page A

nothing left for any refreshments. But she did not care about that. She picked a small snuffbox off a shelf and took it to the counter. They had laughed at it because it had a particularly ugly carving of a pig’s head on the lid. She paid for it while Ralph was wrestling the umbrella tightly closed since they would have no need of it on the return journey across the green.
    She gave him the gift outside the shop doors, and he opened the paper that had been wrapped around it and laughed.
    “
This
is the measure of your esteem for me?” he asked her.
    “May you remember me every time you enjoy a good sneeze,” she said.
    “Oh,” he said, opening his cloak and placing the snuffbox carefully into his pocket, “I will remember you, Claire. But I will treasure your gift. Did you spend your very last coin on it?”
    “No, of course not,” she assured him.
    “Liar.” He drew her arm through his. “It is halfway through the afternoon, and boredom has not yet driven us to bed. But I believe it is about to.
Will
we find our time there tedious, do you suppose?”
    “No,” she said feeling suddenly breathless.
    “That is my feeling too,” he said. “The landlord and his good lady have been feeding us well. We will somehow have to build up an appetite to do justice to the dinner they are doubtless preparing for us. Can you think of a way we can do that?”
    “Yes,” she said.
    “Only one?” He clucked his tongue.
    She smiled. She felt pretty in her new bonnet, her gift to him was lying in his pocket, and they were on their way back to the inn to go to bed again. There was all the rest of the afternoon left, and there was all night ahead of them. She would make it an eternity.
    She glanced up at the sky, but already there were breaks in the clouds and blue sky showing through. She would not look. There were hours left yet before morning came.

CHAPTER V

             L ook at it,” she said, her voice filled with soft wonder. “Have you ever seen a more glorious sight?”
    She was at the open window of their private sitting room, both elbows resting on the sill, her chin cupped in her hands, watching the sun set beneath an orange, gold, and pink sky. She was wearing a striped silk dress of cream and gold in what he was coming to recognize as her characteristic simple yet elegant style. Her hair, loose down her back, seemed dark in contrast.
    He was constantly surprised by her. Who would have expected an actress to marvel at a sunset? Or to show such bright-eyed delight in a bonnet that was exquisitely pretty but by no means either ostentatious or costly? Or to giggle over a cheap, ugly snuffbox and spend the last penny of her traveling allowance on it? Or to make love with such obvious personal enjoyment?
    “Ralph?” She turned her head and reached out one hand to him. “Come and look.”
    “I
was
looking,” he told her. “You were part of the picture.”
    “Oh, you do not need to keep on flattering me,” she said. “Come and look.”
    He took her hand in his and moved up beside her at the window. The trouble with sunsets was that darkness followed quickly upon their heels. Just as the trouble with autumn was that winter was not far behind. And what was making him so maudlin?
    “The sun will be shining tomorrow,” she said.
    “Yes.”
    Her hand tightened about his. “I am glad it rained,” she said. “I am glad the stagecoach overturned. I am glad you did not take shelter at the last town.”
    “So am I.” He slipped his hand from hers and draped his arm loosely about her shoulders. She leaned in against him, and they watched the sun disappear over the edge of a distant field.
    He wanted to bed her again. He fully intended to do so, as many times during the night as his energy would allow. But tonight he did not feel the urgency he had felt last night or the lusty exuberance he had felt this afternoon. Tonight he felt almost—melancholy. It was not a mood he was accustomed to feeling.
    They