Angel In My Bed by Melody Thomas Page B

own.”
    â€œI already dined with your family. Have you eaten?”
    â€œMr. Rockwell and I stopped at an inn on the way.”
    He followed her to a room tucked at the end of the hallway. The ceiling slanted low enough that David could not walk three feet into the room and stand straight. Stopping just inside the doorway, he looked around the walls filled with charcoal drawings of trains before glimpsing the simple iron bedstead big enough to fit two people. Meg set the lantern on the maple dresser and struck a match to another lamp. The room was free of dust, and he guessed that someone spent a lot of time in here.
    â€œIs Nathanial very much like Bethany?” he asked as more light filled the dark interior, curious about the two children she had inherited upon her arrival from India all those years ago. She would have been nineteen, he realized.
    Meg blew out the match. The scent of sulphur drifted in the air. She replaced the glass bulb on the lamp. “They are very close.” With her dark hair spilling over her shoulders, she folded her arms and turned. “Sir Henry is dying, David. He thinks he’s found a way to protect this family from Nellis when he is gone.”
    â€œWhat are you talking about?”
    â€œHe has a cancer inside him. He doesn’t want me to know but from what I can tell, he has been drinking more to hide the pain.”
    â€œHence, Nellis has decided to move in on all of you.”
    â€œNellis is the son of Sir Henry’s oldest brother and the chief magistrate for this entire region. He is a middle-aged widower married some years before I returned to England. He fancies himself this family’s guardian. Six months ago, for whatever reason, he became interested in Sir Henry’s land.”
    â€œYou mean he became interested in you.”
    She plowed her fingers through her dampened hair. “Sir Henry thinks by giving you the estate, he has somehow secured our future, and for some reason because of your alleged relationship to me, he trusts you to protect all of us.” She laughed. “The irony is brilliant, don’t you think?”
    â€œExcept if Sir Henry should die before Nathanial and Bethany come of age, as the closest male relative, Nellis would still become their guardian regardless of Rose Briar. My owning the estate means nothing in that regard.”
    Her attention returned to the dresser. “That won’t happen,” she said, her voice a whisper. She opened a drawer and replaced the box of matches. “Sir Henry won’t die.”
    Aware that he was feeling proprietary in his intentions toward her, David knew he couldn’t allow her to suck him intoher life. He’d already done enough by seeing that Nellis did not receive the estate—at great cost to him. Outside rain sheeted against the glass. All around him the scent of myrrh and quince drifting from her made her smell like an exotic houri girl who should be in some sheik’s harem.
    â€œYour feet are going to hang over the bed,” she said.
    David peered at the bed. A flash of lightning brightened the red squares in the quilted comforter. “Is that quilt one of yours?”
    She gave him a brief glimpse of a rare smile, and he found himself lost between the logic and lust that began to war inside him. “My first and only quilt,” she answered cheerfully. “Patience is its own reward, so I was promised. It’s a lie.”
    He touched a length of her hair and looked into her eyes. “Is it?” The contact was an error in judgment, and he knew it the instant he touched her.
    She reclaimed the captured curl. “This isn’t part of our arrangement. I agreed to help you catch my father, not to sleep beneath the same roof with you.”
    Hell, he wanted to sleep in the same bed with her, do more than sleep, and he had the nerve to laugh at his own weakness. “Don’t make the arrangement sound so intimate. I’m