She yawned. Perfect. She finally found something to do with her wakefulness and it disappeared. She could crawl into his lap right now and fall asleep with ease. She wanted to, but… “Well? Do you? Have questions.”
“As you intuit, there are a few remaining inexplicabilities.”
“Just so.”
“I hesitate to ask them. They may cut too deep.”
“If they do, I will throw up my armor.”
He showed her his palms, soft and curled. “What if I do not wish for that.”
She closed her eyes, swallowed, admitted she must strip herself bare. Just a little. “I… I will try not to.” She did not count the seconds of silence in the darkness behind her closed eyes. But it stretched out deep and wide.
Finally, he said, “Your father was an earl.” A swallow. “Which one?”
He had no idea what he asked of her, to divulge a name she’d divested herself of years ago. She barely had air to breathe, let alone speak.
“It’s only,” he said, his voice light, though she heard an edge there in it, too, “I wish to know whose name to put on my list of people to avoid. He sounds a horrid fellow.”
She laughed, an accident of a sound, but it helped her pull in air. She’d come for this. To tell him more. “My father is the Earl of Hackston. I do not think of him as my father any longer. I have a better man for that.” Lord Eaden had long been her filial figure, had cared for her more than her father ever had.
“Will you tell me,” he asked, “the name of the man who wrote you the letter?”
“Another name for your list?”
He lifted his hand and inspected his nails. “This name is for another list entirely.” The edge that had only hovered around his voice earlier sliced to lethal life.
She could say it. She would say it. She’d come here to do so. She swallowed and spoke. “The Marquess of Preston. Do… do you know him?”
“Not a bit. But he’ll know me.”
“Jackson, I’ll not let you do something that ends with your body swinging at the end of a rope.”
“Quite right, little moon.” Jackson tugged on the braid hanging over her shoulder. “I’ll be safe. And smart. He’ll never see me coming.”
She’d ignore that, pretended he meant it as a joke when she feared he did not. “‘Little moon’… you’ve called me that before. And luna. Should I be insulted?”
“You’re beautiful, bright, and—”
“The moon is so far away and seems so cold.”
“It can seem close enough to pluck from the sky at times. And, as I was about to say, you belong to the shadows of the night. Yet you illuminate them all.”
“I’m not insulted, then, I suppose.” Indeed not, the endearment made her glow just like the moon he called her.
“Excellent. Are there any other questions I should ask?”
She tried to say no, but a yawn escaped instead. She covered her mouth, and he grabbed her wrists and pulled her to her feet in one smooth movement then dragged her toward the door. “You’re tired. Let’s find your bed.”
“You’re trying to get rid of me.”
He sighed, hid his own yawn behind the back of his hand. “Gwendolyn”—he rubbed his face with both palms—“some days it feels as if the only damn thing I’ve ever wanted in my life is to have you by my side.” He held an arm out toward his own bed. “Would you rather findthisbed? Because there’s only perhaps an hour left till sunrise, and my body, finally, is ready to sleep. Yours, it seems, feels likewise. And if you wish to sleep next to me, I’ll consider it a blessing, a miracle, a—” He snapped his mouth shut, ran a hand through his hair. “Let’s simplify this, shall we? I have a final question, little moon.”
“Yes?”
“My bed or yours?”
She marched to his bed and placed first one knee then the other atop his mattress. Then she marched knee by knee to the top of it and stole beneath the covers. She challenged him from the position.
