The Duke’s All That by Britton Christina

Author:Britton, Christina
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Published: 2024-02-06T00:00:00+00:00

The spacious accommodations with a splendid view of the river, however, proved to be anything but.

Seraphina surveyed the room as the innkeeper, having taken Iain’s instructions to bring up a good quantity of food, took her leave and closed the door behind her, the unoiled hinges making an ungodly noise in the small space. Ah, yes, small, for that was the only word to describe it. Even with just a bed—which wasn’t overlarge by any description—and a table with two chairs, it felt cramped, unable to hold a bit more furniture, much less two taller-than-average people and a parrot. The promised splendid view might have helped relieve some of the cloying closeness of the space—except for the fact that the window was a single, narrow thing, and the only view of the river it could claim was if a person angled themselves far to one side and used a hefty dose of imagination.

“Damn it all to hell,” she muttered.

“Well, this is a fine mess,” Iain grumbled as he tossed his bag in the corner. “Why did you nae allow me to go searching for other accommodations? I’m certain I could have found something for us.”

She glared at him, placing Phineas’s cage on the floor and opening the door. Phineas scrambled out, climbing up her arm to her shoulder with alacrity, as if he could not get out of the tiny space fast enough.

She definitely knew that feeling.

“Do you think I want to share a room with you?” she demanded. “And more specifically, this room, where I shall be in danger of bumping into you every time I turn about? While I would love to believe the innkeeper was lying through her teeth, all signs point to her being truthful regarding accommodations in this blasted city. And with night fast on us, and more people arriving, I did not want to waste a chance on something uncertain when we had a certain outcome before us.”

He considered her closely. “Nae, you never were a gambler, were you?” Then, quieter, “All but for that one time, when you took a chance on me.”

And look what happened after. The sentence remained unsaid, yet loomed between them, a near physical manifestation.

Feeling decidedly bruised, and not just in body, Seraphina busied herself setting out a small feast for Phineas on the table. “And you always were, weren’t you?” she said. “A gambler, I mean.” At his grunt—which she took to be an answer in the affirmative, though they both knew her question had been merely rhetorical—she glanced sideways at him. He had sat on the bed and was shrugging out of his coat. A disturbingly intimate action that set her stomach to doing somersaults.

“Like I said,” he replied, “I’ve made a good living for myself because of it.”

Her lip quirked as Phineas took a nut from her fingers. “A good living that includes a private carriage and the best rooms as you travel.”

“Present room excluded,” he remarked with a rough chuckle.

To her surprise, an answering laugh spilled from her lips.

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