Widow - Anne Stuart [22]
He must have set up work somewhere else—there was no sign of a laptop or a briefcase. She’d ask Tomaso—he was probably working in the study. Sometime when it was safe she’d take a little peek at what was on his laptop. Just to reassure herself. After all, she had responsibilities. To the estate, to the women whom Pompasse had left behind. It was her duty to make sure that Maguire was exactly who he said he was.
She rose, casting one last longing glance at the small, pristine bed. If she didn’t get at least a short nap she’d fall apart completely. She was going to have to put up with her old bed and its ghostly memories, whether she liked it or not.
She closed Maguire’s door and the door to the intervening bathroom, and lay down on the mattress, trying not to think about the other times she’d slept there. Just an hour or two of sleep before dinner, and then she’d be able to face anything. The hostile, defensive Gia. Madame Antonella, if she was well enough to leave her cottage.
And Maguire, who for some inexplicable reason was the greatest threat of all.
6
The room was filled with shadows when Charlie awoke. She’d slept heavily, so heavily she hadn’t dreamed, but she was disoriented, suddenly afraid, and she sat up quickly, squinting in the darkness, fighting off the panic.
She was back in Tuscany. But Pompasse was dead—she had still managed to escape him. There was nothing to be afraid of, nothing at all.
Her hair had come loose and it was hanging around her shoulders, her clothes felt too tight, and her stomach was growling. She could smell Lauretta’s cooking, snaking up from the kitchen through her open window. With luck she’d missed dinner and Lauretta would feed her in the kitchen. And then she wouldn’t have to face everyone all at once.
She needed a shower to wake her up. She climbed off the bed and pushed open the bathroom door, then let out a muffled shriek.
At least he wasn’t entirely nude. Maguire stood there, a towel around his waist, equally surprised to see her.
“There aren’t any locks on the door,” he said. “You’re going to have to learn to knock.”
The door opened inward, and for her to grab it and slam it shut again, as she desperately wanted to do, would mean that she had to get closer to him. And that was one thing she wasn’t going to risk.
“I can have locks put on,” she said in a shaken voice.
He seemed absolutely huge in the small, steam-filled bathroom, and yet she knew that Henry was taller than he was. Maguire was muscular, with broad shoulders, the dark hair on his chest and his stomach arrowing down beneath the towel. How could one man be so unsettling, so…there?
“You look like you’ve never seen a seminaked man before, princess,” he said. “You want me to put more clothes on or less?”
“This isn’t going to work,” she said abruptly. She was struggling for that center of calm that had served her so well, but in her half-asleep state it seemed to have deserted her.
“What isn’t?”
“You’ll have to sleep elsewhere. I need that room, and I’m not going to share a bathroom with you.”
“Honey, it’s Europe. Everyone shares bathrooms. There are only two in this house, and there are too many people. Why do you want my room?”
“Then one of the bathrooms will be for the women and one for the men,” she said stubbornly. The steam from the bathroom was wafting out toward her, an unnerving combination of fragrances. Soap and shampoo, though he hadn’t bothered to shave.
“How Victorian. I thought Americans were more relaxed about these things. You still haven’t told me why you want my room.”
“There are too many memories in this one.” It was the honest answer, telling him far more than he had any right to know, but she was too shaken to be guarded. Besides, what did it matter what he knew or didn’t know? He was just a surprisingly ill-mannered stranger. In a few days he’d be back in his office at some international insurance conglomerate and the twisted history