A yawn caught her by surprise, but despite her fatigue, Amelia took her time hanging her clothes up on the pegs. Airing her garments was important, for health and hygiene. She certainly wasn't avoiding Mister Field and his broad lower lip. And the timbre of his voice only teased her ears because she was fatigued. He didn't boast a sword, and he probably didn't even have a lightning shaped scar over his heart.
Tomorrow they'd be married. That hadn't meant anything, and didn't mean anything now; Amelia had no idea why she dreaded and anticipated the coming morning. Too much travel and too little sleep had left her irrational. Palming her brush like a club, she opened the door and went out.
Patrick had settled on the bed, stripped down to his trousers and a waistcoat, his shirtsleeves rolled up. He was buried inside a vee of creased newsprint, a paper sent up from London if her squint didn't betray her. Some people spent their evenings this way, she thought. They conversed and read in comfortable silence, and turned in together. That would have been well and good, even for her, if she didn't have grander plans.
When she settled on the mattress, Patrick buried his face deep in the vee of his newspaper, and she laughed. "When I lived at River Glen, I used to come back downstairs two, three, even five times with ideas or questions. I never thought it was unseemly, going through the house in just as many clothes as I'd worn during the day, simply because they were considered night clothes."
"Very progressive of you," he teased, peeking at her around the page.
"It is!" she declared, settling back against the headboard and pillows and unpinning her braids. She wanted to ask questions, all of the sort termed 'nosey'. Grandfather had often cautioned her against it, reminding her that people tolerated questions in the same way they tolerated wine: moderation. So instead, she untwined her braids and began to brush. After a few minutes, though, silence pressed on her with its steady edge and she said, "Your friends must look forward to your arrival. And feel sad at parting from you so soon after."
"Hmm!" Patrick snapped his paper shut and folded it.
"Your friends," she repeated when he stared, expression blank. "You told me you were coming up to see some friends, before the army."
"Oh. Oh!" Patrick nodded and rubbed a hand at the back of his neck. "Yes. Right you are."
"You don't have any friends up here," she concluded.
He blew out a breath and deflated, joining her against the headboard. "No, not anywhere near these parts. What I do have is an older brother who has always taken pleasure in tormenting me, and a betrothal I detest so mightily that I fled to Scotland in order to avoid it."