“Who stays in her room now?” Not that Colleen wanted to use it. She didn’t believe in ghosts, she reminded herself, but she didn’t feel comfortable with the notion of sleeping in there.
“It’s been left like it was in her memory. If you want to stay there, you can. I wasn’t sure you would want to.”
She shook her head.
“Did you…come here for some reason? Other than to check out the room?”
The noise in the bathroom disturbing her sleep didn’t seem so important now. She wanted to resolve the sleeping arrangements instead.
“Why don’t you sleep in my grandmother’s apartments? You can’t sleep in this bed. Why didn’t you say so?” she asked. She thought they believed a ghost haunted the room. She’d never expected this.
“You told me where you wanted me, and I’m fine with it.” He tried to look like he was fine with it, but his expression and growly tone said otherwise.
“You can’t sleep in that bed. You’re too big. Stay in Neda’s apartments,” she said.
“The single women live in that wing and only the single women.”
“So you’re inferring I should move there?”
“Not at all.”
“Fine. Do what you want.” She was about to turn and leave when he reached for his pants. Was he planning to drop them right in front of her? Sure, most wolves didn’t sleep in anything, but he surely hadn’t been sleeping in that bed.
“What I want is to sleep in my own bed,” he said, then unzipped his pants. “But since that’s not an option, I’ll sleep here.” He pulled off his pants and dropped them to the floor, his gaze remaining on hers—she would not be intimidated—and shifted.
So that’s how he slept in here. As a wolf. She thought he would jump onto the bed, but instead, he curled up on the rug and closed his eyes. He was just as stunning as a wolf, with rusty-colored fur around his face and body that made him appear more colorful than some grayer wolves. Black strands of fur gave him the appearance of having a saddle, and the same colored strands intermingled with reddish brown on the top of his head and down to frame his eyes. Eyes that were a golden brown, now shut tight.
But he wasn’t sleeping. Not while he breathed in her scent, his ears and whiskers twitching, waiting for her to make her exit.
“The reason I came here,” she decided to say, “was I’ve heard strange noises in your bedchamber.” Then she turned and walked out of the room. Before she closed the door, he ran across the floor still in wolf form and joined her.
Shocked that he’d take interest, she asked, “Are you going with me?”
He nodded.
Relief filled her that he hadn’t been behind the noises if he planned to investigate them.
When they reached his chamber and entered, she motioned to the bathroom. “In there.” She peered in while he sniffed around and looked at her. Of course, nothing would happen while he was here. Then a knocking, grumbling sound perked his ears and lips up.
He gave her a full-fledged wolfish smile. He shifted, grabbed a towel, and covered himself. “Pipes in the walls. You’ll get used to it.”
“Pipes,” she said skeptically.
“The castle is ancient. Old pipes throughout, though not as old as the castle. They were updated five years ago. But they still make some noise.”
“Where did my dad stay when he was here?”
“He made Enrick move from his chamber. I shared these chambers with my brother for the year.”
“So Enrick stayed in the lady’s chamber?” She couldn’t imagine the brothers sharing the same bed.
“Aye.”
She hated to make him leave, but she just couldn’t share the chamber with him. “Thanks, Grant, for checking out the noise for me.”
“No problem. If that’s all you needed…?”
“Yeah. Thanks.”
He hesitated to leave and she thought he looked hopeful that she’d changed her mind. Or maybe he was waiting for her to turn away before he whipped off his towel and shifted again. Her cheeks heated in embarrassment. Not because she was embarrassed to see his ripped body, but because she didn’t want him to know she liked seeing it.
But then he said the one thing that had her hackles up all over again. “Did you make a date with Archibald?”
Her lips parted in surprise before she could stop herself. She could not believe he had the audacity to ask. Her personal life was her personal life—period. She clamped her lips closed and scowled at him.
Now she wished she had made a date with Archibald and hadn’t put him off—again. But it bothered her that he was pushing this so much when she’d said she wanted a week to get settled in. Not to mention that Grant’s words continued to niggle at her about why Archibald wanted to date her.
She turned away from Grant, not about to answer him, and in a flash, he loped out of the chamber as a wolf. She sighed, heard the pipes squeaking, and wondered if maybe she should stay in a room where the bathroom wasn’t attached. She’d never get any sleep this night.
She closed Grant’s chamber door and was heading back to bed when she heard someone breathing behind her closed bed curtains. Her heart skipping beats, she grabbed hold of the curtains and yanked them aside.
One of the Irish wolfhounds was sleeping in her bed!
Chapter 10
After he’d warned her what a cad Archibald was, Colleen must have scheduled a date with him anyway—and Grant didn’t like it. But he couldn’t help smiling about the noisy pipes when he curled up beside the white eyelet bed in the White Room. He had worried that one of his men had tried to spook her into wanting to sleep somewhere else, even though he’d made it perfectly clear he wanted none of that.
He was glad the groaning of the bathroom pipes was the only cause for concern. Then he frowned. As to the other matter, he was not happy about that at all. Somehow he had to make her see Archibald for what he truly was.
He had slept for maybe half an hour, maybe less, when his cook stood in the doorway of the guest room and said, “My laird, are you in here?”
Grant growled. Not in an angry way, but tired. What now?
He shifted, threw on his pants, and moved beyond the bed. “To what do I owe this intrusion, Maynard?”
The gray-eyed wolf ran his hands through his gray hair. “You know I don’t like anyone messing in my kitchen after it’s closed. And it’s the rule that when it’s closed, it’s closed.”