Accidental Bride(18)

“Grandmama?” Kelly called out, trying to push the idea of how attractive he looked out of her mind.

She waited a minute and, when she heard nothing, gave a little shrug. “Maybe she’s not in.”

That would be good. It would give them a chance to get settled a bit before they faced her grandmother.

“Upstairs?” Peter asked, nodding toward the staircase.

“Yeah. My room is up there.”

They both walked upstairs and turned to the right toward Kelly’s room. When she opened the door, she stared inside at the small room. It was neat, since she’d picked everything up before she’d left town. But the twin, four-poster bed in one corner looked even smaller than usual.

Peter arched one eyebrow. “You want us to live in here?”

She swallowed hard. Of course, they would have to live in the same room, since they were supposed to be married for real. But that would mean both of them would have to fit into that tiny bed.

A flush of heat washed over her at the thought.

Peter was peeking into the room next door.

“That’s Grandmama’s room,” Kelly said.

His eyebrow lifted even higher. “Is there a room downstairs we could use?”

She almost chuckled at this expression. She could hardly blame him for not wanting to sleep right next door to her grandmother. Being in the same house would be intimidating enough. “Yeah. There’s the guest room downstairs with a connecting bathroom. I guess we could sleep down there, since it won’t be for very long.” She glanced over at her grandmother’s room, feeling a sliver of worry. “If Grandmama needs me, she can call me downstairs or something.”

“Does she need a lot of help at night?”

“No. She’s really in pretty good shape for her age, but you know she fell last year and it took her a long time recover. I just worry about her being by herself.”

“She won’t be by herself.” Peter put a hand on her upper arm. It should have been a casual gesture, but it felt strangely intimate. “We’ll be in the house with her. We’ll just be downstairs.”

Kelly nodded, telling herself to be reasonable. Her grandmother was fine. They would all be fine. Peter would just be staying here for a month and a half, and then she could move back upstairs where she’d always slept. Things weren’t changing permanently. She could easily deal with this for the next forty-four days. “Okay. Good. Let’s go downstairs, then. It’s a really nice room. We completely redid the bathroom when we fixed up the house last year.”

The guest room was immaculate, as it always was, with a beautiful handmade quilt in white and pale blue and antique mahogany furniture. Kelly tried not to focus on the bed, although she kept imagining what it would be like to sleep there with Peter.

They’d evidently spent last night together, but she couldn’t remember anything about it.

“I can sleep here,” Peter said, putting his bag down on the small settee next to the windows. It was about a foot shorter than Peter, with velvet upholstery and wooden arms and trim.

“You won’t be able to fit!”

“Sure, I will.” He grinned. “I don’t want you to be uncomfortable, Kelly.”

Even the sound of his saying her name made her feel ridiculously jittery. “I’m not uncomfortable.”

“Yes, you are. You’re trying not to look at the bed. I know you’re doing this mostly for me, and I’m not going to make it any more awkward for you than I have to. I’ll be perfectly fine here. You know, when I was traveling through Europe, I mostly slept on the ground.”

He was still graciously taking the blame for the marriage, when Kelly knew very well that it was her own fault. “Okay. We’ll see how it goes.” She took a breath. “I guess I’ll go get my stuff from upstairs.”

“Okay. I’ll go over to my place and bring back what I need for the next month.” He stepped over very close to her, studying her face intently. “You’re okay with this, right? If you’re not, we need to put an end to it now.”

She smiled at him, in both self-consciousness and affection. She wouldn’t have been comfortable going through this charade with anyone put Peter, but she would trust him in anything. She could trust him in this. “I’m fine. I’m not a child, you know.”

“I know that.” There was a timbre to her tone that made her shiver a little. Then he gave his head a little shake. “I’ll be back in a little while.”

She smiled again, but she felt strangely disappointed, like she’d missed something that might have happened a moment ago.

Walking upstairs, she told herself to get a grip.