Work Text:
Anthony shifted and pulled the blanket higher around his shoulder.
The late March air should have been warmer, the bedroom, despite the glowing fire and thick drapes, also should have been warmer. But the wind-driven draft left him shivering, despite the dressing gown and every extra blanket in the room.
He sighed, punching the pillow into a more comfortable shape before turning again. Not that the pillow did much to ease the discomfort of the hard floor he had grown accustomed to sleeping on.
“You sound as though you are waging war on the bedding,” Kate’s voice drifted through the dim light of the room.
“I am simply trying not to freeze,” he bit back.
“It is not that cold.”
“Well if you say it is so, then I must stand corrected.”
“Technically,” Kate replied with a small pause. He hated that he could picture the smirk overtaking her features. “You are lying corrected.”
Anthony exhaled sharply, adjusting the pillow and shifting once more.
“If you are truly that cold, then why not just come share the bed with me?”
His head snapped toward her, as though he might see her expression in the darkness. “Surely you jest.”
“I do not,” Kate answered steadily, and that sharp quality that the edges of her voice usually held, seemed softer. “You’ve been climbing in every morning for the sake of the servants anyway. You might as well…start here tonight. That way I do not have to explain to Celia why I have a frozen corpse on the floor tomorrow."
“I will be fine on the floor,” he mumbled, but some traitorous part of his body wanted desperately to climb into bed with her.
A rustle of linens answered him, and he heard the mattress groan as Kate shifted.
“Anthony,” Kate said, quieter now, the sharpness gone entirely. “This is absurd.”
“I have slept in worse conditions.”
“I do not doubt it,” she replied. “But you are not required to prove your fortitude to the floorboards.”
He huffed, “Your concern is unnecessary.”
“And your martyrdom is tiresome.”
“Then go to bed, Kate. Good night.”
He heard the mattress shift once more as he shut his eyes, trying to determine how he had arrived here—married to Kate Sharma. The end result of a plot grown wildly out of control, meant to secure him the full inheritance of his viscountcy and ensure a dowry and future for her sister.
He had already had to change the terms of the agreement when their fake courtship was forced into this farce of a marriage, and she had by some mercy agreed.
But he refused to change the conditions of their arrangement further. Refused to ask more of her than he was already having to ask.
Especially not when as of late, Kate was consuming more of his waking—and sleeping—thoughts than he cared to admit.
Silence stretched between them, filled only by the low hiss of the fire and the restless wind pressing at the windows.
He could feel the cold creeping in and tried to suppress the chattering of his teeth.
“You are shivering.”
“I was unaware,” he deadpanned.
“Just get in the bed, Anthony.”
“We had an agreement. Sleeping in the same bed does not fall under that.”
“Then I will sleep on the floor!”
Anthony could hear the groan of the floorboards under her weight and was on his feet as quickly as he could manage. “You will do no such thing.”
Kate stilled before him, the hem of her nightgown brushing the tops of her feet as she stood just inches from him. The dim glow of the banked fire casting her in a soft golden light that caused his breath to catch in his throat.
“Why?” she asked, her chin lifting. “You insist on doing it.”
“That is different.”
“Because you are a man?”
“Yes.” His voice came sharper than intended. “And you are my—” he stopped himself. “You will not sleep on the floor.”
There was a beat of silence. Kate’s sharp eyes, looking over him. “Then neither will you.”
The wind rattled the windowpane as if in applause.
Anthony became acutely aware of the absurdity of the moment: two grown adults, bound by a legal farce and a mutually beneficial lie, standing in a darkened bedchamber arguing over who should suffer the greater discomfort all for the sake of trying to maintain a facade for a mysterious gossip columnist.
Kate’s silhouette wavered as she shifted her weight. “This is foolish,” she said more quietly. “We share a roof. We share meals. We share the scrutiny of the entire ton. And yet we draw the line at a mattress? The marriage is legal, it is not as if you will ruin my reputation.”
“We drew the line at necessity,” he said.
“And this is not necessary?” She wrapped her arms around herself, and though her tone remained steady, he heard the faint tremor she could not quite conceal. “You are freezing on the floor like a penitent, and I am meant to sleep comfortably above you as though I do not notice.”
He swallowed.
“I notice,” she added
The words landed between them, heavier than any accusation.
“Your incessant flopping and turning about leave me no choice,” she added, almost as an afterthought.
Anthony scrubbed a hand over his face. “Kate—”
“Do not,” she said, though there was no bite in it now. “Do not make this into something it is not. It is cold. That is all.”
Outside, the wind howled in agreement.
He hesitated only a moment longer before reaching for the edge of the blankets and lifting them back. “Very well,” he said gruffly. “For warmth. Nothing more.”
“For warmth,” she echoed.
She slid back beneath the covers first, leaving a careful span of mattress between them. Anthony followed, every movement deliberate, as though sudden motion might shatter the fragile truce. The bed dipped beneath his weight, the warmth startling after the bite of the floor.
They lay rigidly, facing the ceiling, the space between them charged and narrow as a blade’s edge.
A draft slipped beneath the covers.
Kate shivered.
Without thinking, he shifted closer.
Their sleeves brushed.
Neither moved away.
The wind battered the windows. The fire sighed. Somewhere in the house, a door creaked in protest against the cold.
But beside him, Kate’s breathing began to slow, evening into something softer, less guarded.
Anthony stared into the darkness, acutely aware of the warmth at his side, of the faint scent of lilies, of the fact that for the first time since this ill-conceived arrangement had begun, the cold had retreated.
“This changes nothing,” she murmured, already half-asleep.
“Of course not,” he replied. Because what was one more lie in the increasingly long list he had accumulated in this arrangement