The muscles in her arms and back protested, but she pushed herself to sitting position and swung her legs off the bed. She took a deep breath and stood, but before she even got both feet on the cool floor, a strong arm caught her around the waist and hauled her back into bed.

She made a weak effort to wrestle herself away, but Vic was deceptively agile for someone who’d been curled in a limp pile only seconds earlier. She threw one long leg over Sophia’s hips and caught both of her hands in one.

“Where do you think you’re going?”

Sophia laughed. “Home . . . or my hotel room.”

“In the middle of the night?”

“That is when people usually go to bed.”

“You’re in a bed.”

“Your bed, not mine.”

“And what can you do in a hotel bed that you cannot do in mine?”

“Sleep, apparently. Something I desperately need before filming tomorrow.”

“You can sleep here,” Vic said. “I’ll relent for a few hours.”

She laughed again. “Even if I believed that, what makes you think I share your level of restraint and good sense? I lack all your breeding and high ideals. My only hope is to flee when I have the chance.”

“And what? Slink across the castle grounds in the dark? Security would be all over you before you cleared the inner bailey.”

“I’d rather take my chances with them tonight than try to sneak out in broad daylight again.”

Vic kissed her temple and snuggled closer. “Then it’s settled, no sneaking out at all. You’ll stay the night. On my honour I’ll see to it we both sleep, and in the morning I’ll make sure you’re well fed before we face the day.”

Sophia tried to squirm away once more, not at all liking the sound of that. It was too clear, too up front, too level-headed. She didn’t want to be level-headed about what was happening between them. The things she felt for Vic were wild and unreasonable, and she didn’t want to examine any of them more deeply. “I’m not a stay-all-night kind of woman.”

“And I’m not a dirty-little-secret kind of woman.” Vic sighed and sat up. “So, we seem to have reached an impasse.”

“Oh Vic.” She cupped her face in her hands. “Do we have to have this conversation so soon?”

“What conversation?”

“The one where you try to put a label on things, and I have to tell you I don’t want that, then you insert your sense of honour, and I have to explain that I’m not the kind of girl you bring home to your parents and—”

“I had not intended on having that particular conversation,” Vic said, a little crease forming in her brow, “for all of your reasons and a hundred more of my own.”

“Oh.” Sophia didn’t know whether to be relieved or offended.