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Page 134

| "And Ashton's," she whispered to herself, her gaze settling on the one bed in the room against the far wall. A blush rose to her cheeks. There was only one bedonly one room! Where on earth would she find any privacy? |

| Momentarily catapulted back to those intimate moments with Ashton, Sasha looked quickly away from the bed and looked over the rest of the room, assessing all that Crispin and Rufus had done to prepare the house for occupancy. A fireplace had been built opposite the door, and an iron cooking pot hung over the grate. The walls were of unpainted planking, the mortar, she learned later, a mixture of sheep hair and mud; the floor was made of wide wooden planks. |

| All the furniture was handmade. The table was a split slab on four legs set in auger holes, the three-legged stools at the table made in the same way. Rough cupboards stood in one corner of the room, and pegs had been driven around the wall to hold clothes and on both sides of the fireplace to hold cooking utensils. Wooden shelves held foodstuffs and other utensilswhittled wooden knives, forks, plates, cups, butter paddles, buckets and dippers. A broom of fine birch splints tied together with a strip of hide rested against the wall. |

| Two armchairs sat before the fireplace, flanked by small tables with fresh, unburned candles in brass candleholders on the top of each. |

| "It's not much, but it's the best we can do for now," Ashton said from suddenly behind Sasha. |

| Startled, Sasha turned quickly to face him. "I didn't hear you come in," she murmured, glad that he no longer seemed to be angry at her for what she |

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