Crow bit his tongue almost as soon as the words had left his mouth. Though he’d meant them, he knew he shouldn’t have voiced the suggestion out loud. Of course Penelope couldn’t spend the whole night with him. It just wasn’t possible. William was posted downstairs, already suspicious that she had come to his bedchamber, and Preston would catch them together in the morning. There was no way they could get way with anything more than they already had. It was too risky to even try.

But that didn’t change the fact that he didn’t want her to go.

As Penelope reiterated the reasons why she had to leave, he let out his breath in a stressed exhale. He hated how much one bad dream had frayed his nerves. Even if it had been vivid, he shouldn’t have let it get to him like this. It wasn’t like he’d actually relived the traumas of his past, after all. It had just been a nightmare that he needed to forget about.

Unfortunately, even though he knew all these things, it was hard to put them into practice, especially when he knew there was a chance that the dream would recur when he fell asleep tonight. Though he wanted to believe it had just been a fluke, he had a sinking feeling that the nightmares that had plagued him before were coming back for a second round.

Crow stiffened involuntarily when Penelope seemed to make the connection that his uncharacteristic behavior now was related to how he’d acted in the Great Hall that morning. He averted his gaze ashamedly. There was no point in lying to her when she’d already caught on to him. But he also didn’t want to talk about it. For one thing, admitting that he was this rattled because of a [i]dream[/i] was just embarrassing. For another, there was always a chance that it had really just been a coincidence and that he was overreacting because of the nightmares he’d had when he was younger. He didn’t want to come off as weak in either case.

“I’m sorry. Forget I said anything,” he muttered after a moment, moving to sit up on the bed. “I’ll help you get your clothes so you can go back to your room.”