She smiled shakily then because the order sounded more like him. She allowed him to hold her just a little longer, though she knew she shouldn’t. It felt so good to be in his arms, and she was so tired. She closed her eyes and drifted.
Several minutes later, she was jarred awake as he pushed her away and stood. “We’d better go,” he said, turning his back to her.
Lord, she’d almost fallen asleep in his arms!
Then her chest tightened as she realized that he didn’t seem to want her there. He’d felt sorry for her, pitied her, and she’d fallen into his embrace, tried to make it into something more. She was falling in love with him all over again, but the result would be the same as it was when they’d first met.
He did not want her.
She straightened her spine and tried not to think of his rejection. “Of course. Go ahead inside,” she said tonelessly. She darted a glance at the window. “I’ll be fine here.”
He swung around. “You’re not staying out here tonight.”
“Just a little longer.” She needed a few moments away from him to calm herself. “Nat will be here in a moment.” She glanced at the window as if her look alone could hurry the groom from his chores.
“You’ll go inside now or I wait with you. I sent your footman inside, and I won’t have you out here alone.”
She shook her head. “Lord Winterbourne—”
“Will you bloody well call me Ethan?” he shouted.
Francesca jumped off the blanket. “Do not shout,Ethan. You’ll scare the bunny.”
“Am I scaringyou?” He stepped toward her. Once again, she felt the size of his presence, his overwhelming strength and masculinity. “Because I don’t think you’ve got it through your thick skull yet that you are in danger. The man who attacked you will come back.”
“I doubt that.” It seemed easier to deal with her fears if she denied them, ignored them.
“Don’t.”
She forced herself to keep her back to the window facing the crumbling Roman wall where she’d been attacked. Shehaddrawn the curtain, hadn’t she? Instead of checking again, like some kind of obsessed lunatic, she turned from him to go to the rabbit. Caring for the bunny would take her mind from her fears.
His hand on her elbow stopped her. “There is a slight possibility you know this man, Francesca.”
She shook her head. The idea that someone she knew would do such a thing was ridiculous. Impossible.
“Yes.” He squeezed her elbow. “I’ve been talking to the servants, putting the facts together. It’s unlikely, but he might be a man of your acquaintance.”
She huffed. “That’s ludicrous.”
“It does seem far-fetched.” His hand moved to circle her upper arm, warm and steady. “On the other hand, it makes sense. The attack might have been random. But a passerby was quite lucky you were walking into the house at that moment. If it’s someone you know, then there was no luck. The attacker knows the estate grounds and your habits.” His fingers traced the edge of her jaw, and she tried to ignore the frisson of pleasure his touch produced. “He’ll want to finish what he started.”
Once again the image of the crumbling Roman wall flashed through her mind. She saw the outline of her attacker. Everything was black and hazy, too dark to see anything.
“You’re not safe until your attacker has been caught,” Winterbourne said.
She jerked her chin from his fingers. He was scaring her, making her remember the terror. “Lord Winterbourne—”
“Damn it! Call me Ethan or no one will believe this betrothal.”
“Good!” She put her hands on her hips. “I don’twantthem to believe it.” And at that moment she meant it. She wanted to return to her normal life. A life without the Marquess of Winterbourne.
“And I don’t want to be told what to do like I’m twelve again instead of one and twenty,” she went on. “And I don’t want you hereinvestigatingeveryone and scaring people and—andconfusingme.”
He caught the tail of her hair in one hand, and his fingers grazed her neck. “Confusing you?”
His touch had a paralyzing effect. All thoughts of escaping him vanished. She couldn’t seem to remember why she’d wanted to get away from him in the first place, what she’d been so frightened of. Her gaze traced a slow path from his cravat to the strong angles of his jaw, over his sculpted bronze cheekbones, to the slow liquid snare of his amber eyes.
His gaze met hers, the gold flecks in his eyes pulling her in like sticky honey. Warm honey. Hot even. No one had ever stared at her like that, with a look she could only describe as unadulterated desire.
