What is going on?
Yet, he couldn’t answer that question. All he felt was this pull to her. It was an answer to all their bickering, all the tension, all the anger he felt toward Lord Chilmond. He should kiss her, put it all into that action and leave words far behind.
His lips hovered over hers when, suddenly, they heard a sound in the corridor. Dorothy leaped back as if he had burned her, and his eyes widened. They stared at one another and then, in time together, jerked their heads toward the door.
“If someone hears us, there will be a scandal.” Stephen lifted a hand and rubbed his eyes. He couldn’t look at her now.
What scandal he had come close to, regardless. He had almost betrayed his closest friend by kissing his sister.
“Dorothy, you need to go.”
Dorothy nodded and stood, then hurried back to the door. She didn’t say anything, and neither did she meet his gaze. She pressed her ear to the door, ensuring all was silent again, and then slipped out. The last look she offered Stephen was unreadable, and then she vanished.
Stephen sighed heavily, raising a hand to his throbbing temple as he stared at the dancing flames.
Well, after that, neither of them could deny what they had nearly done.
What in God’s name did it mean?
CHAPTERTEN
Dorothy waited outside of Stephen’s chamber the next morning. She constantly looked at the grandfather clock at the end of the hallway, watching the minute hand tick by.
Stephen would have been awake for breakfast by now, but with his injury, he could wake at any time. She kept moving back to his door and raising her hand, wondering if she should knock to check he was well, then walking away again and thinking the better of it.
She paced up and down the hallway, the floorboards creaking beneath her. Eventually, the door opened, and Stephen’s face appeared as his hand gripped the doorframe rather tightly.
“If I hadn’t been awake, your wearing away these floorboards certainly would have woken me.” He narrowed his eyes at her.
Dorothy didn’t know whether to smile at the fact that Stephen seemed like his usual self or be disappointed that he wasn’t going to talk about what they had nearly done the night before.
Her stomach fluttered as she stared at him, thinking of how close they had come to kissing one another. It had been a great thrill, indeed. She had yearned for it, to know what it would feel like to be kissed by him and to put all their bickering into that kiss instead.
She smiled at him, and he smiled back, rather feebly.
“How are you?” she asked as she stepped toward him.
“Still a little dizzy, but not as bad as last night.” He released the doorframe and stepped into the corridor. When he staggered to the left, she moved to catch his arm and keep him steady. “That will not help us,” he muttered in her ear. “I thought that after last night you would have run a thousand miles from me this morning.”
Her mouth turned dry, not only at his close proximity but at his words.
“A friend can take a friend’s arm, can she not? Especially when he is injured. Come on, let’s get you downstairs for breakfast. The physician wanted you to keep eating.” Dorothy slowly drew him forward, aware she had to keep steadying him as he walked.
“Friend, eh? Probably the first time you ever called me your friend and not just your brother’s,” Stephen muttered as they reached the stairs.
“Is that true?”
“Yes.”
“No, I do not believe it is.” She shook her head, paying extra attention to the stairs. Her stomach knotted at the mere thought he could tumble down the stairs. “I remember calling you my friend once at Christmas some years ago. Father was so shocked, he dropped his mulled wine.”
“I can well imagine your father doing that.” Stephen chuckled softly. “Good man, your father. Kind, friendly.”
“That he was.”
Dorothy didn’t want to speak of her father. The grief still felt too fresh.
They fell silent once more, and she helped him toward the breakfast room. When he staggered to the right, she had to pull him back to the left, and he shook his head.
