When he opened his eyes, she was leaning over him, and the world narrowed entirely to big brown eyes, pale cheeks, yellow curls come undone, and kissable lips that didn’t even tremble.
“You’re awake,” she whispered. “How do you feel?”
“Like I’ve been shot. How bad is it? Where am I?”
“My brother’s house. If there’s no infection, you’ll live. The bullet ripped through the fleshy bit of your side. No major organs were damaged. You’re quite lucky.”
“Not lucky.Good. I hit Hutchens’s shoulder purposely and angled my body to give him a smaller target.”
“That means Hutchens is good, too, because he still hit that smaller target.”
“Yes. Well,” Keats grumbled. He attempted to raise his hand to brush his knuckles against her cheek, but pain exploded up and down his side. “Damn.”
“Don’t move.”
“Then could you please lay your cheek near my hand so I can feel it without lifting my arm?”
Her lips bounced into a brief smile she squashed. She rolled her eyes.
When she stood, he risked the very pain of Hell to reach for her and catch her wrist. “Where are you going?”
“My brother said to tell him when you wake.”
“Where’s Alex?”
“At Hawthorne House.”
“And Palmerson and Hutchens?”
“They seem to have left, gone back to London, I presume. Your friend the earl has returned to London as well.”
“I must leave, too.” He rubbed his thumb over her pulse. Her skin was soft everywhere, but at her wrist it was maddeningly so. Her pulse hopped. At his touch? Or because of the possible danger of an unvanquished enemy? “I’m sorry.”
“You should be. For fighting a duel and getting shot. It was quite thoughtless of you.”
“Not for that. I’m not sorry for that at all.”
She returned to her seat on the mattress just beside him. “You should be.” She dropped her head, hiding her expression. “You scared me.”
“I never wished to do that.”
“You scared Alex.”
“Not my wish, either. But Iwillput a bullet in the heart of any man who tries to hurt either of you.” She pulled her wrist away, and his fingers were lonely without the warmth of her skin, the beat of her pulse. “I regret being a careless fool up till now. I regret not showing you greater respect. By revealing the truth sooner.”
Her nose wrinkled. “You have always been terribly forward. There was that kiss in the lake. But… you have respected me by listening to me. By not taking offense when I propositioned you.”
“I would not mind if you propositioned me again.”
“Do you… truly want me, then?”
Bloody hell, her doubt hurt worse than the hole in his side. “If you have to ask, I’ve not been obvious enough, which means I need to be more obvious, and I fear you might find that obnoxious. How do you feel about me using rose petals to write out in large letters on some field in Hyde Park exactly how I feel about you? I might write, ‘Lucy Jones is the most cock-stirringly adorable woman to?—’”
“Stop.” She laughed.
“See. Adorable.” He dug his fingernails into his palm. “I should have told you who I was when I knew you were helping my sister, when I knew I… wanted you.”
She picked at a wrinkle in her skirt. “Perhaps we should have trusted each other with more than our bodies.”
