She pushed up onto her hands, only realizing that her blankets had fallen around her waist when his gaze dropped down her body. Her nightgown covered her well, but it was of a fine, thin fabric, and she felt almost naked in it compared to the layers of garments she wore like a shield during the day. She pulled the blankets back up and tucked them beneath her arms, across her chest.
“Why are you here?” she asked.
“I was worried about you.” He hesitated. “It was ... a strange feeling, one I can’t explain.”
“I did not hear you knock; nor did I invite you in.” The faintest scent reached her. “I smell ... strong spirits.” She wondered if drink lowered his every inhibition?
He grunted. “I did not drink nearly as much as your brother. Considering his thin build, I am amazed that he still functions at the end of the night.”
“He returned with you?”
“No. He said he had more entertainment to enjoy.”
“But not you?”
In the gloom, she could see the shrug of his big shoulders.
“I am too old for such pointless endeavors. And I never did like wondering what I said or did while inebriated.”
“But surely you’ve been in that state a time or two,” she said, scooting back to lean into her pillows.
“Every man has. And I know Appertan is still a very young man, but one with many responsibilities that he cannot continue to ignore.”
“You are a viscount, with your own responsibilities. Surely you should not have overimbibed.”
He rested his cane across his thighs. “My father was still alive when I enlisted. He was embarrassed by my decision and furious with me, but just to prove myself, I decided to drink like a man with the other soldiers.”
“You showed him,” she murmured, fighting to keep from smiling.
He sighed. “I certainly did. I wasn’t even ten miles from home. We drank so much and brawled to show our fighting prowess that the tavern owner complained to our company sergeant. The man had great pride in wearing the uniform and thought little of someone who dishonored it. And I was wearing my uniform—when you’re enlisted, you have to, at all times.”
“But surely a few drunken soldiers weren’t all that unusual.”
“But I was a drunken baron, my courtesy title. The sergeant dragged my ass—forgive me—he dragged me back to my father and threatened to discharge me then and there.”
She winced. “And proud man that you are, I imagine you did not take well to that.”
“I was humiliated, and it was all my own fault. Never again did I embarrass myself that way.” He hesitated. “It was the last time I ever saw my father. I inherited the viscountcy six months later, when he had an apoplexy and died.”
“I’m sorry your last memory was a poor one. Surely he was proud of you, that your letters—”
“It was six months before I arrived in India. By the time I posted my first letter, he was already dead.”
She shouldn’t speak, but the words tumbled out of her. “I hope the letter informing you of his death was as kind as yours was to me.”
Old sorrows hung between them like laundry abandoned on the line.
“I only spoke the truth about Lord Appertan,” he said quietly. “He was a great man.”
She thought of Lord Blackthorne’s many letters to her since, asking how she did, telling her of his daily life without revealing much bloodshed. But she had begun to know his letters well, and could read between the lines, the tension of a border dispute, the endless waiting and worry when he’d sent a detachment into danger. He’d not been sentimental or full of flowery phrases, but clear and concise and reliable.
Such a man could not want her dead. He would have had to plan it from the moment of her father’s death, crafting his letters to appeal to her, planning to visit her all along.
Squeezing her eyes shut, she leaned back into the pillow with a sigh.
“You are tired,” Lord Blackthorne said as he rose.
She tried not to tense, remembering how he’d touch her—how she’d allowed it, dwelled on the sensation. He limped toward the dressing-room door.
