“Milord?” said another voice in the corridor.
He saw the innkeeper in his nightcap and dressing gown. “I just sent a thief through the window. Find the man with the newly broken leg, and you’ll have the culprit. I suggest you increase your security, sir, if women can be attacked in their bedchambers!” He took the candelabrum from the innkeeper’s hand and slammed the door in his face.
“You tossed him off the balcony?” Audrey asked in surprise.
He set the candles down on the table. “I did. To deal with him, I would have had to leave you, and he might have had an accomplice in the taproom below.”
“Oh,” she murmured.
She reached to touch Molly, who’d pushed herself to a sitting position. Audrey put an arm around her.
“Miss Audrey?” Molly said weakly. “What happened?”
“A thief, dear.”
“Did he hurt either of you?” Robert demanded.
Audrey shook her head. “You came quickly. Thank you.”
Her hair, dark in the night, was caught back in a simple braid, and her golden eyes glowed large and luminous in the candlelight. Without her corset and petticoats, she looked fragilein her plain linen dressing gown. That protectiveness she didn’t like about him surged into prominence.
When Molly shivered, he said, “I’ll put her in bed,” almost glad for the distraction. He glanced around and noticed that both beds seemed to be overly disheveled. “What happened to the beds?”
“He was searching them,” Audrey explained.
Her voice seemed a bit faint, her complexion pale, but other than that, she was taking the attack better than most women would. She reached around her, found a table leg, and that seemed to orient her.
She pointed to the far wall. “That is her bed.”
Robert lifted Molly into his arms, and she gave him a wide-eyed stare, her face going red as she covered her smiling mouth with a hand. By the time he’d laid her in bed, Audrey was there behind him.
“Let me get a cold compress for your head, Molly.”
Reaching with both hands, she found the washstand and the facecloths, poured water in the basin, and brought a damp cloth to her maid.
Molly held it to the side of her head. “I’ll be fine, miss, don’t you worry.”
Though her voice was cheerful, her face showed the strain. Robert knew from experience that her head must be pounding.
He drew Audrey aside by the arm. Now that he was touching her, he could feel the faint trembling in her body. Her free hand reached out as if to steady herself, and touched his bare chest.
She gave a little gasp and whispered, “What are you wearing?”
“Trousers,” he said in a husky voice. “When I heard your signal, I came running.”
He’d expected her to recoil, but her hand still touched him, right in the enter of his chest, and suddenly his heartbeataccelerated, and he was feeling things he didn’t want to feel, not for his pretend-fiancée. And certainly not while her maid was present.
He spoke in a low voice without thinking. “You’re out in the world now, Audrey, where people will take advantage of you. Are you prepared for that?”
Was he talking about thieves—or himself?
And she still she kept her hand in the center of his chest, her lips parted, her breathing fast. He had her by the arm, and her thigh pressed along the length of his, without bulky layers of petticoats between them.
“I—I’ll be safe in my own home,” she murmured.
“So you’re going to stay within those walls, never leaving, just like you were raised?”
She stiffened. “No. I will be like every other woman. I will visit others and have dinner parties and benormal.”
