My chair had been moved near the hearth, and there I saw a rabbit roasting on a spit before the fire. My mouth watered.
I tried to sit up, but between snugly wrapped blankets, weak limbs, and a bruised tailbone, it proved beyond me. I was about to call out for Harker when I heard boots on the stairs.
“You’re awake,” he said with relief, coming to me.
I eyed him helplessly. “I’m afraid I’m tangled.”
He knelt beside me, a soft smile on his lips as he gradually unwrapped me. My eyes followed his movements. He had put on a clean shirt and rolled the cuffs, exposing the smooth skin and lines ofmuscle in his forearms, and the knobs and ridges of bone in his wrists and hands.
As the last blanket was peeled back, my breath caught. I was wearing only my shift and corset. My laces had been loosened, too, revealing the curve of my breasts and some of the valley between them.
“Forgive me,” he said, his eyes touching mine as he raised the edge of the blanket to cover me. A flush stained his cheeks for the first time since I’d met him. “Your dress was rain soaked and ... bloodstained. Your breathing was—”
“Thank you,” I said. Our fingers brushed as I pressed the blanket in place.
He reached for the teapot and filled a cup, placing it in my hands. “Are you warm enough?”
I was indeed. It was a mystery how the nearness of Harker’s cold body could raise such heat in mine. “Yes. I feel much better.”
“Good.”
I blew steam from the cup and drank. Mrs. Moyle was fond of saying, “Tea sets everything right.” Maybe not everything, but it at least gave you a moment to rest and think.
“Where did you get the rabbit?” I asked, a tremor in my voice because of the way he was looking at me. Like I might break, and like that might breakhim.
“In the oak wood. The poachers aren’t bold enough to set snares so close to the chapel, and the rabbits are prolific.”
“How did you ...?” I trailed off, realizing what a silly question I was about to ask. He’d probably chased it down and caught it with his bare hands. “I see,” I finished lamely.
He raised one of those hands in the air between us, hesitating a moment while my heart jumped out of rhythm.Will he touch me this time?My eyes flicked to his lips, and then realizing there was no way he could have missed that, I let my gaze drop, swallowing dryly.
A lock of hair fell in front of my face, and with his raised hand, he pushed it back.
“Mina, you saved my life.”
I gave a shaky nod.
“I might have killed you.”
I looked up. “Aye. But you didn’t.”
He closed his eyes, and I watched the wave of pain wash over him. “I would have placed no value on the life you saved, had I taken yours. I place little value on it as it is.”
“And ifyouhad died, I would have blamed myself. I ...” I took a breath, hoping to steady my voice. “I don’t think I would have gotten over it.”
We eyed each other, and I became aware of a desire I’d never felt before. I wanted—more than anything, so hard it ached—to be in this man’s arms. Not as his prey, but in the usual way. Afraid he would read this in my eyes, I lowered them again.
He rose quietly, moving to an armchair opposite the tea table. Some of the wholeness I felt when he was close now seeped away, and fatigue from loss of blood crept back in.
I was trying to understand why he should have this effect on me when he asked, “Where do you suppose Jack has gone?”
My belly twisted. There were things I needed to say to him that I feared might revive the old distance between us. But I couldn’t put it off any longer.
“After Jack shot you,” I said, “Goosevar came. Then Jack shot him, too—full in the middle of the chest.”
Harker’s eyes rounded. “Killed?”
I shook my head. “Goosevar just knocked him down and carried him off.”
