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She saw now that the eyelid on his missing eye had been closed and sewn shut. It was sunken, true, but beyond that, there was nothing more distressing than a normal closed eye would be. The rest of that side of his face was another matter, of course. A deep gouge ran diagonally across his face, starting below the closed eyelid and ending at a point near his ear. Below that was an area pitted and reddened, the skin thickened and leathery-looking, perhaps some kind of burn scar. Smaller white lines were scattered across his cheekbone, obviously the result of knife cuts.
“Not a pretty sight, is it?” he rasped.
Helen jerked, startled, only just missing dripping candle wax on his shoulder.
Alistair opened his eye to regard her calmly. “Are you examining the beast you let bed you last night?” His voice was deep. Rough from sleep.
“I’m sorry,” she murmured rather inanely. She saw now that her chemise lay half under his shoulder.
“Why?” he asked.
“What?” She yanked at the chemise, but he lay over most of it, and she couldn’t pull it out from under him without ripping the fine fabric.
He didn’t move. “Why be sorry? You have the right, after all, to see what your lover looks like under the mask.”
She gave up on the chemise for the moment and glanced about distractedly for the wrap instead. Really, it felt quite odd to be having a conversation whilst nude. “I didn’t want to seem, well, rude, is all.”
He grasped her wrist and pulled her toward him, taking the candlestick from her hand and setting it on the small table by his side of the bed. “It’s not rude to want to know the truth.”
“Alistair,” she said softly, “I must return to my own room. The children—”
“Are most likely sound asleep,” he murmured. He tugged at her arm, and she half fell across him, her breasts crushed to the heat of his chest. He leaned up and brushed his lips across hers. “Stay.”
“I can’t,” she whispered. “You know that.”
“Do I?” he rasped against her lips. “Someday you’ll leave, but right now I know only that it’s very early and my bed is very cold without you in it. Stay.”
“Alistair…” She hadn’t seen this side of him before, this gentle, charming lover. He was very appealing like this, and her resolve wavered.
“Is it the eye? I can put the patch back on.”
“No.” She drew back a little to see his face. Truly, she was no longer shocked by the scars, horrible as they were.
He placed his large hand on the back of her head and gently drew her down. “Then stay a little longer. I haven’t had a chance to properly woo you.”
She drew slightly away, eyeing him uncertainly. “Woo me?”
A corner of his mouth curled in amusement. “Court. Dance attendance on. Woo. I’ve been remiss.”
“And what would you do if you were to woo me?” she asked, only half in jest. She’d never been wooed, not properly. Surely, he wasn’t referring to marriage, was he?
He cocked one arm beneath his head, his mouth still curled. “I don’t know. I’m a bit rusty at paying court to a beautiful woman. Perhaps I should compose an ode to your dimples.”
Startled laughter puffed from her lips. “You can’t be serious.”
He shrugged and reached up with his free hand to play with a lock of hair near her face. “If you can’t abide poetry, I’m afraid I’m left with carriage rides and bouquets of flowers.”
“You’d bring me flowers?” He was joking, she knew, but a small, silly part of her heart wanted to believe him. Lister had bought her expensive jewels and an entire wardrobe, but he’d never thought to give her flowers.
His beautiful brown eye met her own. “I’m not a sophisticated man, and I live in the country, so you’d have to make do with country flowers. Violets and poppies in the early spring. Michaelmas daisies in the fall. Dog roses and thistles in the summer. And in late spring I’d bring you the harebells that grow in the hills hereabouts. Blue, blue harebells the exact same blue as your eyes.”
And that was the moment she felt it: a loosening, a breaking free. Her heart slipped its traces and went racing away, beyond her grasp, beyond her control. Entirely free and racing toward this complex, vexing, and utterly fascinating man.
Dear God, no.
BY THE TIME Alistair rose that morning, it was later than usual, a result of a night spent making love to Helen—which, all things considered, was a wonderfully satisfactory turn of events. If he had the choice of starting his day early or laying abed with his housekeeper, he very much feared he’d choose the latter and happily damn the sunrise.
Right now, though, it was past his usual hour to rise. As it was, by the time he’d shaved and dressed and run down the stairs, he discovered that Mrs. Halifax was engrossed in airing one of the unused bedrooms. One hoped that one rated higher than mildewed linen in one’s lover’s estimation, but apparently this was not always so. Helen rather distractedly refused an offer of a ramble and then soothed his ruffled male feathers by blushing violently before returning her attention to ordering the servants about.
