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“Yes, you have.”
She was leaning over him now, and he tried to ignore the lush curve of her breasts, so close that if he leaned forward an inch he could rest his face against them and breathe in her sweet scent.
“Will you forgive me?” he whispered, gazing into her eyes.
They were beautiful eyes. Her spectacles had slipped down her nose, and he could see the warm brown color of her irises. A smile creased the corners, but a moment later was gone.
“Where are you hurt?” she said, a note of impatience in her voice. As if she wanted him to stop this nonsense so that she could do something practical to help him.
He shook his head and turned his face away. “Leave me here,” he said with a heroic grimace. “I deserve to die like a dog.”
She touched his shoulder, her fingers gentle. “No one deserves that.”
“You don’t know half of what I’ve done, Antoinette. I wouldn’t soil your ears with the details. A man like me was born to be hanged.”
“Even so…” She was watching him uncertainly, as well she might. His acting was appallingly bad but she believed him to be a highwayman, willing to go to any lengths to achieve his goal. She didn’t know he was Gabriel Langley, son of a baronet…
Or maybe he wasn’t the son of a baronet at all. He was a man without a name, without the home he loved, and this woman was the mistress of his arch enemy. He closed his eyes and began to writhe in his chair as if he were in his death throes.
“Please…” Her hand tightened on his shoulder, and then she touched his hair, stroking the untidy curls. When he opened his eyes and looked up at her, she was gazing down at him, and, just for a moment, he thought she looked like an angel. An angel wearing spectacles. And then desire took over again and she was all woman, the woman for him.
“Tell me where it hurts?” she said, enunciating the words clearly and slowly, so that even a man in his perilous state could understand.
He made a vague gesture downward.
Antoinette frowned as she tried to see where the wound was. She pressed her hands carefully to his chest, then his stomach, glancing up at him for guidance. He shook his head. Her hand rested lightly on his knee as she knelt before him on the floor.
“Tell me,” she begged. “I cannot help you if you will not tell me.”
“Up,” he groaned, with another spasm.
Her hands crept up over his thighs, her worried gaze searching his limbs for wounds or signs of trauma. He thought he might die. He remembered her mouth on him, and his discomfort doubled. Gabriel was no longer pretending to be in pain.
“There,” he gasped, pointing.
She actually reached out and laid her palm over him—who would have thought her such an innocent!—before realizing she’d been made a fool of. The next moment she leaped to her feet, eyes flashing, fists clenched, the image of womanly fury.
“You beast!”
Gabriel shook with laughter. Behind the mask his eyes were streaming.
“I cannot believe I was concerned for such a…a…” she stammered, so angry she couldn’t go on.
“Such a beast,” he offered, and took a shaky breath. “I didn’t know you cared, Antoinette.”
“I don’t!” she half screamed.
Laughter left him, and abruptly he stood up. She eyed him uneasily, backing away. “You’re lying,” he said coolly.
“No.”
Were those tears in her eyes? Impossible! And yet he felt his heart soften at the thought that they might be.
“Last night…” he began.
She turned her back on him. “I don’t want to discuss last night.”
“You enjoyed it. You can’t hide that from me.”
