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Samantha lifted her head to glare at her housekeeper. “That will be all, Mrs. Johnson.”
With something resembling a smirk, the housekeeper retreated from the room. Of course, that left Samantha alone with Braden, without a clue as to what to say to him.
He walked over to the desk and lifted the empty pot. “Samantha, how many cups have you had this morning?”
She stared up at him, captured for a moment by his riveting green gaze. Then she noticed that despite his usual impeccable appearance, he, too, was looking pulled at the edges.
“I don’t remember,” she said. “But you certainly look like you could use a cup of coffee yourself.”
His mouth kicked up in a wry smile. “I’ve already had three. But no more for you today, all right? You look downright twitchy, sweetheart.”
His endearment did little to calm her admittedly twitchy nerves.
“Can you blame me?” Then she immediately grimaced. “Sorry, I don’t mean to bark at you.”
“You can bark all you want,” he said, coming around the desk. “I don’t mind in the least.”
Calm as you please, he took her hand and began checking her pulse.
She let out an aggrieved sigh. “You really must stop that, sir.”
“And you really must stop drinking so much coffee.”
“I had a headache. I was trying to get rid of it.”
“Did it work?”
“No,” she grumbled.
She knew she sounded like a petulant child.
He gently placed her hand down on the desk. “Sometimes coffee can help, but you obviously need something stronger. I’ll send around some headache powders.”
“Nothing with laudanum in it, though.” When he frowned, she mustered a weak smile. “I cannot stand the taste of it.”
“Nothing like that, I promise.”
“Thank you.”
“Did you get any sleep?”
She wrinkled her nose. “No, did you?”
He made a scoffing noise and then reached down and took her hand. “Come sit with me on the sofa. We can both be tired together.”
She let him pull her up from the chair. She shouldn’t allow it, since letting him get so close was the cause of her immediate troubles in the first place. But she couldn’t help herself in that regard, either. Braden made her feel secure, and that was perhaps the most dangerous feeling of all. Just when one felt secure, disaster was sure to strike.
She plopped down on the overstuffed cushions, too weary to care about proper behavior.
Braden sat beside her and stretched out his long legs. He also extended an arm along the back of the sofa, just a whisper away from her shoulders. It was simply scandalous to sit with him like this, even if he was a doctor. Even more scandalous was her overwhelming desire to snuggle against him, taking shelter under that strong arm.
Ninny.
“I don’t mean to pressure you, Samantha,” he said in a quiet voice. “But we do need to talk about last night.”
She sighed. “Do you mean about that ghastly scene with Lord Beath, or about how rude I was to you afterwards?”
“I have it on good authority that you weren’t being rude, so not to worry on that account.”
