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A choking sound came from Ethan. A small smile touched her mouth, and he regretted it did not fully form.
“I will summon the doctor; the countess insisted he stayed overnight.”
Ethan frowned. “Why am I in bed?” And it felt as if he were bloody naked. “The last thing I recall was….” He would not say aloud what his intention had been to shock her sensibilities.
Her throat worked on a swallow, and guilt filled her eyes. Leaning over, she traced a slanting line from his brows to his mouth. His pulse quickened. It was her touch. Soft. God, so soft.
“You were struck by lightning,” she whispered. “Oh, Ethan, I was so frightened.”
“Good God, struck by lightning?”
“Yes.”
“I thought it was the kiss that might have knocked me on my ass,” he said with a measure of humor.
Her cheeks pinkened, but her mouth did not curve.
“I do not like to see you saddened,” he said gruffly.
Her chin wobbled precariously. “Then you should not have almost died!”
“Perhaps that is a slight exaggeration. I am not even in pain anywhere on my body. Well, there is a dull ache at the back of my head.
Her voice cracked. “A limb broke. I think it hit you.”
“Well, there you have it. It was a limb that did it, not the blasted lightning. Surely the doctor would have made this evident.”
“I was not allowed to enter your chambers, and the countess made no announcements,” she said with a sniff. “I had to sneak in just now when everyone went to bed.”
Before he could say anything, she flung herself atop him, her slim hands snaking around his neck and holding on for dear life. “I thought you had died,” she wailed, and it was then he felt the dampness on his chest.
Something powerful jerked in the vicinity of his heart, and then a foreign tenderness assailed him. Closing his arms around her, he murmured, “I am fine, I promise it.”
She sobbed even harder. “You were asleep for the entire day. No one thought you would awaken.”
Ethan’s heart increased its tempo, and his body became brutally aware of her slim, curvaceous figure pressed against him. And that they were alone in his chamber. “Not because I was at death’s door,” he reassured her. “But because I have not been sleeping for the last few nights, and my body must have sensed I needed the rest.”
Her shivering eased but not the clasp around his neck.
“Why were you not sleeping?” she asked in the curve of his throat.
“Thoughts of you would keep me awake.”
She wriggled against him, and it was then Ethan realized he was holding her just as tightly. He eased his clasp, and she lifted her face to his. Her cheeks were damp with tears, her nose a bit red, and he thought she had never seemed lovelier.
“So I have been keeping you awake?”
“Yes.”
“Scandalous thoughts?” she teased in a voice that trembled slightly.
“Terribly scandalous. If you do not leave now, Charity, there will be no branch or rainfall to save you this time.”
She touched the lower side of his jaw with the tip of her fingers. “I do not need saving. Not from you…or from this.”
He cupped her cheeks, lifted his head, and crushed her mouth to his own.
