He would have been sent straight to hell had he acted upon the possibilities then and there.
Instead, he had backed away before she noticed him.
But the sight of her delectable attributes was seared into his eyeballs as well as in his heart.
Gory always hid her charming figure beneath the most hideous clothes. Who knew she had the body of an angel beneath all those layers of dark muslin? Well, he had always suspected it because she was a very pretty girl.
He liked everything about her and should have said something when Allendale began to court her.
But he didn’t.
By the time he realized his mistake, it was too late. Gory, the wonderfully eccentric, brilliant bluestocking who studied dead things, and was one of the foremost scholars on matters related to medical science and its advancements, was now betrothed to Viscount Allendale.
They had made the announcement three months ago.
The wedding was to take place next week.
He and his brothers had been invited, of course.
His brothers were married to Gory’s best friends, Adela and Syd. The wedding reception was to be held right here at the Huntsford townhouse immediately following the ceremony. His brother, Ambrose, Duke of Huntsford, had insisted upon it when Gory’s uncle cheapened out.
Her uncle was an unmitigated arse.
Had Gory accepted Allendale in order to escape the untenable situation in her own home? Julius had known she was unhappy there and ought to have done something about it, proposing to her himself.
He quickly shook off thoughts of Gory’s wedding, an event he was now determined to stop if Gory gave him the slightest hint she might reciprocate his feelings. But none of it mattered now, for she was in a desperate way and trembling.
Gory never trembled.
She was afraid of nothing.
“Tell me what happened,” he said, taking her cold hands into his warm ones, and having her sit in one of the cushioned chairs beside his hearth. “Let me fetch the ewer and basin. I need to clean you off while we speak. Gory, I cannot find any wounds on you. Have I missed something?”
Blessed saints, his hands had skimmed over every luscious curve and found nothing obvious.
“I don’t know. I feel dizzy,” she said.
He frowned. “Perhaps you were hit on the head. Hold still while I take a look at your scalp.”
She pushed his hand away. “No.”
“Gory, I need to–”
She pushed his hand away again. “No!”
He sighed. “All right. Maybe later. How did you get all this blood on you? Where have you been? Was someone else hurt?” He stopped, for he was throwing too many questions at her all at once.
When she shivered again, he realized he ought to get something warm and liquid into her. But it was the middle of the night, too early for the Huntsford scullery maids to be stirring yet. In any event, he did not think it wise to alert anyone else to her presence, not until he got more information out of her.
Since he kept a bottle of brandy in his bedchamber to enjoy a glass while he read beside the fire, he now retrieved it and poured a little into a glass for Gory. “Drink,” he gently coaxed, worried that she looked so pale and vulnerable.
“All right.” But she handed the glass back to him after managing only a few sips. “Tastes vile, you know.”
He cast her an achingly tender smile. “I know. It is an acquired taste.”
The sky had been threatening rain all night and Julius now heard the first droplets striking against his window panes with sharp pock-pocks. He grabbed a fresh cloth from his dressing room table and dampened it in the water he had just poured from the ewer into the basin.
By the soft amber glow of the lamp, he rinsed her hands, and then washed the dabs of blood off her cheeks and off a few tendrils of hair that framed her heart-shaped face. The pins had loosened from her hair and all those glorious chestnut tresses were about to spill onto her shoulders. After cleaning her face and neck, and wiping a few droplets of blood off the swell of one breast, he took the pins out and attempted to smooth back her hair. “No,” she said and stopped him.
