“I have been so for an hour,” he admitted.
Tabitha frowned. “Then why are you still in bed?”
He pressed a kiss against the top of her head. “I didn’t want to wake you.”
Of course he couldn’t rise from bed without waking her. She’d been using his arm as a pillow.
Impulsively, she flung her own arms around him and squeezed him in the tightest hug she could. How was this man the most thoughtful, caring person ever to enter her life? When had “Oldfield’s guard dog” become her guardian angel?
Rather than push her away, Hudson chuckled softly and wrapped her in his arms and held her close. “Good morning, Mrs. Snowfeather.”
“Good morning, Mr. Snowfeather,” Tabitha replied automatically, but a worm of doubt dulled the edges of her happiness.
Was he just pretending? Going along with the ruse, as she’d asked him to do? Or, like her, was their unexpected connection the realest, truest thing to ever come into his life?
She tilted her head up to face him.
His gaze was soft and warm, his lips inches from hers. “Is there something you want?”
“I want you to kiss me,” she whispered. “And mean it.”
Hunger filled his eyes. His mouth slanted over hers without hesitation.
This kiss was as dizzying and powerful as the ones they’d shared in the river, yet different. Deeper. Truer. As though he was still holding back, but much less so than before. As if every kiss shattered another brick in the wall of societal expectations separating them, bringing them one step closer to destroying the barrier forever.
Tabitha wanted whatever was on the other side. Wanted him. Wanted this. Couldn’t bear for the moment to end, for the week to conclude, for the tides of real life to envelop her in its vicious current and drag her into its dark depths to die miserable and cold.
She knew her duty. Would do her duty. But first, she would experience what it might be like not to have been born a marquess’s daughter. To have the freedom to decide for herself, to steer her own ship, to choose whom to give her body to.
As for giving away her heart, she suspected she had little choice in that matter, whether as a lady or a runaway pretending to be a commoner. Tabitha had no power to decide where her heart should lie.
It already belonged to the man whose mouth and tongue melded with hers.
His presence didn’t just banish the helplessness and desperation that had clung to her since birth. His kisses made her feel like a goddess. Powerful. Capable. Desirable.
Maybe even worthy of love.
A knock sounded at the exterior door leading to the corridor, startling them from their kiss.
Tabitha blinked, disoriented. “Who would call at… what time is it?”
“Early.” Hudson released her from his arms with gentle care and rolled from the bed. “It must be important.”
“How can it be? No one knows we’re here. Perhaps someone is lost.”
“More likely, it is the news I was expecting. I asked one of my men to update me about your father, and keep me abreast of any change in his condition.”
Terror flooded Tabitha’s veins, cold and slimy. She scrambled from the bed, her previously relaxed limbs now graceless and jerking. “Something happened to my father?”
“I didn’t say that.” But he was already striding toward the door, where a folded missive poked underneath.
She hurried after him, fear and self-recrimination tensing every muscle and enshrouding every inch of skin in gooseflesh. Whilst she was gallivanting about carefree, feeling truly happy for the first time in her life—her father was at home in his sickbed.
Dying.
Or worse… already dead.
“Lord save me,” she whispered. “I am the worst daughter. I should never have run away from the altar. I should have fulfilled Papa’s dying wish while he was still alive to see it. I should never have put my personal revulsion above his altruistic desire to—”
