She filled a glass from a pitcher on the bedside table.
“Here.” She held the tumbler under his nose. He shied away. “It’s just water. Not laudanum.”
His eyes moved to her, gaze still hazy. There was none of that razor-like steel in them. Only a glittery lurking, the doctor’s iron will laudanum-drunk and sleeping.
He was ignoring the water, but he needed to drink. Dr. Smithson had been most firm on that point.
“You must drink,” she murmured.
She hesitated and then slid her hand under his head, the silk of his hair threading through her fingers. Leaning over, she lifted his head, encouraging him to drink from the glass.
He gave one tentative sip, tasted that the liquid was indeed just water, and greedily drank the lot.
Lottie watched as he swallowed, her head so close to his she could see the pores in his skin and feel the rasp of his whiskers against her fingers holding the glass.
How could such a small act be so intimate?
As he finished drinking, his gaze flicked to hers, his expression soft and malleable. The look of a man deep in his cups.
Abruptly, the lack of space between them sent alarm bells ringing.
She was close.
Tooclose.
She could count his eyelashes and see the faint streaks of lighter gray in his eyes. Her hand all but clutched his head in a lover’s caress, as if she were about to bend and kiss him.
Their eyes locked for one heartbeat.
A single joint breath.
In. Out.
Lottie lurched upright, shattering the spell. She slid her palm out of his hair and turned to set down the water glass on the bedside table.
She likely should leave this room. The situation was rapidly overtaking her good sense—
His hand snared her wrist, engulfing it entirely. The abrupt contact burned, a manacle of hot iron.
Lottie bit her lip and darted a look down at her tethered hand before raising her gaze back to his.
He studied her more intently now. His mouth moved, murmuring.
“What is it?” she asked.
He tugged on her wrist, as if coaxing her closer.
Swallowing, Lottie leaned, turning her ear toward him.
“’Tis a lie,” he whispered.
Lottie blinked, righting herself.
She blinked again.
Surely she had heard him wrong.
“Pardon?”
