And for a minute or two, he thought she had finally obeyed him. Her body melted further and her breathing deepened.
But then her voice whispered, “Oh! Ye be afraid of the dark.”
“Pardon?”
“I feared the dark too, as a wee girl. My heart would race so. Just like this.” She tapped his sternum beside her cheek. “But Papa would tell me a story and chase thebockiesaway.”
“The what?”
“Bockies. . . the bogeymen.”
“Your father would do that? Sit at your bedside and tell you stories?” The very thought felt foreign. That an earl as powerful as Hadley would traipse up to the nursery and concern himself with a daughter’s childish anxieties.
“Aye. It’s how I know he’ll come for me. So ye shouldn’t be afeart.” She patted his chest, but the motion was sloppy. Lethargic. “Papa will always come . . .” Her voice drifted off.
Kendall sensed the moment sleep claimed her in earnest. Her head sagged forward, lungs expanding in a gentle rhythm.
He remained awake, feeling the involuntary twitching of her body, the warm puffs of her breath.
A lock of her flame hair had escaped its pins and tumbled across the black wool of his frock coat. Pale moonlight twined through the amber strands.
It was apropos, he supposed, that her fiery hair reflected the tumult of her personality. But how odd to hold her in repose. To know, definitively, that she was capable of stillness.
He shook his head.
What would the morrow bring?
Or rather, how much money was he going to have to pay in order to hush over this incident?
Neither he nor Lady Isolde had done any wrong. He had not compromised her virtue. She, for once, had not acted indiscreetly.
They had simply met with an unfortunate accident.
But if their situation were discovered by the wrong person, no degree of virtue or integrity would matter.
Surely, Hadley was intelligent enough to realize this. That the whole affair needed to be handled with discretion and secrecy.
God willing, a servant would find them as he or she went about morning chores. That was easily dealt with.
Kendall clung to that hope.
Because even as he held Lady Isolde’s sleeping body cradled against his chest, he could scarcely breathe through the thought of any other outcome.
Warm. Isolde feltso warm.
No. Scratch that.
Her front felt warm, as if she were curled close to a roaring fire. But her spine was chilled. Was she dreaming of the hearth at Muirford House?
Sleep-addled, she cuddled closer to the source of heat, sighing into its comfort.
Two facts trickled through her brain.
One, the warmth was muscled.
And two, it had a heartbeat.
Isolde frowned.
