Today, despite everyone’s protestations and cooing, she had insisted she was more than fit enough to return to work. If she was honest with herself, she also wanted to prove that regardless of whatever fancy had come over her during her illness, she could still face Liam without feeling anything...untoward.
‘And have wasted no time returning to work.’
‘Yes,’ Rebecca said, rather more breathlessly than she could have hoped for.
But something in his offhand tone and his proximity as she set down the tray...
Drat the man.
‘I also wish to ask,’ she began tentatively. Apparently she wasnotfully herself yet. ‘Well, that is, as the staff missed the chance to celebrate Christmas properly, because of me, I thought perhaps, as Twelfth Night is in two days, you might allow us to have a belated sort of Christmas. Mrs Murray still has all the food in the icehouse and the larder—’
‘Fine.’
‘Thank you, my lord.’ She smiled, intent on not taking his gruffness to heart. Not that he saw the smile regardless, staring down at his papers as he was. ‘And I...I’ve not had the opportunity to thank you properly, my lord. Not only for, well, for coming for me, but also...’
Lord, why is this so difficult?Rebecca sighed, focusing on a nick in the polish on the edge of the desk. She would need to see to that.
‘But also for caring for me as you did. I may have seemed unaware, but I was not.’
‘Indeed, you make too much of it, Miss Merrickson,’ he said dismissively.
‘I know of no other, my lord, who would’ve spent such time, nor gone to such lengths tending to their housekeeper,’ Rebecca retorted, finally finding the courage to raise her eyes.
He was no longer looking at his work, and she sorely wished he were.
‘Yes, well,’ Liam said after a moment, clearing his throat as though to hide what looked to Rebecca like a wince. ‘Perhaps, Miss Merrickson, such ministrations might not have been necessary had you not acted so recklessly.’
‘I...I am sorry for any trouble—’
‘Trouble,’ he spat, rising precipitately from his chair, and pacing at the window like a caged animal. ‘Miss Merrickson, what the Devil were you thinking, running out in a snowstorm like that?’
‘I... That is, Mrs F-Ffoulkes,’ Rebecca stammered, completely taken aback by his sudden agitation. ‘She needed to be looked after, and I thought I would make it—’
‘Did you think I would not look after Mrs Ffoulkes?’ he barked, rounding back, with a wild look in his eyes that set her even more on edge.
‘Indeed, my lord, but I—’
‘Did you think at all, Miss Merrickson?’ he continued, as though she’d not said a word, making for her abruptly.
Rebecca took a step back, but he continued his advance.
‘Did you think at all of what consequences your actions might have on others? Of what might’ve happened to you?’ Liam asked fiercely, prowling towards her until she was backed against a bookshelf, and he’d yet again cornered her. ‘Did you think at all of the concern others might have for you? Did you think at all, I wonder, Miss Merrickson, of what would’ve become of me had you been taken from this world?’
Rebecca blinked, her heart pounding, blood rushing in her ears so loudly that her mind struggled to hear the words, to make sense of them.
Frowning, she stared into those tempestuous eyes, trying to find the meaning of his words, of his entire manner at this particular moment. But what she found there seemed to be genuine hurt. Had she imagined the slight crack in his voice at that final question? Was she imagining his laboured breathing now? The pleading in his eyes that reminded her far too much of a wounded animal begging for mercy?
She opened her mouth to speak, but found her voice yet again absent, and instead swallowed loudly.
His eyes searched hers, asking a thousand unspoken questions.
‘No, Miss Merrickson,’ he breathed, with a sadness that pulled at her heart. It seemed as though his search for answers had yielded none. ‘I think, in fact, you thought of nothing before you so carelessly risked your life.’
Only then did Rebecca fully realise how incredibly close he was. She hadn’t so much heard the words as felt his breath against her cheek, soft as a caress, and yet cold enough to freeze her blood.
So close.
Close enough that she could see every detail, from the tiny flecks of grey in the stubble of his beard, to the flicker of his lashes.
