Prim Miss Hilgrove was a delicious cipher.
But Isabella with her hair running wild down her back was a sight to behold. Her hair was not just one shade but many, containing shots of copper, streaks as brilliant as the sun, and a tawny amber running through it. It was as extraordinary as the rest of her, he thought now as he tucked the last of her hair pins into the pocket of his waistcoat.
Miss Isabella Hilgrove was turning him into a thief. He stole kisses and hair pins. Again and again. It was a sobering notion, but he kept the pins where they were just the same and stood to retrieve an ewer on the washstand.
She was unusually silent as he filled the ewer with warm water before returning to her side. “Tip your head back, and I shall wet it,” he instructed her softly.
Part of him did not expect her to obey, but this time she offered no opposition. Instead, she paused in her ministrations and tipped her head back toward him. Her trust in him sent another spike of warmth straight to his heart, rather like a railroad tie being driven home, securing her place there.
With trembling hands, he slowly tipped the warm water over her crown, taking care to keep the liquid from running over her face. Tending to her pleased him greatly, both that this fierce woman had finally relented enough to allow it, and that he could do something for her. Since he had become the Duke of Westmorland, he had spent his life so oft being the one for whom everything was done, rather than the other way around.
He returned the ewer to the washstand and took up the shampoo jelly to cleanse her hair. Gingerly, he worked the floral-scented jelly through her locks, taking special care where the lump on the back of her head had formed. Feeling it with the pads of his fingertips sent fury and anguish coursing through him anew.
She jerked away from his touch as he inadvertently brushed against a particularly sensitive area, and he could have kicked himself. “I am sorry, sweetheart. I did not mean to hurt you.”
“It is fine, Your Grace,” she said, still clinging to her formality.
It irked him now more than ever, for it was almost as if she denied what was between them. And how could she? He knew she felt this—whatever the devil it was—just as surely as he did.
“It is not fine, damn you,” he said then, bitterness lacing his voice, along with all the pent-up rage he carried toward the Fenian menace. “This never should have happened to you.”
She remained still as he worked the lather through her hair. “It is not your fault, Benedict.”
Her use of his name—at long last—made him freeze. Gratification, the likes of which he had never experienced, settled over his chest. For a breath, he could not find his tongue or his wits. How right his name sounded in her rich, mellifluous voice.
“I hold myself responsible even if you absolve me,” he told her, struggling to keep the thickness and unwanted emotion from his voice.
He had not ever been so vulnerable to a woman. He was not sure he liked it.
In fact, he bloody well knew he did not.
“You do not owe me anything, and yet you have been most kind to myself, and to Betsy as well.” Her voice was quiet—so quiet, he nearly had to strain to discern her words. “I have been remiss in failing to thank you for your hospitality.”
Here, now. What was this? Could it be that the way to slay the dragon Miss Hilgrove was to wash her hair?
“I owe you a great deal,” he countered, swallowing against a rush of more unwanted emotion. “My hospitality and concern are the least I can offer you. I… When I thought something ill had befallen you earlier, I was beside myself. I never would have forgiven myself if anything worse had happened. What happened to you was evil enough, but if it had been something more…”
He could not bring himself to finish the thought, for something more would have been either her rape or her murder. Perhaps both. He thanked God the villains who had taken her had possessed some manner of conscience and had not harmed her as severely as they could have.
“If you are acting out of guilt, sir, I beg you to cancel any such debts you feel you owe me,” she said then, still facing away from him.
How he wished he could see her face, read her expression, her eyes.
“Nothing I have ever felt for you has had a thing to do with guilt, Isabella,” he assured her then, even if he did not know precisely what it was he felt for her. He had no inkling, though he harbored a suspicion that the unthinkable had befallen him.
He rose then, and filled the ewer once more before sitting behind her.
“And what is it you feel for me?” she asked him, as if guessing his thoughts.
He stilled, the filled ewer heavy in his hands, rather symbolic of the heaviness weighing upon his heart. “I cannot define it, other than to say it is more than I have ever felt for another.”
He waited, holding his breath, for an admission in kind.
“You ought not to feel that way for me, Benedict,” she said at last, to his eternal disappointment. “I do not belong in your world. When this storm passes, I will return to where I belong, and you shall go on with your life.”
He wanted to argue with her, but time was slipping away from him and he knew it. He would save this argument for another day. For now, he had to finish washing her hair and leave her chamber before his presence here was discovered by the diligent Whitmore. Or worse, Callie.
“Tilt your head back,” he ordered her instead.
