She glided into the room like a spring breeze, cooling and self-assured. Was she floating? God. He couldn’t see her feet. The ceiling and floor were swirling, and in between, there washer loveliness. He never wanted to look upon anyone else for as long as he lived.
“Miss Brett,” she corrected.
Of course she did.
“I’m in pain,” he told her, which wasn’t a lie.
Her lush lips thinned, her eyes straying to the bandage on his upper arm. “I’m so sorry to hear that, Your Royal Highness.”
“Come and sit by my side,” he invited. “Only you can assuage my agony.”
“I’m certain that isn’t true, Your Royal Highness.”
He raised an imperious brow. “Are you daring to suggest I’m wrong?”
She shared a glance with Bruno that Nando didn’t like. Why was she looking at his guard when she ought to be looking at him? Bruno wasn’t the one who’d lost his lifeblood all over the street.
“His Royal Highness should take more laudanum,” Bruno told Miss Brett quietly.
As if Nando weren’t present in the room.
He may have been inhabiting a cloud, but his ears worked perfectly well.
“Bruno, you are happily relieved of your duties,” he told his unwanted guard. “Get out.”
“Your Royal Highness?—”
“Out,” he interrupted, not wishing to hear anything else. “I’ll see you sent to the gallows for disobeying me.”
Bruno paled, as if he considered the threat a legitimate one. Good. Let him think it was. Nando wanted Miss Brett alone, and he wanted her alone with him.
Right bloodynow.
“Leave the laudanum with me, if you please,” Miss Brett told his guard, taking command in typical Miss Brett fashion. “I’ll see to His Royal Highness for a spell.”
Bruno looked dubious. Nando was suddenly possessed by the notion that Miss Brett could lead an army into battle without so much as faltering.
“Listen to Miss Brett,” Nando commanded Bruno in a tone that brooked no argument.
“As Your Royal Highness wishes,” Bruno acceded with a bow, his reluctance obvious.
Finally. Progress.
Nando watched as Bruno took his leave, the door closing at his back, before turning his attention to Miss Brett.
Eleanora.
“Come,” he beckoned, crooking a finger.
The throbbing in his arm was enough to make his eyes water. He ignored it. Nothing mattered as much as her nearness. He wanted her to sit by him. He wanted her to join him in his cloud. He wanted to drink her in like fine wine. He wanted…
He didn’t even know what he wanted.
At the moment, his cock was sadly uninterested in making itself useful. He ought not to have been so enamored with her. He couldn’t bed her at present. And yet, he somehow desired her despite his infirmity.
She approached his bedside, more glorious than any woman had a right to be. It wasn’t ordinary beauty that Miss Eleanora Brett possessed. It was something so much rarer, something innate and uniquely hers. He couldn’t elucidate what it was, the laudanum and pain rendering him much less capable of eloquence.
“I prayed for an angel to save me, and at last, here you are,” he told her dramatically.
