Oh, for pity’s sake.
With a sigh, she followed.
They entered just in time to see the marquess hunched at the edge of the bed—shirtless, flushed, and gloriously disheveled.
Maddie froze.
His bare back was a map of taut muscle, each sleek line shifting under skin that gleamed faintly in the firelight. Heat had flushed his broad shoulders, lending them a sculpted, almost bronzed look, and a thin sheen of perspiration caught the glow like polished marble. His dark hair—thick and unruly—clung in damp waves at his temples, the disarray making him look more like a conquering hero returned from battle than an invalid.
He was… breathtaking.
Not in the feline way that would close her lungs, but in the heroic way that could make her knees forget their purpose entirely if he ever chose to kiss her.
He shifted, bracing his forearms on his thighs, and the movement set his chest in motion—defined planes and ridges revealed in the flicker of the fire, as if carved by some daring sculptor who knewexactly how to tempt a woman’s eye.
Then he looked up.
The fever in his gaze was more than heat and illness—it was awareness, startling and sharp, catching her breath in her throat. For the barest heartbeat, it felt as though the rest of the room dissolved and there was only this—the quiet pull between them, humming low and hot in the space they shared.
He made a rough sound, half-cough, half-groan, and yet he didn’t look away. Neither did she.
Her pulse stumbled. Her common sense whispered retreat, but her body—traitorous thing—leaned almost imperceptibly forward, drawn toward the heat of him.
He looked magnificent. No—dangerously magnificent. And Maddie, with her soft heart and unreliable knees, had no business being this close to him.
“Perhaps we should call for a doctor,” Maddie murmured, her voice softer now, caught somewhere between concern and… something she didn’t want to name. “He doesn’t look well. He sounds worse.”
“I’m fine,” he croaked.
They both stared. It was the exact same thing he’d said earlier.
Only now, he looked one sneeze away from death—or seduction.
“You certainly don’t look fine,” Ashley said bluntly.
Maddie’s earlier annoyance dissolved into something warmer. Something dangerously close to tender.
He looked so pitiful. Crumpled. Pale. Shaking.
But also… beautiful. A sick Adonis with a bruised sort of dignity.
What on earth had happened between the soup course and now?
“No need for a doctor,” he muttered.
“You can still say that?” Maddie asked. “In the state you’re in?”
He waved a limp hand above his head and collapsed back into the pillows, chest still bare, eyes glazed with fever—and something else as they flicked to her.
For a single heartbeat, it felt like she was the only thing anchoring him to this world.
Then his lashes dipped.
“Lady Ashley?”
Ashley cleared her throat. “I came to see how you were. Your… departure after the announcement at dinner earlier was rather sudden.”
Maddie pinched her friend’s arm. “Let’s go. He’s clearly in no condition to receive guests.”
