“I was coming to take you driving when we found out. My hat’s on the side of the road a few hundred miles back, as is my cane.” His lips hardly moved as he answered. “I didn’t bother stopping to change before coming after you.”
Tabetha slowly removed her bonnet and dropped it onto the foot of the bed. Had he been concerned, or had he merely been making good on his promise to her brother? Apparently, he hadn’t stopped to shave, either.
Even with her watching him, he lay completely relaxed, breathing slowly and evenly.
It was hardly fair that men could sleep after being horizontal for less than ten seconds. Her father had been able to do that as well, and Westerley.
“Stone?” She crept closer and hovered the damp cloth over the cut.
“Hmmm…” he mumbled.
Leaning over him, she admired the thickness of his lashes and found herself studying the rest of his features. What might have once been a perfect nose cricked to the left and although it ought to distract from his looks, somehow only added to his very dependable exterior. His cheekbones were high and defined. She couldn’t really make out his chin as it was hidden by the beard he’d allowed to grow over the past few days but from what she could remember, it was a rugged and stubborn chin—much like the man himself.
She dabbed the cloth at his bottom lip, which was full and surprisingly soft looking. When he flinched, she drew back. “Does it hurt?”
“I’ll live.” His eyes were half-open now, and he watched her… warily.
“I’m sorry,” she managed around the huge lump that had formed in her throat. The lump was an odd combination of guilt, shame, and self-pity. “You wouldn’t be hurt if I hadn’t been so stupid.” She wiped the blood from his chin and then pressed the cloth against the cut itself.
“I won’t argue with you.” His mouth moved beneath her hand.
“I’m a horrid person.”
“Not horrid.” His eyes opened and for what felt like the first time, they weren’t mocking her.
Stone foundhimself staring into the saddest brown eyes he’d ever seen. A vague sense of lavender teased his nostrils where she held the damp cloth against his mouth.
“Everyone is going to hate me!” she moaned.
“Not quite everyone.” But his mind flashed back to Westerley’s curricle and Creighton’s foot. And then there was the fact that he had failed to give Peter a proper send off to Brighton. It was on the tip of his tongue to agree with her assessment, but she was doing quite well on her own. Even so… “I don’t hate you.”
She sniffed but then sent him a wobbly grin. “That’s big of you.”
“I’m like that,” he teased. “Big.”
She shook her head.
Miracle of miracles, she was acting nothing like the spoiled debutante he’d become accustomed to. She looked nothing like her, either.
Most of her golden hair was dangling down her back and around her face, her gown was muddied, wrinkled, and torn, and rather than taunting him for his lack of lordliness, she was acting with—was it really possible?—humility.
He could tell her the cut was nothing. He could explain that his eye would return to normal in a few days. And it wasn’t necessary for her to know that he suspected one of his ribs might be bruised. But who was he to stop this delightful bout of remorse on her part?
“You’re welcome to tell me that you told me so.” Her bottom lip protruded slightly more than her upper one did when she pouted.
“I told you so.” He chuckled, unable to help himself, and then regretted it when he was rewarded with a painful stab on his left side. He knew she’d had it rough when she didn’t rise to his bait.
“You were right.” She was stroking his jaw with the cloth now. Stone took full advantage of her repentant moment, relaxing into the bed and enjoying her touch. “He wasn’t going to be worth it. He was horrible.” She made a sound that wasn’t quite a sob but wasn’t even close to laughter. “All he wanted was my dowry. Of course, I understood that the money partly compelled his proposal. But I assumed it couldn’t be the only thing that attracted him.” Another sound. This one, a definite sob. “What have I done?”
A mournful wail followed her question.
And as much as he was enjoying her conceding that he’d been right all along, Stone couldn’t stand to watch her fall apart completely. Ignoring the pain in his side, he pushed her hand away and sat up.
“Sit.” He patted the mattress beside him.
“I’m filthy.” But she lowered herself onto the mattress anyway. To comply so easily, she truly must be feeling low.
“Can I ask you something?” He watched her closely.
