Him.
“True,” she agreed.
A silky lock of ebony hair curved around his jaw and beneath his mouth. Priscilla’s gaze followed it to where a bead of water hovered on the curve of his top lip, which was fuller than the bottom. But those lips weren’t a dusty rose as they ought to be. Instead, they appeared to be turning blue!
“You are freezing!” She jerked herself into action and began fumbling with the two garments he’d tossed at her.
In no apparent hurry, he took the jacket but rather than don it himself, wrapped it around Fiddlesticks. “I struggle getting into it when I’m dry. No use trying to wear it now.” He gestured toward the soaked shirt, laughing.
Laughing!
The warm and throaty sound washed over her like a summer day. When was the last time she’d laughed? Not since before Christmas, she’d wager—what with all the problems she was having with a potential scandal and Fiddlesticks’ mistress, Miss Allison Meadowbrook.
“Shall we trade? Your dog for my coat?”
Trade? “Oh, yes.” As Priscilla handed over his long coat, it unfurled, the hem brushing the ground. It weighed as much as Fiddlesticks, possibly more.
“Hold tight to this little fellow.” Although the man was drenched in icy water, heat flooded her veins when he carefully transferred the bundle of wet dog into her arms. Tingling danced through her when his elbow brushed her sides, and she barely noticed the drops of water falling onto her shoulders.
“I don’t know how to thank you,” she said. “We’ve been away, you see, for the school holiday, and we just collected him from Mrs. Pratt.” The innkeeper had watched him for Allison because Fiddlesticks didn’t travel well. But Allison had not been interested in walking her dog and was instead visiting the mercantile with Miss Fortune. “I don’t know what I would have done if you hadn’t come along.”
Her voice broke when she realized the afternoon very nearly had been a tragic one. Fumbling with her free hand, she did what she could to assist Fiddlestick’s hero back into the coat. “Sir, you ought not to remain outdoors in the cold like this. You could catch your death.”
Even as she drew the sleeve over his shoulder, a shiver rolled through him. He might be a hulking specimen of masculinity, but he was human, after all, and therefore, as vulnerable as anyone.
What he needed was a cup of hot tea—or better yet, some of the special soup she concocted for just such an occasion—chicken stock, garlic, celery, carrots, and of course, more garlic.
Most swore it had magical properties.
If Priscilla didn’t care so very much for Miss Primm and the school, she’d forgo the dreaded meeting she’d committed to and instead deliver a batch of soup to wherever this heroic stranger was residing…
Emerson Huntington, the Earl of Hardwood, would later question his sanity.
No person with brains would willingly submerge himself in a lake this time of year. Already, the chill had seeped into his bones.
But what was a gentleman to do when a lovely young woman with alabaster skin and pleading midnight-blue eyes required his assistance? Not to mention bee-stung lips, the color of ripe cherries…
He answered his own question ironically: one temporarily lost his sanity, that was what.
His damsel was a tiny little thing, and when he’d arrived, she had been on the brink of putting her life in danger for the adventurous pup.
It had been a lucky coincidence he’d come walking this way.
“No need to thank me,” Hunt assured her, clenching his teeth together.
Chattering teeth would diminish her first impression of him—which he conceded, had been somewhat heroic.
Which oughtn’t to matter. Nothing could come of the attraction he had for the chit.
She’d said she’d been away from school for the holidays. Likely, his intended was one of this damsel’s fellow students. Although Emerson’s natural sense of honor urged him to escort this young lady home—to the school—practical concerns demanded he not arrive at Miss Primm’s Private Seminary for the Education of Ladies with another young woman on his arm.
His prospective wife—a girl who held his future in her hands—had already evaded him once. She would make him dance a merry tune, it seemed, but he didn’t have a choice. He needed to secure the betrothal with Meadowbrook’s daughter.
A chill that had nothing to do with the water or the wintery air churned his gut. Failure was not an option.
“You don’t live nearby, do you?” she asked.
He liked her voice—low and undemanding.
