“What’s your name?”she asked.
“I am?—”
The words caught, his tongue moving but producing nothing. “I am…”
His stomach clenched. His mind soured. The emptiness inside him swelled, and with it, a slow-rising panic.
Who was he?
His hands shot up, clutching the sides of his aching skull as if he could physically hold the missing pieces in place.
“I cannot…”
“Shh…”
Her hands were gentle but firm, pushing his away. A cool cloth pressed against his brow, soothing the heat pulsing beneath his skin.
“You’ve been… you were badly injured.”
Injured?
Miss Montgomery’s gaze flickered away, just for a second—too brief to be intentional.
“You mustn’t upset yourself,” she went on, her voice steady, careful, as though willing him to believe her.
But her words didn’t quite land. Because beneath them, something unspoken hummed between them. Something she wasn’t saying.
“Trust that you are safe here.”
Safe.
The word settled uneasily in his chest, foreign and fragile, as though it didn’t belong to him.
“I won’t let anyone hurt you.” He latched onto her voice, clinging to it like a drowning man. Even though he was the one who should be saying that to her.
He was a gentleman, for God’s sake. A man.
A protector.
A flicker of something distant, buried—a sense of duty, of purpose—tried to claw its way free.
“I should?—”
“Hush.”
Her soft command silenced his unease.
“There will be plenty of time to talk later.” She reached for the cloth again, pressing it lightly over his temple. “For now, just rest.”
Her voice was a lullaby in the darkness.
He’d been resting for days now, possibly weeks. How much rest did one man need?
But a massive weight held his limbs down, and the spinning in his head dragged him away from reality.
The darkness returned, and he slept.
Daisy exhaled,and only when she was certain he slept did she force herself to leave the pantry.
