His fingers tightened against her back, the rough pads stroking over her bare skin with exquisite intimacy. He was going to kiss her. She knew it as well as she knew her own name.
More than that, she wanted him to do it. In this moment when she was so raw and emotional, when she felt her loneliness with a sharpness that stabbed through her heart, the kiss felt like exactly what she needed more than anything.
But just as his lips dropped, reason screamed in her head for her to pull away. To remember the last time she had trusted a spy with her body. With her heart.
She jumped up and he let her go without comment. Her cheeks flamed and she turned her face so she wouldn’t have to look at him as she said, “You ought not to be up, Your Grace.”
“Lucas,” he corrected once more.
She looked at him. In the half-dark his expression was impossible to decipher. He was a blank page, with no feeling about her weeping, about their near kiss, about anything at all. God, how that reminded her of her father and how he could put a wall down that separated them.
“Lucas,” she surrendered, for it seemed pointless to continue belaboring the fact. “You need to rest.”
He arched a brow. “Do you think me so ungentlemanly that I could hear a lady weeping in an adjoining room, weeping over somethingIdid, somethingIsaid, and not come to ensure she was well?”
She ducked her head once more. She had not the talent he did to shutter her heart. There were times she wished she did. Tonight, for instance.
“I am well,” she whispered. “And I’m here to helpyou, so I assure you that I will not trouble you with my emotions again.”
He shrugged his good shoulder. “It was not any trouble tonight.”
“Either way, we should get you back to bed,” she insisted, and took a step toward him before she stopped. If she was going to help him, she was going to have to touch him. Touch that hard chest, be close to him like she had been when he almost kissed her. An entirely inappropriate thought to be having about someone she was meant to assist.
“I can manage,” he said, but as he turned to go, he buckled slightly and she rushed forward to steady him.
“I should have investigated your wounds more closely this afternoon,” she admonished herself as she slung his arm around her shoulders and began to help him back to his chamber. “Tomorrow I will be more thorough.”
He laughed deep in his throat, and she jerked her gaze to the side to look at him. There was something almost feral about this man. Wild and dangerous, but infinitely alluring. And it was something she could not feel. Would not feel. Not ever again.
Lucas jerked awake, gasping in a huge gulp of air. Pain ripped through his shoulder and his leg. Always pain, his constant companion.
Where was he? He looked around the small chamber, flooded with light from outside and settled back against the pillows with a sigh. Oh yes, he remembered now. He was in George Oakford’s London cottage.
Diana Oakford’s cottage, he supposed. She must have inherited all her father had when he died. Including his duties. Something Lucas would have to discuss with Stalwood when the earl came to see how things were going. Diana did not deserve to be thrown into such a dangerous world. She ought to have been dancing and courting, not sobbing in her chamber over a man she was being forced to help.
Of course that had led to him touching her. Lucas shuddered at the memory. He hadn’t come in to hold her, just to ensure her safety. But he couldn’t help himself. And once he had…oh, he’d wanted to do far more than just hold her.
The door to the chamber opened slowly and he sat up straighter and gathered the covers around his naked body as Diana entered. She jolted as she found him watching her.
“Good morning,” she said as she set her tray down on the table. He could see it contained food, and his stomach growled. “I didn’t think you were awake. When I passed by earlier, you were still asleep.”
He set his jaw. The idea of her checking in on him in his sleep felt very intimate. It also showed him how soft he’d become in the months since he was injured. He’d always been a light sleeper and would wake at the tiniest sound, ready to fight. He hated this new reality.
“I am awake, though, as you can see,” he said.
“Let me look at your wounds, at last,” she said, moving toward him.
He shifted. At present, he had a hell of a cockstand and he didn’t want her seeing that. “No,” he said.
She stopped and stared at him. “No?” she repeated. “What do you mean, no?”
“Just what I said.” He folded his arms across his chest. “I don’t need you poking around at me like half a dozen surgeons have done before. None of them could help me. I must simply learn to live as I am now.”
Her brow wrinkled. “That is ridiculous. I’m certain I could make your life more comfortable, if you will only let me.”
He rolled his eyes. “Said like a true physician. And then you’ll slather donkey shit on me and leave me to sit in my own stink for a week.”
She drew back. “That I would not do, I assure you. What you describe is practically medieval, Lucas.”
