He was magnetic, even more so in anger. He became frightening when angry, but that made him even more exciting.
“No light,” he grated quietly.
“It was not me! This is the first time that I have left the drawing room. I came to find Lady Alison!”
She slapped a hand against his steely chest. He caught that hand too, pressing it to him, fingers sliding across her hand to her wrist. Another shaky, desire-torn breath. A carnal thought occurred to her just then. If she pressed her body against him, would she feel his arousal?
Tearing her hand free, she thumped him with the side of her fist. It made no more impression than striking a statue.
“You heard Lady Alison, not me,” she said, breathless from the effort.
“I did not hear you. I smelled you. Your perfume. I will not share you with anyone!”
There was such terrifying ferocity in his voice that a primal instinct took over Georgia. She slapped him across the face, and the grip on her wrist was gone. She staggered a few steps, as did Keaton.
“I am sorry. But you were frightening me,” she said emphatically. “Lady Alison uses the same fragrance as I. Or, at least, she favors a fragrance I received once as a gift from my brother. A single bottle that is now almost exhausted. If you do not believe me, I do not care. That is the truth! How dare you become so enraged with jealousy when you have gone to such lengths to tell me that I mean nothing to you! Who is the liar, Keaton?”
“The perfume. Oh, God,” Keaton muttered.
Then there was a clatter. A piece of furniture being overturned. Then a crash of something larger hitting the floor and the tinkle of broken glass. Georgia’s innate compassion drove her to Keaton’s side, realizing that he had tripped and fallen. Her foot crunched on a sizable chunk of glass. Keaton shifted, and more crunching announced further glass being ground.
“Careful!” Georgia said urgently, “You must have dislodged something sizable of glass—there is broken glass everywhere!”
“I owe my uncle a collection of glass sculptures,” he murmured defeatedly. “They stood on a table before the chaise in here. And I can feel the chaise just in front of me. So, that was the table, and… damnation! I am bleeding.”
Georgia gasped in fright. “You could sever an artery and not know it in this darkness!”
She blindly put out her hands, coming into contact with Keaton’s head, his thick mane soft beneath her questing fingers. They ran to his temple and then his cheeks.
“Where are you bleeding?”
“My wrist, I’m afraid,” he muttered.
Georgia carefully ran her hands down his arms, feeling the tense muscle of his biceps flexing at her touch. Then to the wetness on the inside of his right forearm. Her heart chilled at the presence of blood there and what felt like a lot of it.
“We must summon aid…”
“No! We have been the unwanted center of attention too much. I will not have my own foolishness undermine all your hard work this evening.”
“You… you believe me, then?” Georgia asked, pressing her hands against his wrist.
“Your hands will be bloody,” he protested.
“Let them. Get up.”
He obeyed. “There is a lamp to our right and flint and tinder in the drawer beneath it,” Keaton said.
Soon, Georgia had a lamp lit. She gasped. A shard of glass jutted from Keaton’s forearm, and blood was leaking from around it. She looked into his face.
Is it my imagination, or does he look pale? Is this what a severed artery would look like?
“If it were mortal, the blood would be against the far wall with the force of the spray. It is merely deep,” Keaton reassured when she remained silent for too long, as he touched his fingers to the wound.
“But there is a lot of blood…”
“No more than I deserve.”
“Keep talking like that, and I will slap you again harder.”
