Chapter Nine
Serena wasn’t surewhat had got into her, following a man up to his room. But he wasn’t just any man. He was Malcolm Branley, who’d captured her interest in a way she never could have imagined. Her father would be livid, and her mother would weep to see her. Her situation was even worse when she stripped off her gloves so they wouldn’t get wet or stained.
Why, she was practically undressed!
Until the moment she’d been helpless to resist trailing Malcolm into his apartment, Serena had assumed she’d matured into a responsible woman, one who’d left behind her impulsive capriciousness. Apparently, she’d been sadly mistaken.
Dipping the clean kerchief into tepid water, her hand trembling slightly, she could feel Malcolm close beside her. Pointedly, he’d left the door open, but he was shuffling from one foot to the next, looking uncomfortable.
“Stand still,” she ordered, and reached up to wipe the blood from his cheek. “I think Monsieur Christoff had a ring on. Didn’t you feel it?” She was dripping water all over the front of him, and her hands were truly shaking now, although she didn’t think Malcolm could see that.
“Not really, no. But it stings now, to tell you the truth.”
“I’m sure it does.” She dipped the handkerchief back in the bowl and then wrung it out again before dabbing his cheek once more. “It looked worse when the blood was flowing than it is. It’s merely a little cut.”
Suddenly, his hand grabbed hold of hers, startling her. He lowered her arm gently before taking the handkerchief from her and tossing it into the porcelain bowl where it floated on the pinkish water.
“Thank you. I am fine,” he said, his deep brown eyes locked on hers.
In answer to her quizzical look, he added, “I don’t want you to get blood on your hands.”
Glancing at her hands, she wiggled her fingers in front of him. “No blood, sir. And I owe you an apology. You were very brave, and you got injured helping me. I should have said nothing other than thank you.”
“You’re right, but now you’re placating me.” He shouldered past her and grabbed a small mirror from a leather bag so he could look at his face.
If he’d asked, she would have told him he was as handsome as ever and also somewhat maddening. For one thing, she hadn’t needed his help because she had her pistol ready to draw out and wave under Monsieur Christoff’s nose. And for another, she’d thanked Malcolm sincerely, and now he’d rebuffed her.
Having taken the rash step of coming up to his room, satisfying her curiosity that he wasn’t living with some other woman or even a wife, she ought to return home. But she didn’t run for the open door.
“I amnotplacating you,” she promised. “I’m showing my gratitude, but I had best be getting home.” Yet she desperately wanted him to kiss her again, another reason she was moving so slowly toward the exit.
“I cannot believe your grandparents allow you out this late alone.”
“Normally, I walk with my friends, but Guillaume and his sister live in the other direction, and Monsieur Christoff offered to walk me home. If the others had suspected he was going to try to steal a kiss—”
Malcolm looked surprised. “Is that what you call him trying to drag you into an alley?’
“He wasn’t dragging me into an alley. It was more like an alcove, and I’m sure he simply had the wrong idea.”
“You are naïve, mademoiselle.” He shook his head, making his lustrous brown hair lift and fall.
With all her heart, she wanted to touch it.
“I know exactly what Christoff was thinking,” Malcolm continued, “and unless I’m sadly mistaken, you wouldn’t have liked it.”
She wrapped her hands around herself as a shiver ran down her spine. She hadn’t liked Christoff’s manner of staring at her all night. Regardless, she’d stayed the entire evening at the café, letting him boast of his plans and his proximity to the emperor, even as Guillaume tried to hush him.
