“I’ll just…” The rest of Whitty’s intention dissolved into a long, deep snore.
Leaving Rhys all but alone with Tilly.
“Tilly,” he began and stopped. His gaze narrowed. “You’re shivering.”
“Oh, it’s noth?—”
“And you’re wet.”
“It’s only the snow melted. It’ll dry.”
But those last words were spoken to his back, for he was already on the move. “I’m having a hot bath poured for you.”
“It’s gone midnight,” she protested.
But Rhys was determined.
Tilly was suffering.
All right, suffering might’ve been painting the lily, but she was uncomfortable.
And he wouldn’t have that.
In his life as a rake, he’d made much hay from his attentiveness and gallantry toward the opposite sex.
It was a central tenet of the rules of the game, and he’d been a master.
But that attentiveness and gallantry had been hollow at its core.
It had a single end in mind.
But Tilly…
She wasn’t a game.
And there was nothing hollow in his feelings for her.
13
Later
Lord Rhys Osborne might’ve been down on his luck and a former wastrel and rake, but lest Tilly forget, he was still a lord and lived like one.
All it took was the little tinkle of a bell, and servants were pouring a hot, scrumptious, bubbly, lavender-scented bath at two in the morning.
He was the son of an earl, all right.
For someone like her, someone born with nothing, she supposed it could be something that set her against him. How she could dismiss him as another entitled, wastrel lord—even the third son of an earl was a lord, after all—and take a cool, dismissive view of him.
Except that wasn’t Rhys, the person.
She reckoned he’d been all those things, once, but entitled…wastrel…that wasn’t the man she saw.
Likely, she would never tell him this, but losing his pa’s ring to that rotter Sir Felix might’ve been the making of him.
She almost regretted what she’d decided to do tonight—which was to return the ring to him. She didn’t feel right keeping it any longer, so she’d brought it with her. By holding on to it, she was preventing him from making amends with his pa, and she wanted that for him. After all, it was nearly Christmas. What better gift between father and son than reconciliation?
There was just one thing…
