“No!” Her voice in answer was high, loud, tinged with something akin to panic. She raised her hand as if to grab his lapel again. She put her hand down and licked her lips. She said in a lower voice, “No, please, Dr. Andrews. I have not seen you in almost four years. I have seen no one of my acquaintance from England, no member of my family in over two years. Please, do not leave. Sit by the fire. I will bring you some tea. Please sit, Doctor, while I read my letter. Please.”
It was his most heartfelt desire to stay, to sit. To be in her presence. But he had seen no evidence that anyone else was in the cottage.
To be alone with Arabella Lovelock. His knees trembled.
“I dinnae wish to compromise—”
“Hush.” She stepped toward him and put her finger on his lips. “I live a simple life here. I am not encumbered by a household of servants. Nor by a family. There is nothing amiss in my asking a traveler from a long distance, an old friend of my family, to sit by my fire and drink tea. I implore you—” and here he thought her voice might have quavered for just an instant “—do not leave.”
He wanted to speak but he did not want her to remove her finger from his lips. Her finger lay there, warm. It was a physical contact of great intimacy. The greatest he had ever experienced.
She gulped and took her finger away.
“I’m sorry for upsetting ye,” he cleared his throat, “and I would be exceedingly happy to stay and sit by the fire while ye read the letter.”
No, but first she must fetch him tea.
“I assure ye, I dinnae require tea. Please read the letter.”
She sat on a stool by the hearth and patted the rocking chair next to her. “Please.”
He sat and unwound his scarf from around his neck. And he looked at her. Her golden hair glinted in the light of the fire as she broke the seal on her letter and began to read. He saw now that she was more womanly and it was not just her height. Her breasts had grown fuller in the last three and a half years. But he should not be looking at her breasts. He would look—where, where would he look? He was loath to look anywhere but at her. He had not known how starved he was for the sight of her. But where was safe to look? He looked at her hands holding her letter and only imagined them entwined with his hands, pressing on his chest, stroking his—no. He looked at her mouth and only imagined his own mouth on it. Again, no. He looked down at where her boots peeked out from her wool dress and petticoat and imagined lifting her skirts to see her ankles and then her calves and then higher up—argh. Agony.
She finished reading and was looking up at him.
“Dr. Andrews, my sister writes that she needs me to be with her.”
“Aye.”
“Is she in danger, Dr. Andrews? Will Harry die?” Her eyes brimmed with tears.
Damn. What had Harry written in her letter to Arabella? He would not lie.
“When I left her, she was not perilously ill. In fact, she seemed improved.”
Arabella sighed, a noise of relief.
“She was working on the conjecture.”
Arabella laughed.
What a glorious thing. The sound of her laugh, her head thrown back, the view of her white throat. He wanted to kiss that neck. He could not help himself. He was drunk on her now.
“Yes,” she said, chortling. “That sounds like Harry. Always the Fermat’s conjecture and thex’sand they’sand the exponents.”
“Aye, ye ken her well.”
“As do you.” She frowned. “But this letter. She is asking for me. She has ... yes, she has never asked anything of me. I mean even before my separation from the family. Harry rarely asks. She demands or she takes or she does without.”
Alasdair hesitated and then plunged. “She asked in her letter to me that I escort ye back to Sommerleigh.”
“Yes, she says the same in my letter. It is as if she doesn’t realize ...”
That Arabella could hardly cross the length of Britain alone in a carriage with a man she was not married to.
Arabella folded the letter. “But I have Maggie, Mrs. Gunn. She can come with us. She will be back to the cottage soon, and I will ask her.”
Alasdair’s feelings were mixed upon hearing news of Mrs. Gunn. The danger of being alone with Arabella for days on end in a closed carriage had teased him wildly since getting Harry’s letter.
