Thea was thinking of Ethan when she neared the top floor landing, so much so she imagined she could hear him, his voice echoing in the silence between each of her heartbeats.
But then this house had always been thick with ghosts.
And now Ethan’s mine.
Her name—he said her name, but there was such anguish in that one word, she couldn’t understand how her heart could still be beating at all.
She was still thinking of him when her foot caught in the hem of her gown and she lost her balance, and it was his name that rose to her lips when she toppled backwards. She didn’t have time to scream it, or say it, or even to whisper it before she fell.
She only had time to think it, and then darkness took her, and she didn’t think at all.
Chapter Twelve
January 5, 12:30 p.m.
Twelfth Night
“Why hasn’t she woken up?” Ethan sat next to Thea’s bed, her hand in his, his heart filled with dread and hope as he watched her eyes flutter under her pale lids. “Her eyes are moving. Why doesn’t she open them?”
Please, Thea. Open your eyes.
“As I told you before, Lord Devon, head wounds are complicated. I see no reason to believe Miss Sheridan’s injury is severe. If you hadn’t broken her fall, well . . . it could have been much, much worse. It’s a good sign her eyes are moving, but beyond that, we’ll just have to wait and see.”
“She was murmuring earlier.”
His name.
It was soft, the word indistinct, but she’d said his name. “I thought for certain she’d wake up then, but she hasn’t said anything since.”
“It’s another good sign she’s speaking. I’m hopeful she’ll make a full recovery, but she needs rest.” The doctor laid a hand on Ethan’s shoulder. “You should rest yourself, my lord. You haven’t left her bedside since her fall. You’ll be no use to Miss Sheridan if you make yourself ill.”
Ethan didn’t move. “No. I won’t leave her.”
The doctor sighed. “Very well. I’ll come back this evening, but send for me at once if there’s any change.”
Ethan nodded, but he didn’t answer, and he didn’t turn when he heard the door close quietly behind the doctor.
This wasn’t happening. Not again. Not to Thea.
You should ask me how far I’d go to save you, Ethan.
As soon as she’d left the study last night, he’d known he’d made a mistake. Thea was honest down to the very depths of her heart, and he knew her too well to believe she could pretend a love she didn’t feel. She’d taken him into her bed because she loved him, and whatever promise she’d made to his father, she’d made for the same reason.
Because she loved him. And he . . .
There’d never been anyone for him but her. Nothing else mattered. Only her.
He should have begged her to forgive him at once, and told her he’d never leave her, but he’d let the same fears that had controlled him for too long overrule his heart, and now he may never have the chance to tell her again how much he loved her.
When at last he’d stumbled from his study into the dim entryway last night, he’d seen Thea at the top of the stairs, near the first floor landing. He’d called out to her, but she hadn’t seemed to hear him. Her shoulders had been hunched into her chest, her feet heavy on each stair, and then . . .
Even now he didn’t understand how he’d known—why he’d shot up the stairs after her, his heart in his throat, and every hair on his neck raised in sudden panic. Had she made a noise before she fell? Had he heard it, or had he just sensed, somehow, that something was about to go terribly wrong?
It had happened so quickly, and yet at the same time he’d felt as if he were moving underwater, battling against a sucking current determined to drag him back, to hold him down as he fought to reach her in time.
Five steps. Perhaps six, but no more. That was as far as he’d gotten before she lost her footing and began to plummet to the hard marble floor below. He’d known at once he’d be too late to stop it. He’d only had time to throw himself in her way, and pray his body would break her fall. The impact had knocked him backward those few steps, but Thea had fallen the entire way, down all those stairs . . .
There hadn’t been any blood, not like with Andrew, but for that one frozen moment when he’d struggled to pull breath into his lungs, that still form at the bottom of the staircase hadn’t been Thea at all.
