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Leah’s heart raced as she debated speaking out or remaining silent. What the devil was he doing in her bedchamber?

Was it a confused footman?

Before she could decide whether to speak or not, the drapes were tugged open, and the late afternoon sun assailed her eyes. She squeezed them shut, frantically sitting upright. She squinted against the sudden light, throwing her legs off the bed.

Fortunately, by the time the man noticed her presence, she was on her feet. Her head swam from standing so suddenly, her vision edged in black.

The man fell back a step, his shoulders jumping. “Oh—I’m sorry…”

Leah froze.

She knew him.

His brown eyes and tousled dark hair awoke the most unpleasant of memories. Her throat seized, and she nearly choked on a breath.

This was not a confused footman.

The man stared at her for a long moment until his shock faded into recognition.

The Christmas bad luck she had once experienced hadn’t just been a series of dreadful events. It had a name: Mr. Felix Hawthorne.

And here he was, standing in her bedchamber.

Two

He wasn’t entirely certain where, but Felix had seen this woman somewhere before.

He stared at her dark curls, brown eyes, and flushed cheeks as he tried to place how he knew her.

But that wasn’t the most pressing issue, was it?

They were alone together in his bedchamber. It was his bedchamber, was it not? He glanced around the room as his eyes adjusted to the sunlight. His traveling trunks were still where he had left them in the far corner beside the wardrobe. And he couldn’t have forgotten the yellow furnishings in the short hour he had been exploring the rest of the house.

It was indeed his room.

So why on earth was this young woman standing inside it?

Her dark hair was ruffled on one side, her pelisse and boots resting at the foot of the bed. Had she been napping? Her round eyes had yet to leave his face, her cheeks draining of color. Her lips, however, were still rosy, parted—as if she wished to speak but had somehow lost that capability.

Was she here to ensnare him? The possibility crossed his mind with a jolt of panic.

She blinked fast before scowling down at the bed in apparent confusion.

Felix studied her face, searching his mind for the occasion he had seen it before. When her eyes met his again—the memory came flooding back.

Christmas, several years before.

He had been visiting his friend, Mr. Gilbert Davies, in Hertfordshire. This was the woman Gilbert had nearly proposed to. Knowing what her circumstances had been back then, he was shocked to see that she had secured an invitation to such an esteemed house party. And all the way in Yorkshire?

Felix managed to find his voice. “I’m sorry to have disturbed your nap, but I believe you are in the wrong room.”

“No.” The woman’s voice was clear and crisp—not what he would have expected from someone who had just been asleep. “This is my room. One of her ladyship’s housemaids directed me here. You must have become lost.”

Lost? Felix approached the bed from the other side, crossing his arms over his chest. “I don’t imagine those are your trunks?” He nodded toward the corner of the room. Her gaze followed his, and then her name came rushing back to his memory.

Miss Leah Sterling.

She had been most eager to make a match with Gilbert, and her parents had been applying pressure to the situation as well. As the last of her sisters to be married, her entire family had come across as desperate and conniving. Felix had heavily doubted the sincerity of her affection for his friend, and so he had taken it upon himself to offer his own advice to the man. Gilbert had been recently widowed and wasn’t thinking clearly.