Page 29

“Better than I’ve ever been.” He raised his other hand to her cheek, the backs of his fingers sweeping up and down the angle of her jaw, exploring the texture of her skin with painstaking care.

“Bene.” Her tongue flicked out to wet her lips. “The biscotti are burning.”

“I know the feeling.”

The sound of his voice, low and husky, raised goosebumps across her skin.

“You called me Christopher.”

“Si.”

“Does this mean we can be friends again tomorrow?”

“Si.”

“Thank God.”

His head dipped lower, then, his lips hovering just above hers.

He was going to kiss her and she was dizzy with the desire to press her body against his. She wanted it more than she had wanted food when she was weak with hunger. Wanted it more than she wanted her next breath.

Three urgent strikes to the servant’s entrance rattled the hinges of the great wooden door, startling them apart. “Open up!”

Christopher let out an expletive then shook his head. “Rescue the biscotti, sweetheart. I’ll see to this.”

Christopher crossed to the door and threw back the lock. The moment the latch released, a pair of grooms stumbled in, half dragging a filthy, battered man between them. His shirt was torn open and blood dripped to the floor at his feet. The ragged edges of the fabric stuck to the gaping puncture wound in his abdomen. Little of his russet-brown skin remained unscathed by dirt and red blotches that would become dark bruising by the morning. Keene would have thought him dead if not for his guttural moan as one lad adjusted his grip.

Abandoning the tray of biscuits, Sofia lunged towards the stranger with a startled cry, clutching his face between her hands then running her fingers down his neck and chest. “Maria Madre di Dio, Oli! Cosa ti è successo, fratello?” Hands that had teased across Christopher’s skin only moments before were now bathed in this man’s blood, pressed to where it pooled.

Snatching a kitchen cloth, Christopher replaced Sofia’s slippery fingers with his own. “George, put him on the table, then go for the doctor! Marcus, get Gabriel.”

Sofia followed, whispering to the unconscious man, “Ti amo, idiota. Non morirai!”

The moment he was lowered to the table, she took his great meaty hand in one of her own and smoothed his matted curls with the other. Christopher knew exactly ten Italian phrases. “I love you,” was one.

Blistering heat curled in his stomach. “Who is he?”

“My brother. Oliver.”

He nodded, rage and relief shouldering to the surface, battling for space. He took care to keep both from his expression. If her brother had been nearby, why had she arrived starving in their apple orchard? Keene pushed the question away, along with all the others that bubbled up in its place.

“There is a first aid box in Mrs Janewood’s sitting room, in the second drawer down in her desk. Get it.”

She hesitated, her thumb stroking tenderly across Oliver’s bruised cheek.

“Sofia. Go.”

Anguish gleaming in her eyes, she turned and ran, nearly colliding with a very rumpled Gabriel as he charged into the kitchens.

“It’s Sofia’s brother. I don’t know anything else.”

Gabriel’s eyebrows furrowed. “I assume the doctor is on his way? I told Violet to remain upstairs, which means any moment she’ll⁠—”

“Oh, the poor little lamb. Who is he?”

“Be walking through the door,” Gabriel finished with a rueful smile.

Only Violet could take in this bedraggled, portly, disaster of a man who smelled like piss and whisky and label him a “poor little lamb.”