She lay on the floor beside the fancy four-poster, her awkwardly bent legs half-covered by her nightdress, her face pinched with a mighty effort to conceal shock and pain. He knew at once what she had been trying to do.
He closed the door behind him and knelt beside her. Her shudder did not make him hesitate; he set his arms under her shoulders and knees and lifted her onto the bed. She brushed frantically at her gown, intent upon hiding her legs from his sight.
With an effort at detachment that should have come easily, he pulled the hem down to her ankles and drew the crumpled blankets to her waist. His fingertips brushed her calf; he snatched his hands away, but not before he felt the warmth of her damp skin and suffered a jolt of breathtaking arousal.
She flushed. “What are you doing here?”
His physical response to her left him so shaken that he could find no answer. Her emotions cascaded over him like a flash flood in the desert, and not a single one of his most impregnable defenses could hold them back.
Chagrin. Anger. Shame. All her self-contained pride was lost, for he had witnessed her failure. She recoiled from him, but it was not only because a man of her kind did not touch a woman so intimately unless he was her mate. She was ashamed because she was vulnerable, exposed—a wingless bird to be ridiculed, a rabbit to be devoured. She, who should have been strong and free.
His mind formed a picture of her rising stiffly from her chair, grimly bent on reaching her bed—her brave efforts to persevere even when her body betrayed her—her humiliating tumble to the floor. He knew what it was to regard a simple movement from chair to bed as if it were a leap across a hundred-foot chasm.
And how much courage it took to live with that insurmountable obstacle every day of her life.
Her gaze met his. He was the one, now, who recoiled at the assault upon his senses and his heart. It was as raw as an open wound, this terrible sharing. His skin seemed to take heat from hers, though they did not touch; he looked away only to discover the gentle swell of her breasts beneath the fine lawn of her nightdress, and the teasing disarray of her loose brown hair.
He crouched beside the bed, as much to protect himself as to become less threatening in her eyes. He was the invader here. This was her place, her territory; she could order him to leave. He would be smart to obey and run before… before…
“How did you get in?” she demanded. Her voice had grown more sure, though it cracked in midsentence. “The servants—”
“Did not hear me. But you did.”
“Yes.” She sat up against a bolster of pillows, drawing the blanket with her. “That does not explain why you come in the middle of the night, break into our house, and walk right into my… my room as if you had a right…”
“No right, but a reason,” he said quietly, balancing his arms across his knees. “I came to bring you a message. Your brother—”
“If my brother were here—”
“But he is not.”
“Do you make a habit of trespassing like a thief, Mr. Holt, when there is no man to stop you?”
He could not help but admire the increasing steadiness of her voice and the directness of her gaze. Nor could he be angry with her after what he had witnessed. Here was not the nice, formally polite, and benevolent lady who had descended from on high to view her brother’s surprise gift. This was the woman he had glimpsed briefly in the tent after the near-accident—the she-wolf reawakened—and he liked her the better for her honest annoyance.
Yes, he liked her. Even the word felt strange as he rolled it around in his mind, tasting and exploring it as if he were a cub with an intriguing bit of bone.
“I come and go where I wish,” he said, “but not to do you harm.”
“I do not suppose that your upbringing, whatever it was, taught you that it does considerable harm to enter a lady’s room uninvited and unchaperoned. It is not only impolite—” She swallowed and gripped the edge of her blanket. “Among… townies, reputation is something of value. If anyone were to see you here, mine would be compromised.”