Page 59 of A Stormy Season

He leaned even closer, as if to block other people’s view, and took her hand in his. He lifted it to his lips and kissed it.

Jane’s stomach fluttered like the window curtain. She imagined him kissing her lips instead of her hand.

“I will check on you later, but I must go now.”

Jane nodded.

“Will you stay in your sister-in-law’s room tonight?”

Jane nodded again. Truthfully, she wasn’t very eager to sleep in the room where one of those evil men had been only minutes before.

Luke looked as if he might say something else, but then he turned and strode away, asking a few men to go with him to search the grounds around the house. Then he was hurrying down the stairs, the others trailing behind him.

~ ~ ~

Dawn was breaking when the young man came back with the apothecary’s remedy for Jane’s sore throat. Luke thanked him and sent the overly helpful young man home, a bit of an urge to box his ears alerting Luke to his own jealousy as he remembered him dancing with Jane.

Luke wanted to take the bottle of medicine to Jane himself, but he didn’t wish to wake her or Penelope or Lilith, who slept in the room with her.

He was standing outside the room with the bottle in his hand when the door to Jane’s room, which was next door, opened and Jane emerged.

She jumped, obviously startled to see him standing in the hall.

“Forgive me,” he said. “I didn’t mean to frighten you. I have the apothecary’s remedy for your throat.”

“Just fetching . . . something.” She wadded up a flimsy piece of cloth, no doubt her nightgown, hiding it as best she could.

Suddenly, he wished he could see her in that flimsy nightgown. But that was unchivalrous. What was wrong with him? Obviously it had been too long since . . . But he shouldn’t let his mind go there.

He held the bottle out to her. “One small draft every two hours. It should soothe your throat until it can heal.”

Jane nodded. She reached out to take the bottle and their fingers touched. She did not snatch her hand away, but let her fingers linger on his. Or perhaps he was imagining that she did that. Perhaps he was the one who was reluctant to let the bottle go and break the connection.

But it didn’t matter. They weren’t actually engaged—he had to keep reminding himself.

“Did you find anything?” Jane rasped, her voice still quite hoarse.

“No. The man must have gotten away. We found evidence of a couple of horses that had been tethered in a stand of trees near the house. That must be how the man’s cohort made his escape.”

She was staring at his face. The only light was the pale edge of dawn, what little was able to make its way into the dark hall, and in it her face had an ethereal glow. Her brows were delicate arches, and her lips . . . he could easily imagine kissing them.

“And the other?” She was speaking of the man who had harmed her, but by her expression and the tone of her voice, she was thinking of something else entirely. And she was staring at his mouth.

“My grooms are holding him in the basement, and I’ve stationed one of Henry’s guards outside the nursery door and the other on the grounds outside.”

He was barely aware of the words he was saying as he gazed down at her. What excuse could he give for putting his arms around her and holding her?

“Are you cold?” he asked.

“Cold?” She was still staring at his lips. “No.”

Was she getting closer? Standing on her tiptoes?

His heart was thumping hard. But under no circumstances would he ever kiss Jane Gilchrist. She was flighty, given to emotional outbursts, independent, didn’t care what Society thought of her, and . . . she was the bravest, loveliest creature in the whole of England.

He leaned down. He would not kiss her. He was no selfish cad, kissing young ladies who didn’t wish to be kissed. But if she kissed him . . .

“What happens now?” she said softly, her eyelids hanging low over her lovely eyes.