‘Call me Henri. Hardly anyone ever calls me Henri these days,’ she murmured, her long lashes fluttering. Dark against the pure cream of her skin. Utterly delectable.
Robert drew in his breath, sharply, and struggled to control the hot rush of blood to his nether region. Right now, she needed assistance. He scooped her up and carried her to the side of the road as the post-coach thundered past.
‘Please. Am I going to die? Is my face ruined? My leg aches like the very devil.’
Robert gave a short laugh as the air rushed from his lungs. How like a woman to be worried about her looks, rather than exclaiming about how narrowly the coach had missed the both of them.
‘Henri, then. Your face is as ever it was.’ He knelt down beside her and supported her shoulders so she could sit up. Her body relaxed against his and the pleasant scent of lavender rose about him. Her bottom lip held a glossy sheen and trembled a few inches below his.
‘Please tell me the truth,’ she whispered, lifting a cool hand to his face. ‘Are you are keeping something from me? If I am horribly scarred, people are going to turn away from me…’
Giving into temptation, he bent his head and brushed his lips against hers. The tiniest of tastes, but firm enough to make his point clear. Her long lashes fluttered and a long drawn-out sigh emerged from her throat.
‘Do I look like a man who would kiss a woman with a ruined face?’
Chapter Four
Do I look like a man who would kiss a woman with a ruined face? The words echoed around and around in her brain. Henri lay on the side of the road with Robert Montemorcy’s arm about her shoulders and his body supporting hers, far too stunned to move. Her lips ached faintly from the kiss. And what was worse, her entire being demanded more.
The world swayed about her. Her entire being was aware of his arm about her shoulders, the thump of his heart and the way her body curved intimately into his as if they were a perfect fit. It would be easy to stay here for the rest of her life, safe.
She wanted him to kiss her again. Properly this time. Long and slow.
The thought shocked her to her core. She was supposed to be beyond such things. Her heart was buried with Edmund. In any case, she had read St Paul’s letter to the Corinthians in the bible as a young girl and her nurse had explained charity was another word for love. Love was supposed to be patient, gentle and kind, bearing all things, and she had decided that was how she wanted love to be. It was what she had felt for Edmund. What she felt now was a red-hot rush of blood and desire. An insidious curl of warmth that kept calling to her, making a mockery of her ideals.
She struggled against the weight of his arm, pushing her traitorous thoughts away. ‘Let me go. I’m out of danger.’
‘Henri?’ The warm tone enticed her to stay, but she forced her body up to a sitting position and his arms fell away.
‘No, I’ll be fine. I’m always fine. There’s no need to be concerned about me.’
She shrugged slightly, hoping the languid feeling would go. The horrifying moments of the dog attack were over, and Robert Montemorcy had seen her in an embarrassingly weak moment. Kissed her even. She curled in her hand in frustration. Lying in this man’s arms was the last thing she desired.
She hated this hot unsettled feeling. With Edmund, she loved him with a pure devotion. But now she’d enjoyed a kiss with another man. And, what was worse, wanted to be kissed by him again.
‘My muscles are akin to jelly. That’s all. I had a momentary lapse.’
‘It is the shock. It will pass.’ He gave her shoulder an awkward pat. The heat from his hand jolted through her.
‘I will live,’ she said, frowning as she suddenly became cold. Fate must be laughing. She was now beholden to Mr Montemorcy for saving her when only seconds before the attack, she had been filled with such righteous anger about how he’d treated her and her cousin that she’d failed to notice how close she was to Mr Teasdale’s house and that dog.
How could she be angry with a man who risked his physical safety for her? She’d seen him wrestle that beast to the ground, the act of a true hero.
‘The dog savaged your leg. It will have to be seen to.’
She half-closed her eyes and again saw the beast’s jaws, coming ever towards her, and then how it had turned to attack Robert Montemorcy. The world turned black at the edges.
Henri gritted her teeth. Whilst she despised her own weakness at being so cripplingly afraid of dogs, she refused to faint. She never fainted. It was a point of principle. Fainting was for people like her late mother who had nothing better to do and wanted attention.
‘You shouldn’t have risked yourself for me,’ she said, concentrating on the stones in the road. ‘I fell and became winded. It could happen to anyone. That coach would have missed me.’
‘Why would I walk away from a person in trouble, particularly someone I consider to be a friend?’ he asked in that lilting Northumbrian accent of his. ‘And I refuse to allow my friends to be crushed under the wheels of a coach.’
‘Shall I fashion you a halo? Your Good Samaritan credentials are impeccable,’ she said, trying to move her ankle; waves of pain crashed over her. Perhaps she’d been overoptimistic in thinking she could make her way home. Her ankle seemed to be insistent on aching. Of all the stupid accidents, to try to run but instead to trip and turn her ankle. And then the dog had sunk his teeth in, pulling at her. It might hurt, but there wasn’t much blood. That had to be a good sign.
She would be willing to guess that Robert Montemorcy had had a good glimpse of her petticoats. She tried to remember if she was wearing her lace-trimmed one or the more practical flannel one or, worse still, the one that needed mending.
‘Your humour was unaffected and that is a start.’ A dimple flashed in his cheek. ‘Henri.’
She looked up into his piercing amber eyes. Her insides did a queer sort of leap that had nothing to do with her ankle. ‘Are you really going to call me that? You’ve always called me Lady Thorndike before.’
‘You said I might as I saved your life.’ He leant close and his breath fanned her cheek. ‘Who am I to deny a beautiful woman? You may call me Robert if you desire.’
‘Not that. I’m just…well…me.’ Henri squashed the faint sense of giddy pleasure that ran through her. Not even Edmund had considered her beautiful—striking, maybe, but not a beauty. Her nose and mouth were too big for her face, and her figure a bit too angular. ‘My colouring and figure are all wrong to be considered fashionable.’
‘You’re far too modest, Henri.’ The lines about his eyes crinkled and made him appear younger, more approachable. ‘And here I thought you didn’t care a jot for fashion. You have your own unique style.’
She stared up at the blue sky, trying to gather her wits about her. She knew what he was doing—speaking of inconsequential things until she had recovered. She wished they weren’t quite so personal. She needed to change the subject quickly or that unsettling ache in her belly would grow. She needed to get up and be on the same level as he. Then she could take control of the conversation and keep it away from potentially troublesome personal details. If he was a gentleman, he’d never refer to the kiss again. It was an aberration brought on by the dog attack.
Henri attempted to stand, then sat back down again as throbbing pain shot from her ankle. She hugged her knees to her chest.
‘A dangerous dog like that should have been chained. It savaged my leg without provocation,’ she said,