She heard a sound of a door opening and closing downstairs and opened her eyes. She watched as Edoardo took Fergus outside for his last comfort stop. He waited near the parterre garden, his tall figure so still and silent as the dog went about his business in the shadows.
Bella was transfixed.
The moonlight captured Edoardo’s arresting features in relief. He looked like a dark knight or warrior fighting some internal battle of his own. His jaw was locked tight and his fists were thrust into the pockets of his trousers. His broad shoulders were fixed in position, the length of his spine straight and grimly determined. His brow was heavily furrowed, tense in fierce concentration.
Then, as if he sensed her watching him, he turned and locked gazes with her.
Bella felt the shock of the visual connection like a punch to her solar plexus. Her heart kicked like a horse’s hoof against her breastbone. Her breathing stalled and her mouth went dry.
His eyes read her mind as surely as his hands and mouth had read her body only half an hour ago.
She jumped back from the window like someone leaping away from a roaring blaze. She clutched at her chest, sure her heart was going to flop like a goldfish tossed out of its bowl and land on the carpet at her feet.
What was wrong with her?
She wasn’t a teenage girl experiencing her first crush. She was an adult, a mature, sensible adult who was about to become engaged to a man she loved and admired. She had no right to be lusting after a man she didn’t even like.
It was shocking.
It was immoral.
It was tempting.
She grabbed twin handfuls of her hair and castigated herself. ‘No. No. No.’
She heard the stairs creaking as Edoardo’s firm tread came up to her floor. Her heart skipped another beat. She held her breath, her body poised, every nerve super-alert, her self-control and resolve gone to some far-off place she couldn’t access even if she wanted to.
But then there was silence.
Nothing but an empty, hollow silence, apart from the lone hooting of an owl as it flew past her window, the sound of its wings moving through the air like a velvet cape being swished around someone’s shoulders.
BELLA wasn’t sure what woke her. She hadn’t even realised she had been asleep, but she must have been because when she opened her eyes and checked the clock, it was close to four in the morning. She pushed back the covers and sat up, straining her ears in the eerie silence.
She didn’t hear a thing for a full minute or so and then she heard a faint groan. Her skin lifted in goose bumps, as if a ghost’s hand had touched her.
Don’t be silly, she chided herself as she reached for her wrap. Haverton Manor does not have any resident ghosts. At least, none that she knew of.
She tiptoed out into the corridor and immediately noticed a sliver of muted light shining from beneath Edoardo’s door at the other end of the passage. She chewed at her lip, wondering if it was wise to go any further. But then she heard the groan again, louder this time, and it was definitely coming from inside his room.
She pushed her reservations aside and padded down to his door, softly tapping on it as she leant her ear to the woodwork. ‘Edoardo?’ she said. ‘Are you all right?’
There was a rustle of sheets being wrestled with. ‘Go back to bed,’ he said, but his voice didn’t quite have the stern authority she was used to hearing in it.
She turned the doorknob before she could change her mind and stepped over the threshold. Her eyes went to his figure lying in a tangle of sheets, the pallor of his face almost the same shade of white. ‘Are you ill?’ she asked.
He cranked open one eye and told her to get out with an expletive graphically sandwiched between the curt command.
Bella turned on the major light near the door but he immediately swore again and put his forearm across his eyes. ‘Turn off the damn light!’ he growled.
She flicked the switch off and came over to the bed where the light from his bedside lamp was shining with a pallid glow. ‘What’s wrong?’ she asked.
‘Get the hell out of here.’
‘But you’re sick.’
‘I’m fine,’ he said through gritted teeth.
Bella rolled her eyes and leaned forward to put a hand on his brow but he must have sensed her coming for him and blocked her by grabbing her wrist with his other hand. He opened his eyes to narrow squints and glared at her. ‘I told you to get the hell out of here.’
She felt the bruising crush of his fingers around her wrist and winced. ‘You’re hurting me.’
He dropped her wrist. ‘Sorry.’ He let out a serrated sigh and covered his eyes again. ‘Just leave me alone … please?’
Bella sat gently on the edge of the bed next to his thighs. ‘Migraine?’ she asked softly.
His whole body sank against the mattress. ‘It’ll pass,’ he said on another weak sigh. ‘They always do.’
‘You get them often?’
‘Now and again.’
‘I’ve never seen you sick before,’ she said.
He cranked open one eye again. ‘Enjoy the show,’ he said dryly.
She placed a hand on his brow, frowning at how clammy it was. ‘Have you taken anything for it?’ she asked.
‘Paracetamol.’
‘That’s hardly going to do much,’ she said. ‘You need something stronger. What if I call an after-hours doctor?’
‘No.’
‘But—’
‘No,’ he said, glaring at her again. ‘Will you quit it with the sweet little nurse routine and get the hell out?’
‘I’m not leaving you like this,’ she said. ‘You could fall and knock yourself out or something.’
He flopped back down, but within a few seconds he suddenly reared up and, almost shoving her aside, stumbled to the en suite, not even stopping to close the door. Bella winced in empathy as he was violently, wretchedly sick. She gently pushed the door back, rinsed a face cloth under the tap and silently passed it to him where he was huddled over the toilet bowl.
‘You don’t give up easily, do you?’ he said but there was no sting in it.
‘I choose my battles,’ she said and rinsed out another face cloth.
He took it from her once he had flushed the toilet. ‘Thanks,’ he said a little gruffly.
‘My pleasure.’
He gave her a look. ‘I bet you’re enjoying this.’
Bella frowned at him. ‘Why would I enjoy seeing you, or anyone, suffer?’
He hauled himself upright and took a moment to steady himself against the basin. She could see the outline of every muscle of his back and shoulders beneath the thin cotton T-shirt he was wearing. The boxer shorts left most of his long legs bare, the muscles strongly corded with regular and strenuous exercise. ‘There are people in this world who would enjoy nothing more,’ he said with a bitter twist of his mouth. ‘It’s sport for them. Cheap entertainment.’