the same room with you—wait.” He held up his hand against her unspoken pain as her eyes went owl round. “That is, I cannot be in your presence and possessed of my wits at the same time. You’re like…a tune in my head I cannot rid myself of. A torrent, or a whirlwind, spinning me until I cannot see my way forward. I can’t have that now. I need to be objective. Unemotional.”
“Unemotional?” she echoed slowly.
“Especially when the stakes are so high. When I want—” He caught himself just in time.
To see that she’d stopped breathing, her stare rapt and absorbed.
He’d said too much.
“When you want what?” she whispered.
“I meant to say…when the outcome has such a monumental effect on the life and future of everyone.” He slid closer toward her and she moved her legs to give him room. Leaning forward, his hand drifted toward her until it fit over her abdomen. “Of the three of us.”
She covered his hand with her own, and Morley suddenly found himself a prisoner.
His shackles silk rather than steel.
Even through her nightgown and the bedclothes, he could fell that her firm stomach had a barely discernable curve to it.
They each let out an identical breath, wondering at the life beneath their hands.
“Somehow I’m going to prove to you that I’m innocent,” she declared with the resolution of a royal. “If I do that, would I be worthy of you then?”
Awash in a tide of foreign and frustrating sentimentality, Morley pulled away from her, unable to stand the intimacy and not take it further. “This isn’t about that.”
“It is to me.”
He threaded his fingers through his hair, yearning to believe her. If only so he wouldn’t have to face the dark part of him whispering that her innocence mattered not.
That he’d fall for her, regardless.
“Please, let’s not talk of this now. I’m too…where in God’s name is the doctor?”
“I assure you, I’m well. The table took the hardest tumble, I all but glided to the floor.”
He turned his back on her, going behind the screen to lift the table back to its position. The furniture was a heavy piece, the top pure marble.
Gads, what if she’d pulled it over on top of her?
Suddenly he was very aware how dangerous a home could be to a woman and child.
“You don’t have to stay, you know,” she said, arranging the covers in a prim display. “It’s dark. You may go about your…your work as the Knight of Shadows.”
He took the watch chain from his vest and checked it. “There’s no chance of me leaving tonight.”
“I don’t know how many times I have to tell you, there’s hardly a reason to fret,” she insisted.
“Oh? And from what distinguished institution did you get your medical degree, Doctor Morley?” He scowled at her. “I just found my wife crumpled on the floor; if that’s not a time to fret, I can think of none better. So you will submit to an examination or—”
“Or what?” she asked around a wry smile. “You’ll have me thrown in jail?”
That surprised a sharp snort of mirth from him. “Don’t tempt me.”
A red-faced Bart arrived with the doctor, a beakish gentleman with a gentle manner, interrupting further conversation between them.
Morley hovered as his wife was examined, palpated, and interrogated all in time for the doctor to declare that she and the child were likely in little to no danger of miscarriage. After advice was given and a draught administered, Morley left his wife’s side long enough to pay the man and walk him out.
He stopped to fortify himself with several scorching swallows of Ravencroft Scotch before returning to her room.
Only to find her sleeping peacefully.
Her dark hair flared on the pillow, shining like a phantom halo of ebony around her delicate features. Her hand was draped next to her cheek, relaxed into a little cup, as if he might give her something precious.
A stark pang of yearning pierced him as the smooth side of his bed beckoned to him. Here she was, a strange and seductive fantasy sleeping the sleep of the innocent.
And she was his.
A dark desire welled within him with such ferocity he shuddered with it. He wanted to own her. To claim her, body and soul. To plant himself inside of her and pleasure her until she was mindless, until she was boneless, replete with satisfaction.
He wanted to feed her from his hands. To nourish her and the life within. He wanted to buy her things to adorn her loveliness. Gems