Winter's Woman (The Wicked Winters #9) - Scarlett Scott Page 0,53

country. Bluer than blue. And clear, lucid. No trace of fever in their depths.

“Why?” he rasped, attempting to say more but then stopping, running his tongue over his lower lip, which was cracked and dry.

“Water?” she asked.

He gave a jerky nod, and she rose with haste to fetch him some, bringing it back to the bedside and helping him to lift his head so he could take a proper drink. She allowed him three gulps before withdrawing the cup, not wishing for him to be ill after so many days of precious little water, and nothing but dribbles of broth spooned down his throat. He was weak and ill, and he needed to proceed slowly, as any invalid would.

“Why are you here?” he growled.

“How are you feeling?” she asked, ignoring his question.

“Why are you here?” he demanded once more.

Did she dare tell him the truth? That she was here because she loved him? She did not think the weary, broken stranger glaring at her wanted to hear those words now. Mayhap not ever.

She needed to tread with care. “I am here because it is my fault you were wounded. It is my fault you suffered the infection and were so gravely ill these last few days.”

“I told you to go.”

His curt, cold voice did nothing to stay the hope and relief welling within her. He had not been this lucid since her arrival. And though he looked weak and pale—understandably after all the trauma he had just endured—there was a vitality about him which had been previously absent.

“Yes,” she agreed calmly. “You did.”

His eyes narrowed. “Don’t want you here.”

“So you have said repeatedly.” Once more, she kept her tone bright, nary a hint of the hurt blossoming within her showing.

“Get out.”

It was not the first time Theodore Winter had ordered her from his chamber; different room, different day. But Evie was not heeding him this time. She had before, and she had almost lost him. She was not about to lose him now.

“No.”

His lip curled. “I don’t want you here.”

“Nevertheless, I am here. Remaining.” She held the cup to his lips. “More water?”

He lifted his right hand and swatted the cup away, spilling its contents all over his counterpane and sloshing on her bodice in the process. It was terribly childish of him. And part of her she dared not reveal—the part of her that loved him desperately and had been terrified he would die all whilst she had been getting scarcely any rest—longed to cry. To run from the chamber and hide from his wrath.

But she reminded herself he was only trying to do what was best. The Theo Winter she had come to know was not a beast but a man. A good, kind man. A handsome, wonderful man. The man she loved.

“You have spilled the water all over your bedclothes,” she observed calmly. “All you needed to do was say you were not thirsty, Theo. No need for theatrics.”

“Devil,” he gritted.

“You shall always be Theo to me,” she told him pointedly, holding his gaze and daring him to defy her. To offer argument.

“Go,” he ordered her again.

“As we have already established, I am not leaving.” And damn him for waking from days of fever—for being at the edge of life and death—and then demanding she remove herself from his presence the instant he was awake. Part of her longed to box his ears. But another part of her longed to kiss him. She was so relieved he was awake and himself.

Surely this meant he was going to survive this.

“You do not belong here.”

“I belong wherever you are.” The impassioned words fled her before she could think better of them.

She had revealed too much. Made herself far too vulnerable.

He stared, his jaw rigid. “You don’t belong with me, milady. I’m too stupid, an East End bastard born of a whore. Can’t even read.”

She flinched at his description of himself, but forged onward, needing him to see the difference. To see himself for the man he was instead of as the worthless boy his mother had taught him to believe he was. “Of course you can read. You have been making great progress, and you are not stupid at all, Theo. Your brain sees the letters in a different order at times, and I believe that is what has caused you difficulty in the past.”

He sneered. “Made you come and it’s fogged your mind.”

His crude words made her flush. “Do not make a mockery of yourself or what we