threshold, garbed in a blue velvet cloak, the sable-trimmed hood drawn up to conceal her features. She looked up at him, naked relief on her face. “Oh,” she said on a breath. “Thank heavens you’re all right.”
St. Clare stared down at her, stunned. For a moment he wasn’t certain she was real. And then it hit him. Not only was she real, she was standing in the corridor outside his rooms. In a dratted hotel of all places.
Ducking his head out the door, he glanced quickly to the left and right, assuring himself that the hall was empty, before pulling her inside his room and shutting the door behind her. “What in blazes are you doing here?”
She pushed her hood back from her face. “Looking for you, of course.”
His pulse stuttered. She was too beautiful for words. Too unutterably dear. It almost hurt to look at her. Especially now, tonight, when his self-control was already on a razor’s edge. “How did you know—”
“You told me you kept a set of rooms at Grillon’s. When you weren’t at your grandfather’s house, I assumed you’d be here.”
A jolt of alarm shot through him. “You visited Grosvenor Square?”
“No, I sent Bessie. She went to the kitchen door this time. One of the scullery maids told her you hadn’t come home yet. And I thought—”
“This is a hotel, Maggie,” he said roughly. “Good God. If someone saw you enter—”
“You’re concerned about my reputation?” She was incredulous. “How can you be? After what happened tonight—”
“Of course I’m concerned! Respectable ladies don’t visit hotels. If they did, they wouldn’t be considered respectable for long.”
She stretched out a hand to touch him, but he backed out of her reach.
He shook his head. “You can’t be here.” He was half-dressed. Half drunk. And his emotions—usually under such rigid control—were as raw and vulnerable as they’d often been when he was a lad. “This isn’t… This isn’t a good idea.”
She advanced on him. “Don’t be stupid. You haven’t anyone else to look after you. Naturally I came. Wild horses couldn’t keep me away.”
“I mean it. I’ve drunk nearly two bottles of brandy. I’m not…” He ran a hand over his disheveled hair. “For pity’s sake, I’m not even dressed.”
Her gaze flicked from his banyan to his breeches and back up again. A blush rose in her cheeks, but she didn’t fluster. If anything, her tone became even more businesslike. “I’m not a green girl, you know. And besides, you’re not just anyone.” She came closer. “Where did the bullet hit you?”
“My upper arm. But that doesn’t signify. You—”
“Here?” She touched him lightly.
He flinched and sucked in a breath.
“Poor darling,” she murmured. “Does it hurt terribly?” She stripped off her gloves and removed her cloak, revealing the same ill-fitting blue dress she’d worn to visit him that night in Grosvenor Square. “You’d better let me have a look at it.”
St. Clare marshaled his addled wits. She’d all but backed him into a corner. “Does Miss Trumble know you’re here? Does Burton-Smythe?”
“No one does. No one except Bessie. She accompanied me here in a hackney cab.”
He exhaled a breath. Her maid was with her. That was something, at least. “Where is she now?”
“Gone back to Green Street, I expect. I told her to wait in the lobby for ten minutes, and if I didn’t come back from your room—”
“You what?”
“I’ll make my own way home in the morning. You can put me in a cab yourself if you like.”
“Have you lost your mind? If someone were to discover you—”
“I begin to think that’s it’s you who doesn’t want me here.”
Multiple wood-paneled doors led off of the sitting room. The one to his bedroom stood open, providing a glimpse of the rumpled coverlet on his four-poster bed and the clothing littering the carpeted floor—his shirt, stockings, and boots tossed at random.
Her eyes narrowed. “You don’t have someone in your bedchamber with you, do you?”
“What?” The suggestion was so ludicrous—so far removed from the truth—that it took him a moment to comprehend her meaning. He huffed an astonished laugh. “A woman, do you mean?”
“Do you?”
“Of course not. I’m alone. That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you. Even Enzo has gone. That’s precisely why you can’t—”
“Oh, can’t I?” she shot back. “I’ve spent the last hours frightened to the heart that you were injured somewhere on the road from Chiswick. Do you have any idea what that feels like? To know I couldn’t go back for you? That I couldn’t help you? I