Once Upon a Wallflower

He rested her on the edge of the bed, continuing to cradle her against his body while he pulled back the blankets. With shaking hands, he managed to settle her into the bed, tucking the covers up to her chin. As he moved her, though, the chain around her neck shifted and the pendant he had given her slipped free from the neck of her shirt.

Nicholas stood over her, staring fiercely at her still form. She was deathly pale, her skin cold and waxy, and her breathing was shallow.

And she was wearing his gift.

He felt completely helpless.

His first thought when he had peered over the cliff’s edge and had seen her on the ledge below was that she had leapt just like his mother, another woman choosing to fly away rather than limp along at his side. The truth was only slightly less painful. She had almost died, and it was his fault, yet another sin to add to his conscience.

If he had not gotten drunk the night before, not hared off after his father, not passed out at Dowerdu in a gin-soaked fog, not slept away the morning—if he had not been so irresponsible—he would have met Mira in the library and escorted her to Dowerdu himself. Or he would have been keeping an eye on his father. Either way, he should have protected her from the hooded rider. He should have kept her safe.

But instead, she had faced that nightmare alone. While he had been tucked away in the cottage, a roaring fire keeping the chill at bay as he lost himself in sketching, Mira had been clinging to the face of the cliff, battered by the storm, thinking she would likely die.

Guilt devoured him from the inside out, paralyzing him with its icy venom.

Mira suddenly drew in a wheezing breath and began to cough, a thick, wet sound that started deep in her chest and convulsed her body with its force.

She was cold and shaking and he did not know what to do.

Muttering a jumbled mix of curses and prayers, Nicholas sat on the edge of the bed and threw off his clothes, stripping off every barrier between Mira and his own body heat. He crawled beneath the covers and gently rolled her onto her side, pressing the length of his body against her back, tucking his legs into the bend of hers, burying his face in the frigid curve of her neck and letting his hot breath warm her.

His arm snaked around her middle, and when another fit of coughing seized her body, he held her tight against him, absorbing as much of the power of the spasm as he could.

He tucked the blankets around their bodies as tightly as possible without relinquishing his hold on her, and soon their shared heat began to warm her skin. Her breathing deepened into that of true sleep, and the coughing subsided.

He pulled her closer still, and allowed the steady cadence of her breathing, the slow rhythm of her heart beneath his hand, to lull him to sleep. And as oblivion claimed him, he vowed that he would do whatever it took to protect his Mira.

Chapter Sixteen

Mira came awake slowly, aware of a delicious heat surrounding her. She wanted to revel in it a bit longer, but other details began to intrude on her slumber. The heavy weight of an arm around her waist, the hot pulse of breath on her neck, the tickle of hairy legs against her own.

She was in bed with Nicholas, and there were very few clothes between them. The realization prodded her awake.

With a tiny yip, she sat up in the bed, and the covers dropped away allowing a draft of cold air to strike them both.

First she looked down at herself, at the thin, rumpled linen of the shirt she was wearing, at the way in which the neck of the shirt drifted over the curve of her breast, accentuating the fullness of its shape.

Then she looked at Nicholas. Who was quite naked. With a growing sense of hunger, her eyes swept over the spare lines of his body, marveling at the tight muscles that defined the shape of each limb. The combination of his leanness and his power reminded her of a wolf she had seen once at Astley’s, a creature of brutal beauty, every sinew sculpted with a purpose.

Her gaze drifted back to the narrow angles of his face. The breath froze in her chest when she met the silver fire of his eyes. He was wide awake, staring squarely at her, his eyes narrowed in predatory ferocity as he took in every curve and shadow beneath the veil of linen.

Mira had seen Mr. Penrose look at Bella that way. A look of hunger and possession and worship, but magnified a hundredfold in the prism of Nicholas’s eyes.