The Accidental Countess (The Aristocrat Diaries 3)

I vomited, coughing it out, and Matthew’s familiar hands came to my face and pulled my now sick-covered hair away from my face as I vomited again.

“I got it on there.” My voice was raspy, a little more than a whisper.

He gently rubbed his hand along the length of my spine, keeping hold of my hair despite the mess I’d made of it. “Doesn’t matter,” he said softly. “Are you done?”

“I think so.”

“I know you said you didn’t think this was going wonderfully, but there was no need to vomit to make your point.”

I sat back away from the toilet and gave a weak laugh. I was freezing now that the hot flush had dissipated, and I shuddered. “Drama queen.”

Matthew kissed my forehead and flushed the toilet. “Come on. In the shower, then I think you need to go to bed.”

“This is ridiculous,” I muttered, shuffling back to lean against the tub. “I’m not ill. I don’t need to go to bed.”

“Yes, you do.” He turned on the shower and came over to me. He slowly pulled me to my feet, looking me over with a concerned glint in his eye. “You look really pale.”

“I’m not going to bed with vomit in my hair.”

Christ on a pony, I was tired.

It’d been so long since I’d thrown up that I’d forgotten how utterly draining it was.

Matthew gently helped me undress and all but walked me into the shower. He left me under the warm water momentarily while he removed his own clothes, then he joined me.

He held me close to him for a moment, and I closed my eyes as the water washed over me. I barely had to move a muscle as he did it all for me, everything from washing my hair to running a sponge over my body, and I honestly felt as weak as a kitten through the whole thing.

When he was done and I was what I was sure was clean, he turned off the water, squeezed the excess water from my hair, and wrapped me in two fluffy towels. In the bedroom, he brushed my hair, put it in the world’s most awkward plait, and sweetly helped me into some clean underwear and pyjamas, then put me to bed.

Literally put me to bed.

If I’d asked him, I was sure he’d have picked me up and carried me into the bed.

Matthew pulled the covers over me as his phone rang from somewhere on the floor. “Bloody thing,” he muttered, walking over in his towel to it. “Hello… No, I can’t talk right now… Yes, do that. Thank you. I’ll speak to you soon.”

I peered over as he hung up and put the phone down. “Who was that?”

He looked over with a smile. “Nobody as important as you.”

Shit.

Maybe it was because I was tired or hormonal, but his words made my heart skip a beat.

And when he climbed into bed next to me and pulled me into his arms, letting me rest my head on his chest so I could feel every single thump of his heart against my cheek, I couldn’t help but fall asleep wondering if he wasn’t the only one who was falling in love.

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

EVA

After three days that left me truly down and out with some pretty violent morning sickness—that was not in the fucking morning, by the way—I had no choice but to cancel on Eleanor for the trip to see local artists.

She understood, of course, and she’d spent some of the past few days looking after me, even going as far as to contact the doctor for some anti-nausea meds when it became clear that I was struggling to keep anything down.

Apparently, I had to keep an eye on that.

Honestly, there wasn’t much else to keep an eye on when you were hugging a bucket or a toilet bowl.

Even Ffion had toned it back. There were no snide comments, and the time she had spent with me had been sitting happily in the Queen Anne chair Matthew had bought me while she got some knitting done.

She was the best company. She sat there and let me sketch, only offering her opinion when I asked for it. Since I was working on some rough ideas for the postcards, it was an opinion that was most welcome.

“Which daffodil one?” I asked her, shifting so the sun was no longer in my eyes. It was the first time in three days I’d been out of my room, and it was all thanks to the meds Eleanor had arranged for me.

Ffion narrowed her eyes and adjusted her glasses to see the two new options I was offering her. “I like the left one. Gives me Van Gogh vibes.”

I turned the sketch pad around and frowned at it. The only similarity with anything by Van Gogh was the fact that they were in a vase. “Is that a good thing?”