And why should he care if she did? Because he did, curse it.
He turned away from her and moved to the hearth. Taking up the poker, he rustled some of the smoldering logs. More fire would be needed soon. The day was another deuced frigid one, judging from the state of his chamber.
“Thank you for your concern,” she said, laying a hand on his shoulder.
He nearly jumped out of his skin at the touch of her fingers. So much for the hope that bedding her would rid him of this ceaseless ache to be inside her. The connection between them was every bit as strong as ever, if not stronger. Heat spread through him, settling in his groin, vanquishing the pain radiating from his side and the unpleasant pricks of his nattering conscience. He stabbed harder at the fire, willing himself to rein in his base impulses and remember what was at stake.
“No need to thank me,” he muttered, hating himself all the more for what he must do.
Why could she not have been an overbearing shrew? Why could she not have been cruel and terrible and arrogant, the sort of lady who would sooner look down her lofty aristocratic nose at a man like him than deign to touch him? Why did she have to be more temptation than he could bear to resist?
“I hope you like honey cakes,” she said, blessedly moving away from him. “Your chef assured me it is a favorite of yours.”
Saint Hugh’s bones, she had even consulted the bleeding cook on what he preferred to eat for breakfast. She was an angel. No doubt about it.
An angel he had defiled.
The devil in him did not regret a moment of what had passed between them the night before, and he would do it again in a heartbeat if he had the choice. Grinding his molars in further irritation, Hart gave the fire another stir, then bent to add some wood.
The pain in his side reminded him that he was not able to move as fluidly as before. He grunted as agony lashed at him.
“What is amiss?” In a moment, she was at his back again, her presence a reassuring warmth that seared him.
He could feel her, and she was not even touching him this time, blast it.
Hart replaced the fire poker and turned. “Nothing. A bit sore, is all.”
Her gaze fell to the gash on his side, a gasp slipping from her lips. “You are bleeding again, and it looks quite red and angry. Are you in very much pain?”
“No,” he lied, because the thought of her fluttering over him in maidenly concern made him want to throw himself from the window to the street below.
It would certainly save the Bradleys the effort at seeing him hushed and sent to Rothisbones for good.
“Sit,” she ordered him, her voice stern.
As if she were in charge of him.
The bold minx.
He found himself doing as she asked, slowly seating himself at the hearth with a grimace he could not entirely squelch. She was right to say his wound looked ugly. It did, and even he could acknowledge it. Until it was festering, he was going to proceed as usual. He had a gaming hell to help run and a brother to find.
She laid a hand over his brow. “You feel a bit warm.”
“I’m not warm at all,” he denied, glowering at her. “And you aren’t my bleeding mother, to fret over me so.”
“Hush.” She frowned down at him, continuing to hover like a bee seeking a flower. “Your brow is heated and your wound is red and raw.”
“I’m not hot.” He suppressed a shiver. “I’m deuced cold. But I’m hungry, too. If you’ve brought me breakfast, I may as well take some.”
He was being an ogre and he knew it, but he was damned discomfited from her presence, her sweetly caring disposition, and the discomfort of his damned wound. To say nothing of his guilt, which heightened more by the moment, rivaling only his desire for her. How was it that a man could be in so much anguish and yet still desire a woman as badly as he was longing for Lady Emma?
And much to his chagrin, she neither argued nor took him to task for his dreadful lack of charm. Instead, she brought him a plate containing a honey cake. Honey cakes were his bleeding favorite.
His stomach rumbled.
She smiled again. “You see? Sustenance is just what you need.”
More of her was what he needed. It was on his tongue, the confession about to flee him, but he bit down on that secret, keeping it to himself.
“Thank you, milady,” he said instead, reverting to the little taunt he had been using whenever he felt the need to remind himself of the necessary distance he must place between her and himself.
The smile faded from her lovely mouth, and he took a bite of the honey cake to distract from the disappointment and dismay rising within him. Making her happy was not his intent, and it never had been. He had bedded her, but he most certainly was not responsible for making her smile. If she was being kind to him, it was not because he had forced her to do so, and nor had he unduly demanded she share his bed. The choice in all this had been hers. He had required it to be hers, for he had taken the first decision from her, and although he knew he’d had no other option, he hated himself for robbing her of the future she may have known without his interference.
She flitted away as he grimly attacked the honey cake. It was fresh and warm and good. But he could not lie; even in the miserable state in which he currently found himself, it was not a damned honey cake he wanted on his tongue.
It was her.
Emma returned with a cup of tea and saucer. “Hugh told me how you prefer your tea.”
Bleeding Hugh again. Hart stuffed the remainder of the honey cake in his mouth before reaching for the cup and saucer. He was going to deliver Hugh a click in the damned muns if he did not keep away from Lady Emma. Either that, or he was going to make a reticule out of his tallywags.
He sipped the tea, which was indeed prepared as he preferred, with a splash of milk because it was such a luxury to have it fresh whenever he wished. Drinking his tea with milk made him feel like the king of the East End.
Actually, now that he thought on it, bedding Lady Emma Morgan had taken its place in making him feel like a king. He could lie, but not to himself. Their coupling had not merely been a quick and frantic shag. It had been so much more. Bedding seemed a pale descriptor, hardly apt.
Saint Hugh’s bones, look at you, dwelling on what to call making the beast with two backs. As if it matters, you clod pate.
“How do you find it?” she asked hesitantly, still hovering over him as if he were an invalid and she his nurse.