Hello Stranger (The Ravenels 4)

Garrett drew back to look at Ethan. He was pale and exhausted, the lines of his face set in a way that she knew meant he was in pain. “The only thing you’re going to do for the next week is lie still and rest,” she told him. “Reading Hamlet is too much excitement for you.”

“Excitement?” West repeated with a snort. “It’s a play about procrastination.”

“It’s a play about misogyny,” Garrett said. “Regardless, I’m giving Mr. Ransom an injection of morphine now, so he can sleep.”

“‘Good night, sweet prince,’” West said cheerfully, and left the room.

Ethan closed his hand over the shape of Garrett’s thigh through the folds of her robe and nightgown, preventing her from leaving the bed. “No morphine just yet,” he said. “I’ve been out of my head for days.”

He was pale and exhausted, his cheekbones standing out in sharp relief, his eyes shocking blue. He was beautiful. Alive and breathing, and hers. The familiar private energy was coursing between them again, the invisible connection she had never felt with anyone else.

“Ravenel told me some of what happened,” Ethan said, “but I want to hear the whole of it from you.”

“If he made me out to be an evil-tempered shrew,” she said, “I’m not sure I would disagree.”

“He said you were as valiant and wise as Athena. He has a high regard for you.”

“Does he?” That surprised Garrett. “I’ve never doubted myself more than I have these past few days. Nor been so afraid.” She stared at him anxiously. “After you heal from the surgery, you may be left with slightly less strength and range of motion on that side. You’ll still be more fit than the average man. But it may take months before you stop feeling stabs of pain when you lift your arm. I know you’re not accustomed to any kind of vulnerability. If you should end up in a fight, and someone strikes the site of the wound—”

“I’ll be careful.” With a wry twist of his mouth, Ethan added, “The devil knows I won’t be seeking out any fights.”

“We’ll have to stay here until you’re stronger. You can’t go anywhere for at least a month.”

“I can’t wait that long,” he said quietly.

They both fell silent, aware of all they had yet to discuss, but agreeing tacitly that it could be set aside until later.

Tentatively Garrett slipped her hand into the front opening of Ethan’s nightshirt to make certain the bandage was secure. He covered her hand with his, trapping it against his warm, lightly furred chest. The silky-coarse hair, to which she’d given no notice during his fever, now felt acutely intimate as it brushed her knuckles, awakening a flurry of butterfly-tickles in her stomach. His free hand cupped the back of her head and drew her toward him.

Mindful of his condition, Garrett kept the kiss careful and light. His lips were dry, hot, but not from fever . . . it was the clean, healthy male warmth she remembered so well. She couldn’t help opening to the softly urgent pressure, detecting the hint of sugared tea and the beguiling taste of him . . . oh God, she’d never thought to have it again. His mouth slanted more firmly over hers, dark erotic pleasure wrapping around her senses like velvet. She tried to end the kiss, but his arms wouldn’t loosen, and she didn’t dare risk hurting him by pushing at his chest. One minute swooned into another, while his lips caught at hers with soft, seductive bites.

Flustered, Garrett twisted her mouth away long enough to gasp, “For heaven’s sake, you were near death a matter of hours ago.”

His lashes half lowered as he stared at the base of her throat, where a frenetic pulse beat. A leisurely fingertip investigated the slight hollow and stroked tenderly. “I’m on a bed with you. I’d have to be dead not to rouse to that.”

Garrett darted a quick glance at the partially opened doorway, mindful that a passing servant might see them. “Raising your blood pressure could literally kill you. For the sake of your health, any and all sexual expenditures are forbidden.”

Chapter 20

It took Ethan approximately a fortnight to seduce her.

Garrett had written out a precise schedule for his recovery. On the first day, he would be allowed to sit up in bed, propped on pillows. On the fourth or fifth day, he could leave the bed and sit in a chair for an hour, once in the morning and once in the afternoon. It would take a month, she informed him, before he could walk about the house unassisted.

The two of them were, for the most part, left to their own devices, as West was occupied with problems that had gone unaddressed during his stay in London. He was busy with tenants and their land improvements, as well as supervising the use of some newly purchased machinery for haymaking. Usually he left the house at sunrise and didn’t return until dinner.

In the absence of Garrett’s usual responsibilities, there was more leisure time to fill than she could remember having even in childhood. She spent nearly every minute with Ethan, who was recovering at an astonishing rate. His wound was healing and closing without any trace of infection, and his appetite had returned in full measure. The delicate invalid offerings sent up from the kitchen—beef tea, blancmange, jellies, and puddings—had been roundly rejected in favor of regular food.

Ethan slept a great deal at first, especially since the opiates Garrett administered for pain made him drowsy and relaxed. During the hours he was awake, she sat by his bedside reading Hamlet aloud, as well as the most recent editions of the Times and the Police Gazette. Garrett found herself bustling about in a state of barely contained joy, doing small things for him, straightening the covers, monitoring everything he ate and drank, measuring out tonic in neat little cups. Sometimes she sat at the bedside just to watch him sleep. She couldn’t help it—after having nearly lost him, she took intense satisfaction in having him safely in bed, clean and comfortable and well-nourished.

Ethan must have found her attentions smothering—any man would have—but he never said a word. Often she caught him watching her with a faint smile as she busied herself with little tasks—reorganizing her supplies, rolling freshly sterilized bandages, misting carbolic spray around the room. He seemed to understand how much she relished—needed—the feeling of having everything under control.

During the second week, however, Ethan became so restless from confinement that Garrett reluctantly allowed him to leave the bed and sit outside on a small second-floor terrace overlooking the vast estate gardens. With his shirt removed and his wound lightly covered with gauze, he lounged like a tiger, dozing and stretching in the sun. Garrett was amused to notice a few of the housemaids gathering at an upstairs parlor window that afforded a view of the private terrace, until Mrs. Church came to shoo them away. One could hardly blame them for wanting a glimpse of the half-dressed Ethan, with his dark good looks and superb physical build.

As one lazy sun-washed day followed another, Garrett was forced to accommodate the relaxed pace at Eversby Priory. There was no other choice. Time moved at a different pace here, where the manor’s thick walls had once housed no less than a dozen monks, and the fireplaces in the common rooms were large enough to stand in. The clamor of locomotives on railway tracks, omnipresent in London, was rarely heard. Instead there was the sound of chiffchaffs and warblers in the hedgerows, the chiseling of woodpeckers in the nearby forest, and the whickers of farm horses. Distant bursts of hammering and sawing could be heard as carpenters and craftsmen worked on the south façade of the house, but that was a far cry from the tumult of London’s public construction works.