Valentine by Jane Feather Page B

the instruction to heart. Probably she should wrest her daughter from his arms. But Elinor didn’t think she would. She returned downstairs to await developments.
    Slowly, the tempest subsided, reality asserted itself, and when Theo renewed her struggle to free herself from the iron arms holding her, it was no longer a blind reaction to her anguish.
    Sylvester, recognizing her return to the world, loosened his grip immediately. Theo raised her head and stared up into the gray eyes that were for once not cool, ironic, or mocking.
    “What’s happening? What are you doing?” she demanded, sniffing, wiping her running nose with the back of her forearm.
    “I’m not doing anything,” he said. “You’re sitting on myknee looking like the fall of Troy, and all I’ve got to show for it is a ruined coat.” He brushed at his sodden coat with a rueful grimace before pulling a handkerchief out of his breast pocket.
    “Hold still.”
    Theo submitted to having her nose wiped because she was too taken aback to protest. She pushed tear-soaked strands of hair from her wet cheeks and drew a shuddering breath through her mouth deep into her aching lungs. Her nose was blocked, her throat was sore and scratchy, and she felt as weak as a kitten.
    But she also felt drained and peaceful, as if some poison had been drawn from her. Her head fell against his shoulder, and she lay with her eyes closed, waiting for strength to flow back into her weakened limbs.
    With some calculation Sylvester decided he didn’t have much option but to stay as he was until she was ready to move.
    He traced the curve of her cheek with his finger. She shifted on his lap again with predictable results. Deliberately, he slid his hands beneath her, cupping her backside in his palms as if preparing to tip her immediately off his knee, but for longer than was strictly necessary, his hands stayed where they were.
    “Up.” At last, with a brisk movement, he propelled her to her feet. “Pm sorry to unsettle you, gypsy, but having you on my lap with nothing but those flimsy undergarments covering your nether regions is more than flesh and blood can bear.”
    Startled, Theo looked down at herself and realized what he meant, and suddenly she was acutely conscious of the intimate lingering warmth of his hands on her bottom. She flushed but flew to the attack. “I didn’t put myself in your lap,” she said, but her throat was too scratchy for her usual vehemence. “And I didn’t invite you in here, either.”
    She shivered suddenly as her heated skin cooled in the night air, emphasizing the scantiness of her attire. She took ahasty step backward, instinctively trying to put some distance between them, as if it would lessen the indelicacy of the situation.
    She cried out as her foot scrunched heavily on a shard of broken glass.
    “For God’s sake, that was what I was trying to avoid in the first place.” Sylvester leaped up and pushed her sharply so that she fell back onto the bed, her bleeding foot waving in the air. “Stay there until I’ve picked up this mess.”
    Theo lost interest in displays of outraged modesty. They seemed pointless and certainly too late. She hitched herself into a cross-legged position on the bed and peered at her cut sole. “Did I break the glass?”
    “Yes.” He looked up from his knees, shards gathered in his cupped palm. “Don’t you remember?”
    She shook her head. “I think I must have lost my senses.”
    “I trust you have them back again,” he said with a dry smile, getting to his feet. “I think that’s all of it.” He put the glass on the dresser and dipped a washcloth into the cold water in the jug. “Let me look at your foot.”
    Theo stuck it out for his inspection, falling back onto the bed. She wasn’t at all sure that she had regained her senses. If she had, why was she lying here in her underwear submitting to the ministrations of a man she loathed? But perhaps she was just too exhausted to care. She closed