Page 18 of The Duke With the Dragon Tattoo
She knew there were more. She’d seen it all in the carriage.
Swallowing around a dry tongue, she wrenched her notice back to his eyes. This time, when the coals of his irises met hers, they glowed with something as dangerous as invitation. Something as genuine as admiration.
Did hewanther to look at him? Did he want her to like what she saw?
Because she did. And… she did.
Clearing her throat, she hobbled forward, painfully aware of her limp. “I decided today is your birthday.” She injected as much sunshine into her voice as she could, to make up for the dreariness of the sickroom.
Two satirically arched ebony brows knit over deep-set eyes. “Why? Why today?”
She liked his voice this way. Rumbled with sleep and disuse, yet smooth with caution. His reaction encouraged her, as well. Not because it was especially reassuring, but because he’d had a reaction at all. Usually, his features remained carefully,infuriatinglyimpassive.
Some of her eagerness returning, she lifted the offering judiciously balanced in both hands. “Mostly because Cook made a cake today, and the icing isespeciallygood.”
Claiming her perch on his bedside, she took her time pressing the side of the fork through the different layers of the decadent dessert. First buttercream frosting the color of a speckled robin’s egg. Then the moist dense cake, yellow starch and sugar held together by lard and butter. The center delighted the palette with a layer of chilled raspberry preserves, only to reverse the order on the way down. Yellow cake. More frosting.
Balancing the fork over the plate so as not to spill crumbs on him, she slid the confection toward his awaiting lips. Oh, she couldn’t wait for him to taste it. Could only imagine the joy on his—
Gently, but decisively, the plate and fork were plucked from her hands. “I can feed myself.”
“Oh.” Ridiculous emotion stung the back of her nose. “Right. Of course you can.” She smiled through the threatening tears, as was her habit, though her lashes lowered to hide her reaction.
Why did this dismay her so? she wondered as she studied the edge of the blanket, and the dusky flesh of his ribs above it.
It wasn’t as though she desired him to remain an invalid.
She just wanted him to…remain. Here. With her.
Dr. Holcomb had reported that he’d limped around a bit on the cast, and was able to put weight on his ankle. In a few days, they’d cut the cast off.
What if… what if he didn’t need her anymore? What if he left Southbourne Grove in search of his missing past?
The prick of tears became a burn.
“Itisvery good.” He lowered his head to his shoulder,as though to bring it into her line of sight, rather than require her to lift her gaze.
Glancing up, she found his jaw flexing and working. Movements made when the fare needn’t be chewed, merely rolled and processed by an enterprising and appreciative tongue.
She swallowed when he did, her mouth watering as though she’d taken the bite.
“I can’t everrememberhaving better.” His next bite was not so dainty as the one she’d cut for him. Indeed, it was almost half the slice of cake. As he savored it, his eyes crinkled a bit at the edges. Not a smile, but a resemblance of amusement.
Belatedly, she realized he’d just attempted a joke at his own missing memory’s expense.
A giggle escaped her. Then another.
Before preparing his next bite, he asked, “If you decided today is my birthday, did you also decide how old I am turning?”
Heartened, she rushed to answer him. “Mortimer thinks you cannot be as old as he, and he’s twenty.”
At the mention of her brother, the sparkle in his eye turned into a glint. “What doyouthink?”
Lorelai blinked. No one had ever asked her that before. A little spark of delight warmed her from behind her ribs. He asked because he wanted to know; she could see the patient curiosity blinking out at her.
His age took up a great deal of her idle speculation. Studying him now, she made her best assessment of him.
Whoever created him had not only been particularly detailed, but disproportionately punitive to the rest of mankind. His features were nothing less than aggressively masculine. Sharp. Broad. With deep lines and hard planes. And yet… if one looked closely, there was a sense of thesensual his sculptor must have tried hard to conceal. His upper lip, for example, was little more than a thin slash, but not so with the one beneath. His crooked nose was patrician enough for Caesar himself to have looked down from as he wrested power from all the world, and resided between rather barbaric cheekbones. His jaw was nothing less than belligerent. Not so square as Mortimer’s but neither was it diminutive.
