LITMIR.BIZ

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She wrote a cheerful letter to her father, sketched flowers in the garden and supervised the running of the household as much as the dowager permitted.

      But she couldn’t forget. The dowager wanted to end her marriage to Donnington. She wanted to believe that Mariah was capable of being unfaithful to her husband, a notion that offended Mariah deeply.

      And yet you already knew you must hide your next visit to the folly, she thought. Even if her reasons had been entirely innocent, based upon her desire to keep anyone else from learning that she had discovered Donbridge’s strange prisoner.

      Now she had another reason for concealing her activities.

      You are going to see a strange man. Alone.

      For compassion. For justice, since some wrong had clearly been done. To Mariah, Ash was simply a patient in need of healing, a human being worthy of assistance and respect. And there would be bars between them … at least until she could determine what had happened and what must be done.

      He touched your hand.

      She shut the memory away and moved through the afternoon like a wraith. Dinner was an unpleasant affair, with long stretches of weighted silence and the occasional tart comment from the dowager. The elder Lady Donnington stared pointedly and repeatedly at the empty seat at the head of the table. Mariah imagined that she could hear Vivian’s thoughts.

       I know why Donnington left you.…

      There was no lingering at the table when dinner was finished. Mariah excused herself to her own rooms. Night fell at last, though the sky remained suspended in twilight until past ten.

      The dowager was slow about going to bed, but Mariah waited until the house was silent. Then she retrieved her rucksack and raided the linen closet for blankets. The kitchen was dark save for a faint glow in the huge hearth; she entered the dry larder and found half a loaf of bread, along with several peaches from the conservatory. She chose a small knife from a row hung on the wall. She found an empty bottle and filled it with water from the kitchen tap.

      She wrapped the food in a kitchen towel and then in one of the blankets, slung it over one shoulder and looped the rucksack over the other. Satisfied that she had the supplies she needed, she lit a lantern and passed quickly through the entrance hall.

      It wasn’t a noise that made her stop, nor any sign of movement. But something caused her to look up at one of the heavy ceiling beams over the door, hung with a shield bearing the Donnington coat of arms.

      Cave cornum meum: Beware my horn. The motto of the earls of Donnington was a silver unicorn rearing atop a blood-red field, ready to charge at any potential enemy.

      There was no earthly reason to shiver. Mariah had seen the shield every time she left the house. But it troubled her now in a way she couldn’t understand.

      Beware my horn.

      Taking herself in hand, she opened the door and set off across the park. As always, the night was silent; there were faint rustlings of small creatures in the grass and shrubbery, but no indications of human presence. London was far away, and the nearest village was hardly a hotbed of activity so late at night.

      She reached the folly in record time. No sound came from inside, and though she knew the heavy walls of the interior chamber were thick, she faced a moment of panic. She dropped the bag and blankets on the portico, rushed to the stone at the foot of the stairs and felt under it frantically.

      The key was still there. No one had moved it. Ash must be where she had left him.

      Wasting no further time, she unlocked the outer door and set the bag on the chair, laying the blanket with the food on the floor beside it. She hesitated just outside the inner door.

       He’s ill, quite possibly mad. What will I do if I can’t save him?

      The fear paralyzed her for all of ten seconds. Then she raised the lantern, set the key in the lock and opened the door.

      Ash was waiting for her, pressed against the bars, clutching them with the same ferocity. His black gaze met hers, speaking just as eloquently as before.

      Help me.

      As if of their own accord, her eyes took him in as they had done that morning, cataloging every detail of his body. She had never seen her husband like this. She had glimpsed him once without his shirt, but that—and the brief touch of his lips and clasp of his hand—had been the extent of her experience with his body.

      Would he look so magnificent, so powerful, so—

      He is a patient. A patient, Mariah.

      She turned away to collect the bag and blankets. “I’ve brought you some things you need,” she said. “Clothing, blankets, food. It isn’t nearly enough, but it should do for tonight.”

      Without looking up to observe his reaction, she removed the clothing, food and books, and immediately laid the bread and fruit on the kitchen towel. Only then did she pause to consider the narrowness of the gap between the bars.

      There would be no trouble, of course, with the bread or fruit. They could be cut. She wasn’t so certain about the bottle.

      “You must be hungry,” she said, simply to fill the quiet. She selected one of the peaches, cutting off several small slices. Sweet juice coated her fingers, and she wiped the excess on the towel.

      She rose and turned toward the cell. Ash hadn’t moved. Immediately she saw the second problem. In order to give him the food, she must venture within his reach.

      You’ve done it before, she told herself. He won’t harm you. But she remembered too keenly how she had felt when he’d run his thumb up and down the back of her hand.

      “I am going to give you the fruit,” she said slowly. “Do you understand?”

      His dark gaze flickered to the slices of peach in her palm and back to her face. She moved closer. His eyes never wavered. She reached the bars and extended her hand just far enough that he could take the fruit.

      He didn’t. Mariah was both puzzled and frustrated. Someone had fed him, though not generously. He wasn’t mad enough to require constant care, like an infant. Perhaps the problem was that he still had no reason to trust her.

      “See?” she said, and took a bite of one of the slices. Juice trickled down her chin, and she licked her lips. “Delicious.”

      His gaze moved from her eyes to her mouth. The floor gave the tiniest lurch under her feet.

      “Here,” she said, pushing a piece through the bars. “Try it.”

      He took the fruit as delicately as a butterfly alights on a flower petal. Long, strong fingers lifted it to his lips. With strange fascination, she watched him eat it with a kind of sensual deliberation, as if he were savoring every bite. When he finished, she saw what might have been real pleasure in his eyes.

      “More?” she asked. She adjusted the knife to cut another slice, and the blade slipped. She felt a stab of pain as the sharp edge cut into her thumb. Blood welled on her skin.

      Ash reached through the bars and grabbed her hand, pulling gently until her own fingers were inside the cell, and drew them into his mouth.

      Sparklers exploded inside her head. She gasped. His tongue rolled over her skin as if seeking the wound. She closed her eyes, incapable of moving as he licked between her fingers and laved her thumb almost tenderly.

      Her senses returned too late, and she snatched her hand away. Heat flowed through her arm, into her chest, and continued on to her stomach and thighs. Her most secret place ached as it never had before, not even when she had been most in love with Donnington.

      But there was another unexpected change in her body. She examined her thumb. It no longer hurt. More remarkably, the cut was gone, leaving only a trace of pink healing flesh where it had been.

      Impossible.

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