LITMIR.BIZ

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pulled on the trousers he’d thrown across the chair the night before. He grabbed a shirt as he went out the door, shrugging into it as he walked swiftly down the hall. Just as he turned the corner, Sabrina’s door opened and she rushed out.

      “Alex!” She flung herself across the feet between them, and he wrapped his arms around her, curling his head down over hers.

      “Shh. It’s all right,” he murmured, one hand moving soothingly up and down her back. “You’re safe.”

      Sabrina’s body trembled, and her arms were tight around him, pressing herself flush against him. She was soft and lithe beneath his hand, her black curls tickling the naked strip of skin between the open sides of his shirt. He pressed his lips against her head, and the sweet perfume of her hair filled his nostrils.

      Alex ached to comfort her, to protect her, and yet an entirely different ache was growing in him. She wore only a cotton nightgown, and his shirt was open, the top button of his trousers still unfastened. Their bodies were as close together as they could be and still be clad. He was acutely aware of the feel of her against him, the warmth of her body, her breasts pressing into his flesh, the length of her legs against his.

      He should release her. Step back. Or at least stop caressing her.

      Sabrina lifted her head to look up at him. Her soft dark curls tumbled entrancingly, her eyes were huge and dark in the dim light, her lips soft. And suddenly he was kissing her. Her mouth opened beneath his, her arms lifting to curl around his neck. She was pliant in his arms, her body melting into his in a way that stirred him even more. Nightmares, good intentions, notions of propriety—all fled before the heat and hunger welling up in him.

      Changing the angle of their lips, he kissed her again, his hands gliding down over the soft swell of her buttocks, lifting her up and into him. She made a small noise of surprise deep in her throat, and the sound checked him.

      In that instant, he recalled where they stood and the many doors along the hall. At any moment one or the other of his infernally curious family might take it into their heads to pop out. The duke slept like the dead, but his mother did not, and the thought of what his mother might say was enough to freeze his overheated blood. This was wrong on so many levels. Sabrina was here so that he could protect her, not seduce her. She was frightened and alone. He’d be a scoundrel to take advantage of that. And, however little he might want to admit it, she might be married.

      He lifted his head, his arms relaxing around her. It took another moment, another steadying breath, to step back. “I—” His voice came out a croak and he started again. “I’m sorry. Forgive me. I shouldn’t have...”

      Alex shoved his hands back through his hair, fingertips pressing into his scalp as if to awaken his brain. He glanced around and was relieved to see that the corridor in either direction was still and empty.

      Taking Sabrina’s hand, he whisked her into her bedchamber, closing the door softly behind him. This, of course, was more dangerous territory, but he had to talk to her and he could not risk being seen with her dressed like this in the middle of the night. Even his tolerant relatives had their limits.

      “Here, sit down.” He led her to an overstuffed armchair, sitting down himself on the hassock in front of the chair. Taking both her hands in his, he said earnestly, “Deeply, sincerely, I do beg your pardon. I didn’t intend—I wouldn’t ever—You are just so beautiful. Not, of course, that it was in any way your fault,” he added hastily. “It was entirely me.”

      “Not entirely.” Her voice was soft but droll, as well.

      Alex looked at her sharply and saw that her eyes were twinkling. She giggled, and he relaxed and sat back. “At any rate, it was wrong of me, and I do apologize. Now, as I should have asked you to begin with, what frightened you? A nightmare?”

      “Yes.” All amusement fled her face. “It was dreadful. I dreamed that I was falling.”

      “Falling?” he repeated, startled.

      She nodded. “I know that doesn’t sound so awful, but I was terrified. I was trying to get away from something, someone, I’m not sure what. It was all rather fuzzy. I climbed out a window, I think—it’s already fading away. Someone was reaching for me, and I tumbled out into the darkness. I was falling. I couldn’t breathe. I—” Sabrina stopped and drew a breath, her voice calmer but still shaky as she went on. “Then I woke up.”

      Alex stared at her, too astonished to speak. They had both just dreamed of falling? Yes, the Morelands tended to have strange dreams, but how could this happen? Had she somehow entered his dream, experiencing his climbing out the window and racing across the roof?

      “Do you think that’s what happened to me?” Sabrina lifted her hand up to the bruise on her forehead. “I fell out of a window and hit my head?”

      It seemed logical. It occurred to him that perhaps his dream hadn’t been about his escape years ago at all. Maybe he had just assumed it was, his mind making the logical connection to the time he had escaped as a child and that frightening leap between rooftops. Could he have somehow experienced Sabrina’s dream? That must be utter nonsense. Yet...

      “Alex?” Sabrina said tentatively.

      “What? Oh.” He realized that he had been so engrossed in his thoughts that he hadn’t answered her. “Sorry. Just trying to reason all this out.” He could hardly tell her his thoughts; she would be certain he was utterly mad. “Yes, to answer your question. It does seem possible, even likely, that you fell yesterday and hit your head. I would think one very well might dream about a frightening experience. I have done so myself.”

      “Really?”

      He nodded, his thoughts once again going to his dream. He had sensed Sabrina’s presence this morning, but more than that, even before he saw her, he had felt her distress and confusion. If he could sense that something was wrong with her, as he was able to with his twin, perhaps tonight the terror of her dream had touched him, even in his sleep, causing him to dream something similar. Following that line of reasoning, his nightmare the night before might have been caused by Sabrina’s actual fall. It made sense—in a very peculiar way.

      “The thing is,” Alex mused, “if you fell from a window and knocked yourself out, why didn’t someone find you? If you were being chased, wouldn’t the people chasing you take the opportunity to seize you? And if you were running away from your home and fell trying to climb down from your window, surely whoever was waiting for you would have seen it and come to your aid.”

      “Waiting for me? What do you... Oh, I see, you mean if I were eloping, then he would have been outside.” She paused, thinking. “If that was the reason I left, it would explain that ring and why it was in my pocket instead of on my hand. I was secretly engaged, intending to get married. Maybe he wasn’t there. I was going to meet him somewhere. Only, I fell, hit my head and lost my memory. Still, as you said, whoever was reaching for me would have seen it and taken the opportunity to catch me.”

      “True.” He thought for a moment. “Maybe that person wasn’t real but something your brain conjured up, a symbol of the pursuit you feared would follow.”

      “So perhaps everyone was still asleep, and I came to before anyone was out of bed. Is that when I forgot who I was?”

      “I don’t know. All we’re sure of is that you’d lost your memory by the time you reached London. But, whether you awoke from the fall not knowing who you were or it came to you later, when you awakened, you were aware that you must run. You sensed that someone was after you, so you took off. The same reasoning would apply whether you were eloping or a rebellious miss running off to visit her friend in London, or a schoolgirl escaping from some young ladies’ academy.” Another possibility, that she was a mistreated wife looking to escape her brute of a husband. He didn’t want to think about that.

      “True.” Sabrina looked relieved. “It doesn’t have to have been that I was eloping. But why didn’t someone come after me? Wouldn’t they have searched for me?”

      “We

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