Page 5 of A Shore Thing

“I don’t have a pug.” She couldn’t help it. Briskness edged into exasperation. “And if I did, I wouldn’t call her Princess.” She paused, breathing a bit too hard. This semiconscious man possessed peculiar powers of annoyance.

She reminded herself that semiconscious required certain concessions.

“I am sorry,” she said, “to hear that Princess was dognapped, and I’m sure it was very kind of you to pay the banditti.”

“Yes,” the man agreed, and lapsed into a silence so protracted she wondered if he’d transitioned from semiconscious to completely insensible.

“Muriel,” he whispered. “With the ticklish knees?”

“Oh, for God’s sake.” She bit her lip, annoyance battling with curiosity. Raised in the country and married young, she’d never before met a bona fide rakehell, unless you counted the gin-soaked second sons who slimed around British legations, or the occasional dapper diplomat.

This man was a different variety altogether. He belonged in the pages of a romantic novel, everything about him louche and seductive.

How many Muriels had he bedded? For that matter, how many Marys and Elizabeths?

She decided on a safer line of inquiry. “How many fingers am I holding up?”

The man spread the fingers that covered his left eye, and she saw a gleam of iris before his fingers snapped closed.

“I can’t say. It’s terribly bright.”

She scowled and leaned over him. A lock of chestnut hair flopped across his forehead. She’d have to push it back in order to tell if a knot was forming.

She brushed at his hair with her fingertips. It was soft as silk, its thickness and slight curl giving it spring. His skin felt hot.

No abrasion. No swelling.

She realized she was hovering over him, rather as though he were a tide pool, enticing her with the promise of beautiful secrets. This embarrassing thought didn’t trigger any impulse to pull away.

Her nostrils flared as she detected his scent, not heavy cologne as she’d expected, but something bright and fresh, similar to the delicious fragrances of the West Country summer itself—green leaves, sea air, sun-warmed heath.

She leaned closer. All at once, he lowered his hand and looked her straight in the eye. His eyes were gray, framed with long black lashes. Their gaze was piercing.

“What are you doing?” he asked, and she toppled backward, cheeks flaming. What had she been doing, indeed?

“I was inspecting you,” she answered, with as much dignity as she could muster. “For injury. I assumed you were delirious. But perhaps that’s the way you talk usually?”

“Perhaps. Were you bowled over by my charisma?” He rolled onto his side, propping himself on his elbow, angling a glance at her from under those lashes. “I’m usually charismatic.”

“Then you must have been delirious.”

“There’s a blow.” He grinned. “You were doing such a marvelous job nursing until now. I should call you Florence.”

“You’ve called me by several names already.” She gave him a tight smile.

“Apologies.” He rose to sitting with a wince. “There must be a mental equivalent to the funny bone. I think I hit mine on that stone. My thoughts went odd. I couldn’t place your voice.”

“Because you’d never heard it before.” She felt obscurely outraged. “We don’t know each other.”

He was looking around him, scrubbing a hand through the disordered waves of his hair. “And I couldn’t recall where I was. Has that ever happened to you? It’s a sensation I associate with early mornings, when you first wake up, and everything is shadowed, and innumerable rooms seem to exist at once, superimposed. The door is to your left, or the door is straight ahead. There’s a garden outside the window, or a busy street, or…”

“The river in Chelsea,” she interrupted. “I think I understand why you might feel some confusion upon waking.”

Rakes didn’t blush, of course. But this one was regarding her with increasingly acute focus.

“Oh?”

“All the women.” She cleared her throat. “The various garrets.”