Twelfth Night with the Earl (The Sutherland Sisters #3)(43)

She’d loved his mother with the fierce devotion a child who’s never known a mother of her own. To have the crucifix Lady Isabel had loved so much meant the world to her.

There was only one thing that meant more.

Ethan.

She read her letter to him one last time, tears blurring her eyes. There was so much more to say, but she didn’t know how to say it. She’d have to let her gift to him say it for her, and hope he’d understand she wasn’t just giving him a necklace. She was giving him a piece of herself.

She rose from her worktable, the letter and package clutched in her hand, and made her way to Ethan’s study, intending to leave it on his desk, but once she reached the door, she hesitated. It was closed, but a faint light was visible underneath.

It was so late. Surely he’d gone up to his bedchamber by now?

But what if he hadn’t? What if he was there when she opened the door, and demanded to know why she’d disturbed him?

She slipped the letter and package into her pocket and crept back toward the entryway.

You’re the coward, not Ethan.

Perhaps she was, but if he opened her gift and his eyes remained cold, she didn’t want to see it. It cost her a great deal to part with the crucifix, but it might not mean to Ethan what it did to her. He might dismiss it and her letter without another thought, and if he did, she couldn’t bear to know about it. As much as she wanted to give her gift to him in person, her heart wouldn’t survive another blow.

She’d find a way to give it to him, but not tonight. Tomorrow, when she wasn’t so unutterably weary she could hardly find the strength to climb the stairs.

Thea was thinking of Ethan when she neared the top floor landing, so much so she imagined she could hear him, his voice echoing in the silence between each of her heartbeats.

But then this house had always been thick with ghosts.

And now Ethan’s mine.

Her name—he said her name, but there was such anguish in that one word, she couldn’t understand how her heart could still be beating at all.

She was still thinking of him when her foot caught in the hem of her gown and she lost her balance, and it was his name that rose to her lips when she toppled backwards. She didn’t have time to scream it, or say it, or even to whisper it before she fell.

She only had time to think it, and then darkness took her, and she didn’t think at all.





Chapter Twelve


January 5, 12:30 p.m.

Twelfth Night

“Why hasn’t she woken up?” Ethan sat next to Thea’s bed, her hand in his, his heart filled with dread and hope as he watched her eyes flutter under her pale lids. “Her eyes are moving. Why doesn’t she open them?”

Please, Thea. Open your eyes.

“As I told you before, Lord Devon, head wounds are complicated. I see no reason to believe Miss Sheridan’s injury is severe. If you hadn’t broken her fall, well . . . it could have been much, much worse. It’s a good sign her eyes are moving, but beyond that, we’ll just have to wait and see.”

“She was murmuring earlier.”

His name.

It was soft, the word indistinct, but she’d said his name. “I thought for certain she’d wake up then, but she hasn’t said anything since.”

“It’s another good sign she’s speaking. I’m hopeful she’ll make a full recovery, but she needs rest.” The doctor laid a hand on Ethan’s shoulder. “You should rest yourself, my lord. You haven’t left her bedside since her fall. You’ll be no use to Miss Sheridan if you make yourself ill.”

Ethan didn’t move. “No. I won’t leave her.”

The doctor sighed. “Very well. I’ll come back this evening, but send for me at once if there’s any change.”

Ethan nodded, but he didn’t answer, and he didn’t turn when he heard the door close quietly behind the doctor.

This wasn’t happening. Not again. Not to Thea.

You should ask me how far I’d go to save you, Ethan.

As soon as she’d left the study last night, he’d known he’d made a mistake. Thea was honest down to the very depths of her heart, and he knew her too well to believe she could pretend a love she didn’t feel. She’d taken him into her bed because she loved him, and whatever promise she’d made to his father, she’d made for the same reason.

Because she loved him. And he . . .

There’d never been anyone for him but her. Nothing else mattered. Only her.

He should have begged her to forgive him at once, and told her he’d never leave her, but he’d let the same fears that had controlled him for too long overrule his heart, and now he may never have the chance to tell her again how much he loved her.

When at last he’d stumbled from his study into the dim entryway last night, he’d seen Thea at the top of the stairs, near the first floor landing. He’d called out to her, but she hadn’t seemed to hear him. Her shoulders had been hunched into her chest, her feet heavy on each stair, and then . . .

Even now he didn’t understand how he’d known—why he’d shot up the stairs after her, his heart in his throat, and every hair on his neck raised in sudden panic. Had she made a noise before she fell? Had he heard it, or had he just sensed, somehow, that something was about to go terribly wrong?