By the time he stumbled down the lane that led to the boardinghouse, he couldn’t feel his fingers or toes. The rest of his flesh was numb, his eyelashes were crusted nearly closed, and ice clung to the layer of hair on his chin and cheeks.
He knew he needed to take the horse to the barn, where it would be safe and out of the storm, but at the sight of the light in the front window, he could only think of one thing: warmth.
Sliding on the ice-covered front steps, he managed to make it up and to the door. He couldn’t move his arm to bang and instead thudded the door with his boot.
A moment later, the door opened a crack to reveal Felicity. It had been less than six hours since he’d ridden away, but at the sight of her delicate features creased with wariness, he felt as though he’d been away from her for six years.
He tried to get a word out, but he couldn’t make his lips work. Instead, he wavered, feeling as though he was about to lose consciousness.
She swung the door wide, and the wariness quickly changed to worry. “I knew you would miss me, but you didn’t need to come out in a storm to see me again.”
He tried for a smile, but again, he was too weak.
“Confound it, Philip.” Her voice took on a sudden edge, and she grabbed hold of his coat and dragged him inside. “You’re frozen.”
The warmth of the front room surrounded him, but with his garments stuck to his skin, he was going to need more than a warm room to thaw him out.
At her pause and glance outside past him, he shook his head, hoping to warn her against going out to care for the horse. He didn’t want her to battle the ice or to risk slipping and falling. Besides, he would take care of the horse and wagon as soon as he gained back some feeling.
But he couldn’t say any of that, was too weak and cold to be coherent.
She closed the door behind him, all the while assessing him. “We need to get you out of your frozen clothing.”
He could think of about a dozen comebacks to her statement, but again, he couldn’t get his voice to work and had instead started to chatter uncontrollably.
She began to work on the buttons on his coat, but the ice was too thick. With a mutter of frustration, she moved to his gloves. But they, too, were frozen and wouldn’t slide off.
“Hurry.” She nudged him toward the kitchen, her voice taking on an edge of urgency. Somehow he managed to cross the room and move into the kitchen, which was warmer than the front room. She pulled a chair up to the stove, tugged him down into it, and then added more wood to the fire already blazing inside.
Once the flames were crackling and sparking with renewed heat, she held his hands toward the fire. As the ice rapidly melted, she wiggled his fingers free of the frozen glove, dropping first one and then the other to the floor before taking both of his hands between hers and rubbing and blowing on them.
He was too numb, still too frozen to appreciate her touch. All he could think about was that he was cold—so deeply cold—that he couldn’t stop shaking.
She labored over his boots and socks next, peeling off the frozen items until his red and raw feet were exposed. Like his hands, she rubbed and blew and let the heat of the fire start to bring a tingling back into his skin.
She’d already cast aside his hat at some point. And now she started on his coat, the ice on the buttons finally gone so that she could divest him of the wool that was nothing more than a slab of ice. As she tossed it aside, she paused at the buttons of his shirt.
The creases in her forehead were adorable, as were the crinkles at the corners of her eyes. Her lush lips were pursed together, as though she was holding back a blistering tongue-lashing. He wished she’d speak her mind, wanted to hear her voice, could think of nothing better than listening to a tirade from her.
His teeth were still chattering, and now his fingers and toes tingled with shards of pain.
She started to back away from his shirt.
“Do it.” His voice came out hoarse.
Her startled gaze met his, and a flush filled her cheeks. She returned her fingers to his top button but hesitated.
“You have to . . . even though it will be . . . impossible to keep your hands off me . . .” The words were raspy, but he hoped she could hear his teasing and realize he was trying to lighten the mood.
Her lips curved just slightly. “Yes, at this moment I can hardly think of anything but wanting to run my fingers over your icy flesh. It’s so enticing.”
“I know . . . I am enticing, even at my worst.”
She fumbled with the first few buttons but then made quick work of the last several.
“You’re good at that.” His voice came out more clearly. “Maybe I should have you do it more often.”
She finished the last one, then stood back and glared at him, fist on her hip. “I liked it better when you were too frozen to talk.”
“No, you didn’t.”
“Yes, believe me, I did.”
His face was thawing, and the life was beginning to rush through him—his relief at having made it to safety coupled with the relief at seeing her again. How had he believed he could ride away from her and never see her again?
She wrestled with his wet, stiff shirt sleeve, trying to drag it down his arm. He couldn’t keep from simply staring and watching her.
Her red hair was coiled up elegantly with a strand loose on either side of her face. She was still wearing the white blouse and plain skirt that she’d had on in the kitchen earlier, but the collar of the shirt was now unbuttoned and hung open, revealing her long, graceful neck.
Her cheeks were flushing more with every passing moment that she attempted to extract him from his clothing. From embarrassment or from the heat that was emanating from the stove?
She was finally able to get one sleeve off and stood back. “There.”
He glanced down at the other half of his shirt, still frozen and clinging to his body. “You’re not nearly done. After the shirt, you have to take off my pants.”
She gasped and then lightly smacked him in the chest. “Absolutely not.”
He chuckled, but it ended on a cough.
“I would say the cold has addled your brain, but it was already addled.”
He laughed again, but this time erupted into a fit of coughing, his lungs still working to thaw out too.
At the sound of his hacking, she returned to his second sleeve and set to work sliding it off with the same effort she’d used on the other, until he was free and wearing only an undershirt—which was wet and clung to his body too.
She disappeared into the little room off the kitchen that she used as a bedroom and came out a moment later, her arms piled with blankets. “Are your hands thawed yet?”
He wiggled his fingers and winced at the pain. “Slowly.”
“How did you get caught out in the storm?” She draped one of the blankets over his shoulders, then knelt in front of him with another blanket and began wrapping it around his feet.
The question seemed innocent enough, but something in her tone told him the answer was important to her. “I rode out to see Weston Oakley.”
She paused and narrowed her eyes at him. “Why?”
How could he tell her about his failed efforts to locate her help without coming across as a deranged lunatic? He wasn’t sure it was possible. “I spent most of the afternoon trying to find a fellow to fill your advertisement.”