She could not tolerate another moment of this.
She swung her legs over the edge of the bed and sucked in a deep breath. It didn’t help. If anything, it made the burn worse.
She knew she should make the effort to reach her dressing robe across the room where it draped over the settee, but she couldn’t be bothered. The struggle to reach the bedchamber door was great enough. Besides. It was late. The entire household was asleep. She would not be bumping into anyone in the corridor who might see her attired in her nightgown.
She managed to stagger from her room without collapsing. With one hand pressed against the wall of the corridor, she dragged herself down the hall toward her sister’s room. Each step was an act of labor. The hardest thing she had ever done. Walking had become a challenge.
Good heavens, she was in trouble.
All the more reason to reach Nora’s room.
She pressed on.
Her palm skimmed the wood paneling as she advanced, the cool texture under her skin doing nothing to ease her full-body burn. There was no way she could move any faster. Her legs felt leaden. The fever was too great . . . the throbbing in her stomach clawing now. She choked back an undignified sob.
“Are you unwell?”
The deep masculine voice shot through her like a bolt of lightning.
She jerked with a whimper, flinging her body against the wall, arms wide at her sides in a gesture of surrender.
She froze, pressing against the paneling as though she could somehow meld herself into the wood where she would be protected.
Her gaze found the owner of that voice. No. Not him.
That dreadful man from dinner. Nathaniel’s stepbrother.
His expression at dinner had alternated between boredom and contempt. She’d felt his judgment keenly. He hadn’t been impressed with her. With any of them. Clearly they did not meet his sophisticated tastes. She was relieved when, at the end of dinner, he had announced he would be leaving the next morning.
Now his expression was one of mild concern. She’d prefer he look bored again. Right now he looked far too interested in her. She did not want his interest. She wanted him gone.
Especially considering her physical state.
For some reason the throbbing between her legs tightened and twisted as he approached, closing in on her.
She shook her head. No. Go away.
The closer he drew, the greater the agony. She bit her lip until she felt the wash of blood against her teeth—and still that pain was nothing compared to her body’s torment.
Her condition seemed to be worsening the closer he drew to her. She had to get away.
She held out a hand in an attempt to ward him off—and that was its own form of anguish because she had the awful and completely foreign impulse to grab him, pull him in, bring him closer.
It was horrifying, but so was the completely out-of-control way she felt.
Her body was in rebellion—its own master. Rejecting her thoughts . . . her will, her commands . . . willing her to do terrible things, impulses she had never even known existed.
Like touch a man. Burrow her nose in his neck and breathe him in.
Taste him.
He stopped in front of her, his gaze fixing on the hand she held out to stop him and then flitting back to her face.
She knew. Deeply. On a primordial level. He could not touch her. She would not survive that.
“You don’t look . . . well, Miss Langley.”
Oh, she was not well. She was in hell. It was an unladylike thought, but she could feel no shame or regret for it because it was the truth.
She pressed herself harder into the wall, twisting in on herself to resist the urge to arch her spine and thrust out her chest.
She wanted to feel him even there. Against her breasts.
How could this be?
This had to be hell. All the fiery descriptors she heard from the pulpit every Sunday could only be this.
He took another step closer, and she slapped her hand on the air. “Not another step closer,” she warned weakly.
His eyes widened—whether at the command or the hoarse quality of her voice, she did not know. Whatever the case, he ignored her. “Come. Let me assist you. You do not look well. Would you like me to fetch your sister?”
He dared to take hold of her elbow to guide her from where she plastered herself to the wall. It was the gentlemanly thing to do. He could not know the torment he inflicted on her with that circumspect touch.
She hissed at the weight of that hand on her arm, at the stinging heat of him singeing her through the barriers of their clothing. It was only the most prudent of touches, but it felt more. Much more. Intimate and penetrating. A breach to her person.
He lifted his hand from her arm at her reaction. “Did I hurt you?”
She shook her head wildly and turned back for her room—where she could die alone and in peace, without a too-handsome, sophisticated gentleman watching her like she was some manner of bug beneath a magnifying glass.
“Miss Langley?” he called after her.
“Leave . . . me . . . alone,” she ground out between tightly clenched teeth. She feared unclenching them would loose the scream she kept tucked inside.
She staggered away, clawing at the wall and doors for support as she passed. It was too hard, and her room loomed so far away. She couldn’t do it. She couldn’t reach it.
“Miss Langley,” he tried again.
His hand brushed her arm and she moaned as though he’d taken a hot poker to her. No. Not a hot poker. A poker would hurt.
This was pleasure. So profound and intense that it made her lose her mind.
He pulled back his hand and held it aloft, fingers spread wide as though showing her he was unarmed.
She bumped into a door latch. A quick glance down confirmed it was the library. There was a large sofa in there. Perfect. She could go die on that sofa just as easily as her own bed.
She struggled with the latch. Yes, struggled. No longer would she take such simple things for granted. Assuming she lived, of course.
“Miss Langley?”
Ugh. He was still here? “Go ’way,” she tossed over her shoulder.
“Have you been imbibing?”
Imbibing? Indeed she had. Only not spirits. She had been imbibing one of her sister’s fool remedies.
Never again. She was finished taking anything Nora gave her. Again, assuming she survived, she would never again take one of her sister’s tonics. Clearly Papa had been too trusting in her proficiency.
Success! She finally managed to turn the latch and passed into the room, but for some reason she tripped over her own feet. Or perhaps her legs simply gave out. She didn’t know, but she landed hard on the Aubusson rug with a moan. She rolled onto her side and curled into a ball.
It appeared to be her preferred position.
Her gaze fastened on the man towering over her. He wore an expression of alarm—and then he was bending over her, scooping her up in his arms with nary a grunt. This evidence of his power triggered a deep tug between her legs.
“I have you,” he murmured, and the husk of his breath near her ear shot sensation straight to her groin. She moaned, squeezing her thighs together, attempting to assuage the throbbing ache.
No!
She shook her head even as she couldn’t resist curling into the delicious hardness of his body. Twisting at the waist, she pushed her breasts into the firm wall of his chest, instinctively seeking the comforting solidness, enjoying the pressure against breasts that felt achy and heavy. Strange, that. Her bosom was small and never much cause for notice. Now, though, the twin mounds were as sensitive as the rest of her and felt as heavy as melons. Weighty, swollen melons.