Gasping her name, Cole sprang for Imogen, grappling her away from Rathbone and gathering her to his chest.
He checked her in the dark, running hands over her naked body, searching for bumps or breaks before tenderly pulling the sheet tighter around her.
“She didn’t fall far,” Rathbone confirmed. “He’d lowered her enough while taunting you for me to safely catch her.”
Then why wasn’t she moving?
“Is she breathing?” Rathbone’s voice deepened with anxiety.
Cole put his cheek next to her ear and held it there for longer than he needed before summoning the strength to lift his eyes. “Get a doctor.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Imogen was tempted never to wake. In dreams she found what bliss had been denied her for so long. What might remain lost forever.
Cole, wrapped around her like a long, sinuous protective shell. Sharing his warmth while whispering soft, longing, unintelligible things in her ear.
Sometimes others would visit her dreams, would tempt her back to consciousness. Her mother, anxious and encouraging. Her sister, shy and tearful. Her friends. Dr. Longhurst with his short, pert directives. Argent’s smooth and sinister voice punctuated with Millie’s lively alto. Scottish brogues and soft words of support.
But then his dark presence would drive them away, and his shadow would settle upon her with a delicious intimacy. She knew it was Cole because even though God painted him with the sheen and strength of alloy, he was a creature of this place. Of the darkness.
And she was not. She wanted sunlight and bright colors and soft comforts.
But she didn’t want to leave him in the dark. And so she’d stay a little longer, as long as she could. Stay here where he’d say things against her ear. Beautiful, wondrous words she’d always fantasized she’d hear from him.
“I do love you, Imogen. You. Not your memory. Not Ginny.” A gentle weight would depress her mouth, and she’d feel such intense joy, but only for a moment.
Because that spike of pain would return, and she’d remember this was a dream.
“Wake up,” Cole would coax her softly, his hand a gentle demand against her own. “Wake up, Imogen, it’s time.”
“Must I?” she queried groggily. “Must I wake? Must I leave you in the dark?”
“It’s not dark,” said the dream voice, a little curtly now. “It’s day. And I need you awake so I can examine you. Can you open your eyes? Can you squeeze my hand?”
She did as he asked. Well, that was uncharacteristically sweet of him to offer to—
Imogen slammed into awareness. She’d squeezed his hand. His left hand.
Her eyes flew open and met the relaxed, gentle gaze of Dr. Longhurst, who was bent over her, framed by the familiar canopy of her own bed.
Bugger. She blinked away tears of disappointment, staring at the motes of dust dancing in the silver dawn.
“Welcome back,” he said, as gently as he ever said anything.
She tried to hide her distress, but she could tell by the twitch of concern on his brow she’d not succeeded.
“How do you feel?” he asked alertly.
She took stock of her body. Wriggling her hands and toes, tensing her muscles, testing her joints. “Other than a touch of queasiness and a very dry mouth, I feel fine. Maybe a little bruised on my shoulder.”
“May I?” He held up the stethoscope, and she nodded, submitting to his examination.
Finally, after he’d used almost every instrument in his bag but the sharp ones, he poured her a glass of water from the pitcher someone had thoughtfully perched on her bedside table.
She pushed herself up to sit against her mountain of pillows and accepted the drink. Tears stung her eyelids again, and Imogen wiped at a stabbing itch in her nose.
“Lungs are clear. Reflexes good. Skin shows signs of normal blood flow. Your pulse is steady, if a little slow,” Longhurst informed her, his eyes sweeping away from her apparent emotion as though it made him uncomfortable. “It is believed that when chloroform is lethal, it’s because it damaged the heart. But I’m confident that yours is strong.”
“Are you?” she whispered, trying to breathe through the cavernous pain in her chest. “I’m not so sure.” It didn’t feel strong. Only broken. Truly damaged. She’d known to expect devastation when all was said and done—when Cole had uncovered her secrets—but not this harrowing desolation.
Someone entered the room so violently, her bedroom door crashed against the wall.
Imogen started, gasped, and clutched a hand to her chest. Her heart certainly worked now, as it was thundering like an entire herd of galloping wildebeests.
And not just because of the startlement. But because Cole stalked to the foot of her bed, looming with a barely leashed, aggressive emotion vibrating in the air around him. He stood over her, dressed in only a rumpled white shirt and dark trousers, scanning her with sparking copper eyes. He reminded her once more of an archangel, possessed of such flawlessly rendered features that only those heavenly warriors dared to demonstrate, as no human deserved them.
He certainly didn’t, she thought mulishly.
“What is he doing here?” she breathed, not realizing she addressed Longhurst instead of Cole. She wasn’t ready for this … She was barely awake, and should like to fall back into a coma any moment now.
The man in question drew cruel brows together in a scowl.
“He hasn’t left since he saved your life,” Dr. Longhurst informed her with a long-suffering exhale. “Good thing you survived,” he muttered, glancing at the duke. “For both our sakes.”
“How is she?” Cole demanded, also addressing Dr. Longhurst though his eyes would not leave her, would not stop drinking her in.
He’d saved her life? Jeremy had been in her room when he attacked her which meant … Cole had come back after he’d left.
“I—I’m fine,” she stammered.
He held up a hand to silence her, and Imogen’s astonishment turned to something like outrage.
“How is she?” Cole asked again in the voice of a man unused to repeating himself. “Was she injured in the fall? Any permanent damage done?”
“The fall? What fall?” Imogen’s question fell on deaf ears.
Dr. Longhurst furrowed his brow. “The chloroform mixed with the alcohol in her system seemed to intensify the other’s effect, resulting in a longer loss of consciousness. Though she was dropped from the window, her lax pliability may have been what saved her life—”
“I was dropped from the window?” she asked, a great deal louder this time.
“How is she?” Cole exploded, taking a threatening step toward the doctor.
Longhurst leaped up, obviously glad her bed was in between them. “In a word. She’s fine.”
“Good. Get out.”
Imogen made a few stupefied sounds of disagreement as the doctor gathered his instruments. Finally she found her voice. “I already said I was fine. I want someone to explain to me what happened.”
Longhurt froze, forehead creased with indecision.
“Get. Out.” Cole’s teeth no longer separated, and his lips drew back with a snarl. The good doctor abandoned her to Cole’s smoldering glare and ticking jaw with undue alacrity.