A charging beast wearing lobster-red wool.
Together, they bounced away from the road, elbows and knees absorbing the blows. Susanna’s teeth rattled in her skull, and she bit her tongue hard. Fabric ripped, and cool air reached farther up her thigh than any well-mannered breeze ought to venture.
When they rolled to a stop, she found herself pinned by a tremendous, huffing weight. And pierced by an intense green gaze.
“Wh—?” Her breath rushed out in question.
Boom, the world answered.
Susanna ducked her head, burrowing into the protection of what she’d recognized to be an officer’s coat. The knob of a brass button pressed into her cheek. The man’s bulk formed a comforting shield as a shower of dirt clods rained down on them both. He smelled of whiskey and gunpowder.
After the dust cleared, she brushed the hair from his brow, searching his gaze for signs of confusion or pain. His eyes were alert and intelligent, and still that startling shade of green—as hard and richly hued as jade.
She asked, “Are you well?”
“Yes.” His voice was a deep rasp. “Are you?”
She nodded, expecting him to release her at the confirmation. When he showed no signs of moving, she puzzled at it. Either he was gravely injured or seriously impertinent. “Sir, you’re . . . er, you’re rather heavy.” Surely he could not fail to miss that hint.
He replied, “You’re soft.”
Good Lord. Who was this man? Where had he come from? And how was he still atop her?
“You have a small wound.” With trembling fingers, she brushed a reddish knot high on his temple, near his hairline. “Here.” She pressed her hand to his throat, feeling for his pulse. She found it, thumping strong and steady against her gloved fingertips.
“Ah. That’s nice.”
Her face blazed with heat. “Are you seeing double?”
“Perhaps. I see two lips, two eyes, two flushed cheeks . . . a thousand freckles.”
She stared at him.
“Don’t concern yourself, miss. It’s nothing.” His gaze darkened with some mysterious intent. “Nothing a little kiss won’t mend.”
And before she could even catch her breath, he pressed his lips to hers.
A kiss. His mouth, touching hers. It was warm and firm, and then . . . it was over.
Her first real kiss in all her five-and-twenty years, and it was finished in a heartbeat. Just a memory now, save for the faint bite of whiskey on her lips. And the heat. She still tasted his scorching, masculine heat. Belatedly, she closed her eyes.
“There, now,” he murmured. “All better.”
Better? Worse? The darkness behind her eyelids held no answers, so she opened them again.
Different. This strange, strong man held her in his protective embrace, and she was lost in his intriguing green stare, and his kiss reverberated in her bones with more force than a powder blast. And now she felt different.
The heat and weight of him . . . they were like an answer. The answer to a question Susanna hadn’t even been aware her body was asking. So this was how it would be, to lie beneath a man. To feel shaped by him, her flesh giving in some places and resisting in others. Heat building between two bodies; dueling heartbeats pounding both sides of the same drum.
Maybe . . . just maybe . . . this was what she’d been waiting to feel all her life. Not swept her off her feet—but flung across the lane and sent tumbling head over heels while the world exploded around her.
He rolled onto his side, giving her room to breathe. “Where did you come from?”
“I think I should ask you that.” She struggled up on one elbow. “Who are you? What on earth are you doing here?”
“Isn’t it obvious?” His tone was grave. “We’re bombing the sheep.”
“Oh. Oh dear. Of course you are.” Inside her, empathy twined with despair. Of course, he was cracked in the head. One of those poor soldiers addled by war. She ought to have known it. No sane man had ever looked at her this way.
She pushed aside her disappointment. At least he had come to the right place. And landed on the right woman. She was far more skilled in treating head wounds than fielding gentlemen’s advances. The key here was to stop thinking of him as an immense, virile man and simply regard him as a person who needed her help. An unattractive, poxy, eunuch sort of person.
Reaching out to him, she traced one fingertip over his brow. “Don’t be frightened,” she said in a calm, even tone. “All is well. You’re going to be just fine.” She cupped his cheek and met his gaze directly. “The sheep can’t hurt you here.”
Two
“You’re going to be just fine,” she repeated.
Bram believed her. Wholeheartedly. At the moment, he was feeling damned fine indeed. He had a road cleared of sheep, a functioning leg, and a fetching young miss stroking his brow. Why the devil should he complain?