Her heart began to measure out beats more evenly, no longer casting them out in careless handfuls. The waking-nightmare feeling began to dissipate. But as her alarm faded, a hideous tide of embarrassment overwhelmed her. Only she could have botched a midnight rendezvous so terribly.
“Feeling better?” he asked, one of his hands sliding down to enfold hers in a reassuring grasp. “Come with me to the family parlor.”
Pandora wanted to die. She didn’t move, only let out a defeated breath. “I can’t,” she blurted out.
“What is it?” came the gentle question.
“I can’t move at all. I lose my balance in the dark.”
His lips went to her forehead again, and he kept them there for a long moment. “Put your arms around my neck,” he eventually said. After she obeyed, he lifted her easily, clasping her high against his chest.
Pandora kept her eyes closed as he carried her along the hallway. He was strong and superbly coordinated, sure-footed as a cat, and she felt a pang of envy. She couldn’t remember what it was like to move so confidently through the night, fearing nothing.
The family parlor was lit only by a fire in the hearth. Gabriel went to a low, deeply upholstered empire sofa with a curved back and arms, and settled with her in his lap. Her pride objected feebly to the way he was holding her, as if she were a frightened child. But his hard chest was comforting, and his hands slowly chased the nervous tremors that ran through her limbs, and it was the nicest, warmest feeling she’d ever known. She needed this. Just for a few minutes.
Reaching over to a mahogany sofa table, Gabriel picked up an engraved dram glass half-filled with inky liquid. Without a word, he pressed the glass to her lips as if she couldn’t be trusted to hold it on her own without spilling it.
Pandora sipped cautiously. The drink was delicious, with rich flavors of toffee and plum leaving mellow heat on her tongue. She took another, deeper taste, her hands creeping up to take the glass from him. “What is this?”
“Port. Have the rest.” He curled his arm loosely around her bent knees.
Pandora drank it slowly, relaxing as the port sent warmth all the way down to her toes. The storm whistled impatiently, rattling the windows, calling back and forth with the sea as it leapt in roaring liquid hills. But she was warm and dry, resting in Gabriel’s arms while the snapping light of the hearth played over them.
He reached into the pocket of his waistcoat for a soft folded handkerchief, and blotted the last traces of perspiration from her face and throat. After setting the cloth aside, he stroked back a lock of dark hair and tucked it carefully behind her left ear. “I’ve noticed you don’t hear as well on this side,” he said quietly. “Is that part of the problem?”
Pandora blinked in amazement. In a mere handful of days, he had detected something that even her family, the people who actually lived with her, hadn’t perceived. They had all learned to accept, as a matter of course, that she was careless and inattentive.
She nodded. “I hear only about half as well in this ear as I do in the other. At night . . . in the dark . . . everything goes topsy-turvy, and I can’t tell what’s up or down. If I turn too quickly, I drop to the floor. I can’t control it; it’s like being pushed by invisible hands.”
Gabriel cradled her cheek in his palm, regarding her with a steady tenderness that sent her pulse into confusion. “That’s why you don’t dance.”
“I can manage a few of the dances at a slow pace. But waltzing is impossible. All that whirling and pivoting.” Self-consciously she looked away and drained the last few drops of port.
He took the empty glass from her and set it aside. “You should have told me. I would never have asked you to meet me at night if I’d known.”
“It wasn’t far. I thought a candle would be enough.” Pandora fidgeted with the belt of her flannel robe. “I didn’t count on tripping over my own slippers.” She extended her bare left foot from beneath her nightgown and frowned at it. “I’ve lost one of them.”
“I’ll find it later.” Taking one of her hands in his, Gabriel lifted it to his lips. He wove a pattern of gentle kisses over her cold fingers. “Pandora . . . what happened to your ear?”
Her soul revolted at the prospect of discussing it.
Turning her hand over, Gabriel kissed her palm and shaped her fingers against his cheek. His shaven skin was smooth in one direction and softly abrasive in the other, like a cat’s tongue. The firelight had turned him golden everywhere except for those eyes, the clear blue of an arctic star. He waited, damnably patient, while Pandora summoned the nerve to reply.
“I . . . can’t talk about it if I’m touching you.” Drawing her hand from his cheek, she crawled out of his lap. There was a persistent high-pitched ringing in her ear. Covering it lightly with her palm, she tapped her fingers on the back of her skull a few times. To her relief, the trick worked.
“Tinnitus,” Gabriel said, watching closely. “One of our older family solicitors has it. Does it trouble you often?”
“Only now and then, when I’m distressed.”