“You know that as soon as the shoulder is set, I’ll stop hurting as much, don’t you?”
His expression took on the look of a trapped rabbit.
“You’ll help me much more by setting my shoulder now instead of allowing me to ache all the way to the house.” I knew I baited him. He knew it too, but there was truth in my words. Each bump in the road jostled my arm. And each time, my stomach lurched against the pain.
Emotions warred over his features. Agony as he watched me grip my stomach when the car rumbled over uneven ground. Something in the tenderness of his struggle broke through the barrier his presence had attempted to dissolve since our first conversation.
“Oliver,” I whispered. “Please.”
If a person could touch a soul with a look, something in his touched mine. He firmed his expression and, after another hesitation, took my hand in his. “It’s going to hurt. Badly.”
I nodded, swallowing the lump gathering in my throat. “And I’ll likely faint from the pain.”
“That’s all right.” The tension in his face quivered for an instant. “You’re in good hands.”
I almost returned his smile but another shudder from the car produced a wince.
“Brace your good shoulder against the side of the car, Sadie.” All playfulness had fled from his face and he tightened the grip on my left hand. “It will steady you.”
I shifted to lodge myself in place.
“What are you doing, Ollie?” Victoria’s pale blue eyes shifted from her brother to me and back again.
“I’m helping Miss Sadie feel better.” His stare bore into mine, uncertainty wrinkling his brow with an unvoiced apology. “I hope.”
I held on to the compassion in his eyes and braced myself as much as I could.
“On the count of three.” His Adam’s apple dipped with his swallow. “One, two, three—”
In one swift movement, one palm pressed up on mine and the other guided my arm. I cried out, pain riveting up through my head and then…all went dark.
“Tyger Tyger, burning bright,
In the forests of the night;
What immortal hand or eye,
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?
In what distant deeps or skies.
Burnt the fire of thine eyes?
On what wings dare he aspire?
What the hand, dare seize the fire?”
The voice rumbled over the words, quiet and constant, ushering me to the brink of waking. Who read Blake aloud in the library? And with an English accent?
I forced my eyes open and found myself lying quite comfortably in an enormous bed. Cream walls surrounded me on every side with the satin hangings on the tester bed a glistening shade of pale peach. Where was I? Ornate satinwood furnishings? Hand-carved, muted clay tones of the mantel? A portrait of children hanging over the fireplace?
My eyes shot wide. What was I doing in the Sheraton Room?
I pushed to a sitting position, only to moan at the ache in my shoulder. But when I reached to touch it, I found it wrapped and in a sling at my side. I blinked and raised my gaze to meet the amused expression of Oliver Camden sitting to my left, book raised in hand.
“What are you doing—”
“Shh…” He raised a finger to his lips and gestured toward the book.
“What the hammer? what the chain,
In what furnace was thy brain?
What the anvil? what dread grasp,
Dare its deadly terrors clasp!”
“Why are you here?” I glanced down, grateful to still be in my regular day dress. “And why am I in a guest bed? I don’t belong—”
“Do you mind, Miss Blackwell, I am trying to read.” The annoyance in his tone failed to match the glimmer in his eyes as he rattled off the last two stanzas of Blake’s famous poem.
I could only stare. The man clearly had no sense of propriety whatsoever.
He finished and clipped the book closed, crossing one leg over the other to stare at me. “I am under strict orders from the lady of the house to ensure you do not move from this bed for the remainder of the day.”
“I don’t believe one whit of it.” I huffed and pushed back the coverlet. “A dislocated shoulder doesn’t make a person indisposed for an entire—”
“You would forgo your mistress’s specific orders?” He tsked, taking up another book from the bedside table. “That is not a very good employee.”
“Once she knows I am quite well, she won’t expect me to stay abed.”
“Her distinct orders were for you to remain in this room until supper, at which time you could retire to your bedroom, if you felt able to do so.” He tapped the book in his hand. “In the meantime, I’m to regale you with excellent literature and force you to accept the reward of saving a young girl from being trampled.”
I succeeded in unraveling myself from the many blankets and produced one stockinged foot.
“Stop this instant, Sadie Blackwell.” His voice rose and he waved the book at me, his brows bunching to center. “Be a good patient and return to your bed, or I shall be forced to tell Mrs. Vanderbilt how ungrateful you are.”
My mouth dropped open.
“And poor Victoria will be positively heartbroken.”
“Victoria?” I gasped the name. What was he talking about?
“She said you were to have tea and read together this morning, but, since you are currently indisposed—” He gestured with the book to the bed. “She has gone off to see to the tea for today in the hopes of helping you feel better.”
“I will be happy to have tea with your sister, but in a room more appropriate for my station.”
“Are you always so troublesome?” He studied me with such intensity, warmth began climbing up my neck into my cheeks. “You were not so troublesome when unconscious, I must say. As a matter of fact, you behaved with the utmost reserve, though you did almost take my hand.”
“I almost took your hand while I was unconscious?”
He raised a brow. “Subconscious desires and all.”
Heat soared to oven proportions in my face. “I can assure you that I did not—”
“Please, don’t try to explain
