Page 53 of Heart of a Witch
My breath hitched. “You’re here with me, I mean.”
“Right.” She leaned over the coffee station. “I’ve never tried it.”
“It’ll help with the liquor.”
She placed a hand on her hip. “What if I don’t want help with my liquor? I quite enjoy feeling this free.”
I touched her hand, and the connection buzzed through me. “Then we can skip the coffee.”
She searched my face. I wasn’t sure what for, but I did my best not to let anything through. Usually when women chose to be alone with me, it wasn’t long until we were fucking, but she seemed uncertain. Perhaps I had misinterpreted things between us.
I must have been staring for too long because I swore, if just for half a second, I saw a flicker of something dark cross her features. If I didn’t know better, I’d assume it to be a look of hatred, but she had no reason to feel that way toward me.
I shook my head, scattering my thoughts. I was too inside my own head. The liquor was getting to me. Bringing her to get coffee was a bad idea. “I’ll get you out of here, Miss Weathermore. We can find your brother, and you can go home.”
She cleared her throat. “Right, yes.” She stepped back, stumbling.
I only closed my eyes for a split second and missed her hand reaching for mine. A loud crash sounded through the room when she caught hold of the side of my drinks’ globe, tumbling the entire thing to the ground. Glass had shattered around us, shards pointing upward in warning. I leaped forward, dropping to her side to try to shield her head, but it was too late. The dull thud sent a shiver down my spine.
The door to my study opened, and my father looked down at us, anger lacing his expression.
“Victoria.” I touched the back of her head, which was hot. When I pulled my fingers away, they were soaked with blood. “Oh god.”
“Elijah.” Father called to someone I couldn’t hear.
Her eyes rolled to the back of her head.
“What have I told you about bringing young women alone?”
My stomach fluttered. “It wasn’t like that. We weren’t—”
“It doesn’t matter. Her brother, Ambrose, is a friend to my priests. This could look bad on us.”
A maid returned with our doctor, flushed in his tux and still holding a glass of lemonade.
Father spoke first. “The young lady fell. She must have come in here looking for something, although I do not know what for.”
The doctor knelt by her, touching the back of her head. “It looks worse than it is,” he explained.
I didn’t let go of her hand, not once. She squeezed lightly. I was grateful she was responding at all.
“I will get her cleaned up. Can someone fetch my bag? It’s with my wife.”
I jumped to my feet. “I’ll go,” I said, needing to do something helpful. It was all my fault. I’d given her the scotch and brought her back here. I wasn’t usually so irresponsible, not in my own home. At the club, everyone knew what they were doing, but Victoria was with me. In my house. She was new to town and didn’t know anyone. “Fuck.” I ran to the ballroom, searching out the doctor’s wife, hoping Victoria’s head wouldn’t be too bad. I spotted her brother standing with Lady Montague in the corner, laughing. I’d only briefly met him at the church, but he reminded me of Charles and my other friends: arrogant, self-centered, and likely would be furious if he knew his sister was back there, bleeding.
Sixteen
Victoria
Slipping into the bedroom adjoining Elijah’s, I couldn’t help but smile. He’d hesitated in the hallway for five minutes, then went back to his room after deciding against knocking. I couldn’t play him along for too long. My head was still throbbing, but it had been worth the fall, though admittedly I hadn’t expected to make myself bleed.
Elijah felt responsible for me, which grew our connection beyond the mere sexual encounter he’d been planning all night. I knew the look. My stomach knotted at the thought of it—me with a human—but I had to do what needed to be done. For Ember. For Jackson. For every person who’d been hurt by the Shaw family. Damian had said I could stay the night—insisted actually—so they could keep watch over me and stop any negative talk about my getting hurt and being alone with his son. They’d had to get permission from Cas first. It was laughable that Cas would have any say over what I did or didn’t do. It was only a shame the doctor was staying too, in a room up the corridor from me, so he could check in on me in the morning.
I thought back to the study. A part of me was glad I had been semi-unconscious when the hunter was in such close proximity. I couldn’t bear the sight of him. Even his spiced, leather scent made me nauseated.
I pulled at the neckline of the boxy nightgown they’d given me, then spilled my lemonade onto it, soaking it against my bare breasts. “Oops.” I ran my hand through my hair, loosening the strands from the tight bun it had been in all day.
It took him less than three seconds to open the door after I knocked. “Victoria,” he said with a hitched breath. “Your gown.”
