Page 28 of Lady in Ruby
“Yes? Estelle, is that you again?”
But when the door opened, it was Snowdon on the other side.
Chapter 11
Caroline breathed in deep, watching him stand in the doorway. He took up a lot of it, and his presence seemed to fill the room before he even entered it.
Mittens used the open door to return to the bedroom, twining his tail around Snowdon’s leg as he passed.
The man did not enter yet. Blue eyes surveyed her, a trace of anxiety in them that stirred a warmth in her belly.
“You’d better come in,” she said, discarding all the warnings her upbringing as a lady taught her.
He stepped forward, drawing the door closed behind him. “Miss Garland, I realize I shouldn’t be here, but I wasn’t able to see you earlier. How do you feel?”
“Warm,” she said. “Which for a while felt like an impossibility.”
“I’m glad. May I?” He gestured to the chair Estelle occupied before.
She nodded, and he sat down. “I’ve been worried. You were in a bad state when we arrived back at the house. You were delirious.”
Of course he’d think that. She’d told him she thought he was a snowman come to life.
“Please ignore anything I said before. I’m much better now,” she said quickly.
“Yes, a remarkable recovery,” he said, reaching down to rub the cat’s ears, a gesture that was met with heartfelt approval.
“The formula is remarkable—” She halted, realizing that she shouldn’t have said that. The only thing her father had mentioned was his laboratory notes, which could be for anything. “That is, never mind. Please ignore anything I said now as well.”
“As you wish.” He didn’t seem to notice her flustered state. But from what she knew, Snowdon noticed everything.
Mittens looked at Caroline, but then hopped up onto Snowdon’s lap, where he immediately made himself quite comfortable.
Snowdon stroked the cat, and Caroline noticed how finely made his hands were, strong but not clumsy. He wore no rings at all, somewhat unusually for a man of his stature. Jewelry was so important to the aristocracy.
That thought made her remember the loss of her own jewelry, and her breath caught as the shame of it hit her again.
He heard and thought it a physical pain. “What’s wrong?” he asked, leaning forward to see her face in the dim light. “Do you need me to call someone for you?”
“It’s nothing like that. It’s just…I lost the rubies,” she confessed.
“What?”
“I was wearing them at the pond…I know, it was stupid. I just…wanted to feel special.”
“You don’t need rubies for that.”
“They’re at the bottom of the pond now,” she went on, not even hearing him. “The pond that is freezing cold and covered in ice that’s getting thicker every day. By the time spring comes and the water will be—barely!—warm enough to swim in, the rubies will be covered in silt and decomposed leaves and sand and no one will ever find them. I have lost my family’s legacy all because I wanted to feel fancy at a skating party. I lost the rubies my mother gave me because she thought I was grown up enough to have them. Clearly I wasn’t.”
“Caroline, they’re stones, that’s all. What matters is that you’re safe. You survived.”
“You don’t understand. You’re a lord, you can probably buy a dozen ruby necklaces without stopping at the bank.”
“Definitely not true,” he said. He scooped up Mittens and deposited the protesting cat near the fireplace, then moved to kneel before Caroline. He surveyed her, his eyes shadowed blue, with a tender cast. She felt her heart responding to that look with an ache that felt strangely good. He gently reached out his hands to take hers. “You are worth more than any jewels. I could tell that the moment I met you.” He raised one hand to his lips and turned it up, kissing her palm.
Caroline’s breath hitched when his lips brushed against the sensitive skin, and pleasure rippled through her limbs all the way to the tips of her fingers and toes. No danger of losing sensation anymore. She could sense her whole body reacting to Snowdon’s presence.
He caught her gaze, and gave her a tiny grin. “I’ve been waiting all day to do that.”
