Until You

He lifted his gaze to her face, and if he hadn't been half crazed with fear and half dead from exhaustion, he would have smiled as he wondered how she felt about that face of hers, given her prim and practical streak. There was certainly nothing prim about those soft, generous lips, and nothing practical about those incredibly long, curly lashes that lay like lush crescents against her cheeks. He had no idea what color her hair or eyes were, but her cheekbones were delicately molded, her ivory skin almost translucent. In contrast to all her other features that seemed to exemplify fragile femininity, there was a firmness to that small chin of hers that hinted of willfulness. No, Stephen corrected himself, it more likely hinted of courage. She hadn't wept with pain or fear; she'd said she hated being afraid, which implied she preferred to fight that debilitating emotion, rather than succumb to it.

She undoubtedly had courage, he decided, and kindness as well-enough to try to apologize for worrying him. Courage and gentleness, a remarkable combination in any woman, but particularly in one so young.

And so vulnerable, he realized with a fresh surge of panic as her chest rose and fell in fitful little gasps. Tightening his grip on her hand, he watched her seem to struggle for air while a lump of pure terror swelled in his throat. God! She was dying! "Don't!" he whispered fiercely. "Don't die!"

10

Bright sunlight was peeking between the green draperies at the far end of the room when Sheridan opened her eyes again. Her fiance was seated in a chair beside the bed, still holding her hand, fast asleep. Sometime in the night, he'd removed his coat and neckcloth, opened his collar, and fallen asleep with his arms crossed on the bed and his head resting on them. His face was toward her, and Sheridan cautiously turned her head on the pillow, breathing a sigh of relief when the slight movement didn't unleash the hammers in her brain.

In the peaceful daze that comes after a deep sleep, she idly studied the man to whom she was betrothed. He was ta

And handsome.

Dear God, he was so handsome!

Reluctantly, she lifted her gaze from his face and, for the first time, she looked at her surroundings. Her eyes widened in shocked awe at the glittering opulence of the green and gold room. Pale, apple green silk covered the walls and the windows and floated gracefully from the bed's canopy, held in place by shimmering golden cords and tassels. Even the cavernous fireplace at the far end of the room was of a wondrous green marble, adorned with golden birds mounted at the corners and ornate brass fittings. Two curved sofas upholstered in pale green watered silk faced each other in front of the fireplace, separated by a low oval table.

Her attention drifted back to the dark head resting near her hip, and she felt her spirits lift a little. She was obviously very fortunate, because her betrothed was not only startlingly handsome, but he was obviously extremely wealthy too. Moreover, he'd stayed with her all night, sleeping in that dreadfully uncomfortable position and never letting go of her hand; therefore, he must be very much in love with her.

He had obviously courted her and asked her to marry him. She closed her eyes tightly, searching for any recollection of him or of her past, but there was nothing except a black void. No woman could possibly forget being courted and loved by a man like this; it just wasn't possible. She'd remember it all in a minute, she told herself fiercely, fighting back a surge of panic so strong it made her feel nauseated. In her mind, she said things to herself that he must have said to her "Will you do me the honor of becoming my wife, Miss . . . ?" Miss who? Miss WHO?

"Stay calm!" Sheridan warned herself desperately. "Concentrate on other things . . . sweet things he must have said." Unaware that she was breathing faster and clutching his hand so hard that her nails were digging into it, she tried to think, to remember some of their times together. He would have treated her in a courtly ma

She tried to think of something clever, but her mind went blank.

She tried to think of a charming phrase, and her mind remained blank. Trying to stay calm, she settled for thinking of her face. Her face…

She had no face.

SHE HAD NO FACE!

Some instinct or latent character trait was struggling to keep her calm, but terror was begi

Stephen felt as if his hand had suddenly been clamped in a vise that was biting into his fingers, cutting off their blood supply. He tried to pull free of its painful grasp, but it held onto him. After three days without sleep, it took a supreme effort just to force his eyes open enough to peek between the heavy lids at whatever was causing his hand to go numb. Instead of finding a pitchfork buried in his fingers, he saw a woman lying in the bed beside him. Since that situation certainly wasn't unusual enough to startle him from his dazed stupor, he simply twisted his hand to free it a little so that he could go back to sleep. But because courtesy to the opposite sex had been drummed into his head since childhood, and because the woman had looked truly frantic, he managed to form a polite inquiry about her problem just as his eyes closed and he began sinking into a deep sleep. "What's wrong?"

Her voice shook with alarm. "I don't know what I look like!"

Stephen had known other women who were obsessed with their appearance, but this female's concern-in a dimly lit boudoir in the middle of the night-verged on the ridiculous. Given that, he didn't feel obliged to even open his eyes when she tightened her grip and frantically implored, "What do I look like?"

"Ravishing," he stated tonelessly. His entire body ached, which, he belatedly realized, was because she was in the bed and he wasn't. He was trying to muster the strength to ask her to move over, when he heard the unmistakable sound of stifled crying. Turning his head away from the sound, he wondered irritably what he had done to make her cry and resolved to have Wheaton send her a pretty trinket to atone for whatever it was-a ruby brooch, or something. The desire for an expensive piece of jewelry was, more often than not, the underlying cause of most feminine bouts of delicate tears. Even in his sleep, Stephen knew that.

Her crying promptly escalated to serious, anguished weeping, punctuated with gulped breaths and shuddering. Whatever he'd done to cause this outburst, it was far more than merely forgetting to compliment her gown or breaking an engagement for the theatre. This outburst was going to cost him a diamond necklace!