heard the coughing. She was on her hands and knees on the floor, swaying as she struggled to breathe. He grabbed her around the waist, and she sagged against him, and together they staggered the last few feet to the open air.
Outside the barn, Michel pointed Abigail toward Buck, pulled the coat from her eyes and left her to join the gelding on her own. He slipped his arm beneath Jerusa’s knees and carried her, still coughing, to the little stand of maples where the horses waited.
Gently he settled her on the grass, slipping his coat protectively across her shoulders as she still coughed and gasped for breath. Her eyes were red rimmed from the smoke, making the irises seem even more green by contrast, and the rain had flattened her hair and blotched the soot that covered her face. But because she was alive, to him she’d never looked more lovely.
“You’ll be fine, ma chère,” he said, trying to smile. She had frightened him badly, more than the fire itself and more than he wanted to admit. He’d come so close to losing her, and though he tried to tell himself it was only for his mother’s sake, deep down he knew the truth, and that, too, frightened him. “It hurts now, I know, but you’ll be fine.”
Jerusa nodded, all the answer she felt able to give. She sat curled over her bent knees, holding her side where Abigail’s nose had struck her. Her lungs still stung from the smoke, but each breath seemed to come a little easier. She was sure her side would be purple and sore for at least a week, and she touched herself gingerly, praying she hadn’t cracked any ribs. She wasn’t about to complain to Michel and have him go cutting her clothes off again to tend to her.
She looked back at the fire, more smoke now than flames, thanks to the rain. The last wall of the house, the one that had been struck by lightning, was completely gone now, and only the stone chimney remained like a lopsided pillar against the sky. The rain had spared the barn, but, even with the wind, the air was still thick with the smell of burning wood, and she shivered as she thought of how near she’d come to dying through her own carelessness with Abigail.
Michel handed her a cup of water and she drank it gratefully, the well water deliciously cool as it slid down her raw throat. He, too, was smudged with soot, and one sleeve of his shirt was torn nearly the length of his arm. He’d lost the ribbon to his queue, which allowed his hair to fall loose around his face, and small black scorched spots left from cinders peppered his waistcoat. Whatever his reasons, he’d clearly risked his life for her, and no one else had ever done that. Certainly not Tom Carberry.
“There now, I told you you’d feel better,” said Michel softly. With one finger he brushed a lock of her hair from her forehead. She was a brave little woman, he thought with fond admiration. He couldn’t think of another who would have stayed with the horses, as she had. “No real damage, eh, ma mie?”
Though he smiled, weariness had deepened the lines around his eyes and made his accent more pronounced. She doubted he’d rested at all while she’d been asleep.
“Thank you,” she whispered, her voice breaking. “You didn’t have to come back for me.”
“Don’t thank me, ma chérie.” He winked wickedly. “I came back for Abigail.”
She tried to laugh, but all that came out was a croaking bark. “Then I thank you for Abigail’s sake. She’s unharmed?”
“She and Buck both. You can see for yourself how happily they’re grazing now, without an anxious thought in their heads. Horses can be charming, useful creatures, but they’re not particularly fearless in a fire.”
“Who is?” Her smile faded as she pulled his coat higher over her shoulders. Though she didn’t really need the coat’s warmth, she wasn’t yet ready to give up the security and concern—Michel’s concern—it represented.
“You knew, didn’t you?” she said quietly. “We didn’t lose a thing because you had the horses saddled and ready, even though we weren’t supposed to leave until dusk. Somehow you knew.”
He shrugged carelessly. “A guess, that was all. The high ground, the fact that the house had suffered from fire before, something in the air that felt like a storm. But don’t look at me like I’m a sorcerer, chère. If nothing had come of it, then I would have looked the fool, not the wise man.”
Of course it had been more than that. From the beginning, the place had made him uneasy in ways he didn’t want to explain. He looked past her to the smoldering ruin of the farmhouse and imagined again the empty, charred walls of his father’s house.
No, he didn’t want to explain that to her at all.
She brushed her fingers across the grass beside her and wondered what had made him fall silent. She wished he hadn’t. The terror she’d felt when she’d been lost in the smoke was still very real, and talking had helped her forget. Talking to him.
“If you’ll only take credit for saving Abigail’s life,” she said slowly, “and not mine with it, will you let me at least thank you for that?”
He raised his brows with feigned surprise. “A Sparhawk offering thanks? What’s happened to your pride, Miss Jerusa?”
“Oh, hang my pride, Michel, and let me be grateful!” Before she lost her nerve she leaned over and kissed him quickly, her lips barely grazing his. She sat back on her heels, breathless at her own daring, and unconsciously licked her lips as if to taste the fleeting memory of his.
He looked at her blandly. “Were you telling the truth that time?”
“About what?” she asked, flustered by the way he seemed to be studying her mouth. “About being grateful?”
“Of course not, ma chère. About kissing me. That tiny souffle was so slight I’m not sure but that I imagined it entirely.”
“You don’t believe I kissed you?”
“I don’t know what to believe, ma mie, not where you’re concerned.”
“It’s not as if I’m in the habit of kissing every man I see, you know,” she said indignantly. “But I’d have thought you’d have the decency to believe it when I did!”
He smiled with lazy charm, his teeth a white slash against his dark beard and soot-smudged face. She didn’t have to defend herself so vigorously—he’d known from the start that her bumbling popinjay of a fiancé hadn’t taught her a thing—but at least she’d forgotten entirely about the fire.
And so, for that matter, had he.
“I told you before, Rusa, I’ve never lied to you,” he said. “Decency or not, I haven’t begun now.”
With an exasperated grumble she threw herself against him, seizing his shoulders to steady herself as she planted her lips soundly against his. There, she thought triumphantly, he wouldn’t forget that!
But suddenly his mouth was moving against hers in a way she hadn’t intended at all, surely, seductively, and she forgot all her triumph as his lips slanted across hers to deepen the kiss. She shuddered as his tongue invaded her mouth, teasing and tasting her in dizzying ways she’d never dreamed possible. Shyly she let herself be led, echoing and responding to his actions until she realized that he, too, felt this other fire flaring between them.
Her fingers tightened into the hard muscles of his shoulders
