he owned this house,’ she finished accusingly.
Roxy didn’t bother saying ‘and neither did I’. Even if she’d wanted a conversation with Annabella, she didn’t think she’d be coherent enough to make any sense right now, because her head had started pounding and her throat felt as if it were on fire. She needed to get out of here and she needed to lie down before she fell down. ‘I have to go,’ she croaked.
‘But go where?’ asked Annabella, her voice sounding incredulous as she watched Roxy struggle to pick up the heavy case.
Perhaps if she hadn’t been feeling so woozy, then Roxy might have invented a fictitious series of friends who’d be only too glad to let her sofa-surf until she found a place of her own. But she felt so low and defeated that she just blurted out the truth—not caring a jot about her battered pride or Annabella’s horrified face.
‘I’ll find a hostel,’ she mumbled. ‘Just for the night.’
She began to haul her heavy suitcase down the street, not stopping until she reached the bus stop and was certain she was away from Annabella’s pitying stare. And when the bright red double-decker bus stopped, she bought a ticket planning to travel as far away from this privileged area of West London as possible. Because she didn’t belong here. Come to think of it, she didn’t really belong anywhere.
Somehow she found a hostel, not caring that it was right by a busy Tube station or that to get there she had to pass three people sitting on a pavement, asking passers-by for money.
She just needed to sleep, that was all. In the morning she would feel better—and after that she would find somewhere to live. She wondered if the desperation showed on her face or whether it could be heard in her croaky voice—but something in her heartfelt appeal must have worked, because she was given a bed.
It was an iron bedstead with a lumpy mattress, in a dormitory with twenty other women—some of whom seemed to be withdrawing from alcohol. Their delusional screams about yellow ants pierced the night and ordinarily Roxy would have been terrified. But the pounding in her head was pretty much all she could think about right then—until she remembered that she’d left no forwarding address and that she was expecting a much-needed cheque. And that she wouldn’t put it past the hateful Titus Alexander to throw it in the bin, out of spite.
With trembling fingers, she scrabbled around in her bag until she’d found the arrogant aristocrat’s card, then fumbled him a text, before flopping back against the flat pillow.
She’d never felt so ill in her life. The walls were closing in on her. Her skin was growing hot. And just before her eyelids fluttered to a close, she cursed the tawny-headed man whose cruel behaviour had brought her here.
A FADED denim crotch swam into view and Roxy’s heavy eyelids slowly fluttered open. Narrow hips framed the crotch like a prize exhibit at an art show and for a moment she was so disorientated that she simply stared at it. Slowly, she moved her gaze upwards to meet the shuttered gaze of Titus Alexander.
‘You’re awake, I see,’ he remarked acidly.
Roxy blinked. She felt warm and comfortable and the room was strangely quiet. Yet she remembered going to sleep on a lumpy mattress with the sound of demented voices all around her. More memories began to crowd into her befuddled brain. The sleepless night which had turned into a sleepless day. The pounding in her head and the terrible aching in her throat—followed by the soaring bewilderment of a high fever when her skin had felt as icy as if she’d spent the night in the Arctic. The hostel!
Despite the restrictive heaviness of her limbs, she sat up in bed and her eyes narrowed in disbelief as she looked around. No, definitely not the hostel. She was in a huge room, with light streaming in from equally huge windows. Gone was the dormitory with its rows of sardine-packed beds—and in its place was a tranquil bedroom, decorated entirely in white. A crystal chandelier hung from the ceiling and the bed in which she was lying was covered with crisp and deliciously clean linen.
Roxy stared up at the Duke’s striking aristocratic features, her heart pounding with confusion. ‘Where am I?’ she demanded.
‘In my London home.’
‘How did I get here?’ she questioned, her voice rising on a slight note of hysteria.
‘You don’t remember?’
‘If I remembered, then I wouldn’t be asking, would I?’
Titus felt his mouth harden. Ungrateful little witch. He should have left her in the hostel where he’d found her! ‘I brought you here,’ he said flatly. ‘You’ve been ill.’
Roxy slumped back against the billowy bank of pillows. Illness would explain this strangely weak and woozy feeling—but it didn’t explain why Titus Alexander was standing next to the bed and glowering down at her. She stared at him suspiciously. ‘What do you mean—you brought me here?’
‘I mean,’ said Titus, with a growing feeling of impatience that he should have to explain himself to her after all he’d done, ‘that I went to the hostel where you were staying, to give you some letters which had been delivered for you. And that’s when I found you delirious with fever and looking quite shockingly ill—with no proper medical care or attention. So I put you in my car and brought you back here.’
She blinked at him as more fragments of memory began to piece themselves together in her mind. She remembered feeling icy cold, but her body being drenched with sweat. At one point, her teeth had been chattering so loudly that she’d been afraid she might shatter them. There had been wild voices shouting out all around her—or had one of those voices been hers? And then someone picking her up. Someone very strong. She vaguely remembered slumping against a rock-hard chest as she’d been carried out of that scary place and put into a car. Her eyes narrowed as she met the Duke’s cool expression.
‘It was you. You rescued me,’ she said slowly.
Titus gave a cynical laugh, because the last thing he needed was for her to start building schoolgirlish fantasies about an episode he would rather hadn’t happened. ‘I felt duty-bound to get you out since I felt partially responsible for you being there,’ he growled. ‘Though, of course, if you hadn’t made such a complete mess of your life—then you wouldn’t have been there in the first place. So I brought you back here and had my friend Guy Chambers look you over—’
‘Look me over?’ she breathed. ‘What do you mean, look me over?’
‘He’s a doctor,’ he answered as he read the suspicious look in her eyes. ‘Not some kind of voyeur. He diagnosed you with pneumonia, he prescribed antibiotics and rest—and that’s what you’ve been getting ever since.’
But she must have been getting more than rest, mustn’t she? Her hair and body felt scented and clean and...Roxy placed her hand over her racing heart, only to encounter the slippery feel of silk against her fingers. Pulling the sheet away by a fraction, she stared down at the apricot sheen of a nightdress which must have cost a fortune. She could feel the delicate fabric brushing against her bare knees and the deep scoop of its low-cut back and she clutched onto the sheet as she looked at him with renewed suspicion.
‘What am I wearing?’ she demanded.
‘What does it look
