He still felt her kiss, still tingled with the light touch of her lips under his.

She was with him still.

And he had the strangest feeling she always would be.

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fourteen

Mercifully, Honoria didn’t have to spend the next day of her life agonizing over her brief kiss with Marcus.

Instead, she slept.

It was a short walk from Marcus’s bedchamber to her own, so she set her mind to the task at hand—namely, putting one foot in front of the other and remaining upright long enough to reach her bedchamber. And once she did that, she lay on her bed and did not rise again for twenty-four hours.

If she dreamed, she remembered nothing.

It was morning when she finally awakened, and she was still in the same frock she’d been wearing since she’d got dressed—how many days ago was it?— in London. A bath seemed in order, and a fresh change of clothing, and then breakfast, of course, where she quite happily insisted that Mrs. Wetherby join her at the table and talk about all sorts of things that had nothing to do with Marcus.

The eggs were extremely interesting, as was the bacon, and the hydrangeas outside the window were absolutely fascinating.

Hydrangeas. Who would have imagined?

All in all, she avoided not just Marcus but all thoughts of Marcus quite well until Mrs. Wetherby asked, “Have you been by to see his lordship yet this morning?”

Honoria paused, her muffin suspended halfway to her mouth. “Er, not yet,” she said. The butter from her muffin was dripping onto her hand. She set it back down and wiped her fingers.

And then Mrs. Wetherby said, “I’m sure he would love to see you.”

Which meant that Honoria had to go. After all the time and effort she’d put into caring for him when he’d been in the depths of his fever, it would have looked very odd if she’d simply waved her hand and said, “Oh, I’m sure he’s fine.”

The walk from the breakfast room to Marcus’s bedchamber took approximately three minutes, which was three minutes longer than she wanted to spend thinking about a three-second kiss.

She had kissed her brother’s best friend. She had kissed Marcus . . . who, she supposed, had become one of her own best friends, too.

And that stopped her almost as short as the kiss had done. How had that happened? Marcus had always been Daniel’s friend, not hers. Or rather, Daniel’s friend first, and hers second. Which wasn’t to say—

She stopped. She was making herself dizzy.

Oh, bother. He probably hadn’t even thought of it once. Maybe he’d even still been a little bit delirious. Maybe he wouldn’t even remember.