Her heart pounded so loudly she was sure he must hear it, and still he didn’t wake her. He made enough noise that she probably would have woken easily—if she weren’t pretending to sleep. Then he was quiet, so quiet, she could no longer be sure he was still there. Yet she couldn’t relax, wouldn’t open her eyes to find out for certain, either. A wise choice, because when he did finally leave several hours later, she heard him clearly, heard his sigh, too.

She unwound with the closing of the door. She hadn’t known she’d been so tense the whole while, and was sure to be stiff for it in the morning. But instead of turning over and finally getting to sleep herself, she found herself following behind the baron. Not immediately. She did not want to come face-to-face with him after that nerve-racking ordeal. Yet slowly she passed through the dressing room and into the bathroom, then stood at the door there that connected to his room, with her ear pressed to it.

Ten minutes passed, twenty. Her ear was starting to ache. The room was cold, too far away from the fireplace in the other room to have caught any of its warmth, the portable brazier in the corner unlit. Shivers were already passing down her spine in continuous trips. And then she did what would very likely be the most stupid thing she had ever done or ever would do. She opened his door.

She told herself she just wanted to be assured that he had gone to bed, that he wasn’t coming back. Yet when she saw him lying there in his big bed, she was drawn forward despite better sense that warned her not to.

She was mesmerized. There was enough light from the fire he had restoked to see him clearly. His room was warm as well, which was why she didn’t leave immediately. At least that was the excuse she gave herself for standing there at the foot of his bed, staring at him. That his chest was bare, even of a blanket, had nothing to do with it.

It was such a wide chest. Lightly sprinkled with hair, though because the hair was as pitch black as that on his head, it seemed a much thicker mat. He really did have the body of a man who enjoyed athletic endeavors quite often. His upper arms were as thick as small tree trunks; even his neck was thickly corded.