It was the passion in her voice that had him looking at her again. Her eyes were wide and dry, but the emotion almost leapt from them. To protect his family, he thought as he tightened his hand on the handle of the stiletto. To protect herself. As suddenly as he’d fallen in love, he realized the full truth. Whatever she did, whatever she used didn’t matter, as long as she kept herself safe.

He pressed the release and sent the blade back home. And he would see to that himself. After setting the knife aside, he reached over to unsnap the strap from her thigh. Her skin had gone cold, he discovered, though the room was warm. It stirred something in him that he recognized again as a need to protect. She didn’t move, didn’t speak and flinched only slightly when he rose. She was waiting for him to reject her, to dismiss her, to leave her.

He felt both her surprise and her doubt as he gathered her up into his arms. “You should trust me more, Hannah,” he said quietly.

When she relaxed against him, when she let her head rest on his shoulder, he carried her to bed.

Chapter 12

The package was delivered in the most pedestrian of ways. It was carried by Dartmouth Shippers, one of Deboque’s less profitable but most useful tentacles. It was marked with the return address of Hannah’s aunt in England and stamped FRAGILE.

The only difficulty came from the fact that Eve was present when it was delivered.

“Oh, what fun!” Eve hovered around the package. “It’s a Christmas present, isn’t it? Why don’t you open it?”

“It isn’t Christmas,” Hannah said mildly, and set the package on the shelf in her closet. She would turn it over to Reeve at the first opportunity.

“Hannah, how can you be so casual about it?” With nerves just below the surface, Eve poked around the room. “Didn’t you ever search under beds and in closets for packages at this time of year?”

“No.” Hannah smiled and went back to arranging the flowers Eve had brought her. “I never wanted to spoil Christmas morning.”

“It doesn’t spoil it, it only adds to the excitement.” Eve glanced back at the closet. “Couldn’t we just peek?”

“Absolutely not, though I can tell you the package probably contains five dozen homemade cookies—as hard as bricks. Aunt Honoria is nothing if not predictable.”

“It doesn’t feel like Christmas.” Moody, Eve wandered to the window. She laid one hand protectively over the swell of her belly and fidgeted nervously at the curtain with the other. “The ballroom’s being scrubbed and polished for the holiday, the tree’s already trimmed. If I walk by the kitchens there are the most glorious scents, but it just doesn’t feel like Christmas.”

“Are you homesick, Eve?”