“You fell asleep!”
Seth’s eyes shot open. Vicious instinct slammed into him.
Oh fuck.
Vaulting himself out of the bed, his feet landed hard on the cold ground and he scrambled for his clothing.He hopped from one foot tothe other, donning his trousers. One by one, he snatched articles of clothing from the floor. As he bent to pick up his shirt, Seth noticed the washcloth on the floor, tinged red with her blood and hepanicked.
“You need to get dressed.Now.”
Cassandra pulled her nightgown over her head, her shaking fingers fumbled with the buttons. Tangled hair, lips kiss-swollen—and was that alove markon herneck? Shrugging into her dressing gown, she bounded to the clock.
“What time is it?!” he asked, his voice crazed and pitched.
His heart dropped into his stomach as she read aloud, “Six o’clock!”
Half-tripping over one of his boots, he slid into them barefoot. Where were his stockings? He snatched his jacket off the floor next to the door, and over the thunderous beating of his heart, he heard a fainttap-tap-tap-tap.
Footsteps.
Cooper.
Every nerve alive, Seth readied himself.
Focus.
A series of raps against the door.
“Cassandra, are you awake?”
Another knock.
“I’m dressing!” Cassandra squeaked. Seth glared at her and brought his finger up to his lips.
“Make haste! We need to leave!” An exasperated sigh. “I’ll wait in Reeves’ bedchamber.”
His footsteps echoed in the space between their rooms like a death sentence. Cooper knocked and Seth’s unlocked door creaked open.
“I left a note,” Cassandra whispered frantically.
“Youwhat?!” Seth hissed.
“Under your door!”
In his life, there had been more than a few instances where Seththought he was going to die. The first time that he had ever seen a battlefield, a grenade exploded dangerously close to him. Shrapnel pierced his skin and left him scarred across his shoulder, but he hadn’t died. During the Siege of Gaeta, a round narrowly missed his lung and any major arteries. It hurt like hell, but he still hadn’t died. Nor did he die in the fire, and he waspositivehe would. When infection struck days later, fever and agony racked his body and mind, he prayed for death and was denied.
Now, only a door stood between him and Matthew Cooper, Viscount Lincolnshire, elder brother to the unmarried, clearly debauched woman alone in a bedchamber with him.
Seth would certainly die today.
“Reeves?” Cooper called out, andby Godthe wallswerethin. “It’s rare that I greet the day before you…” he trailed off. “What is…?” A crinkling of parchment. A suffocating pause. “You havegot to be—”
His bedchamber door slammed shut. Cassandra jumped and gasped.
Seth took a deep breath that would likely be his last.
“Cassandra.” Cooper’s voice grated through the door. Slow and controlled in a tone that Seth had never heard before. “Open the door.”
Cooper waited five seconds and pounded his fist on the door.