Except maybe distance wasn’t always such a good thing.
“Phillip?” Eloise whispered, laying a hand on his arm. “Is something the matter?”
He stared at her, but he still felt blinded, and his eyes couldn’t seem to focus.
“I think you should go home,” she said, slowly and carefully. “You don’t look well.”
“I’m—” He meant to say I’m fine, but the words didn’t quite come out. Because he wasn’t fine, and he wasn’t good, and these days he wasn’t even sure what he was.
Eloise chewed on her lower lip, then hugged her arms to her chest and glanced up at the sky as a shadow passed over her.
Phillip followed her gaze, watched as a cloud slid over the sun, dropping the temperature of the air at least ten degrees. He looked at Eloise, his breath catching in his throat as she shivered.
Phillip felt colder than he ever had in his life. “You need to get inside,” he said, grabbing her arm and attempting to haul her up the hill.
“Phillip!” she yelped, stumbling along behind him. “I’m fine. Just a little chilled.”
He touched her skin. “You’re not just a little chilled, you’re bloody well freezing.” He yanked off his coat. “Put this on.”
Eloise didn’t argue, but she did say, “Truly, I’m fine. There is no need to run.”
The last word came out halfway strangled as he yanked her forward, nearly off her feet. “Phillip, stop,” she yelped. “Please, just let me walk.”
He halted so quickly that she stumbled, whirling around and hissing, “I will not be responsible for your freezing yourself into a lung fever.”
“But it’s May.”
“I don’t care if it’s bloody July. You will not remain in those wet clothes.”
“Of course not,” Eloise replied, trying to sound reasonable, since it was quite clear that argument was simply going to make him dig his heels in even further. “But there is no reason I cannot walk. It’s only ten minutes back to the house. I’m not going to die.”
She hadn’t thought that blood could literally drain from a person’s face, but she had no idea how else to describe the sudden blanching of his skin.
“Phillip?” she asked, growing alarmed. “What is wrong?”
For a moment she didn’t think he was going to answer, and then, almost as if he weren’t aware that he was making a noise, he whispered, “I don’t know.”
She touched his arm and gazed up at his face. He looked confused, almost dazed, as if he’d been dropped into a theatrical play and didn’t know his lines. His eyes were open, and they were on her, but she didn’t think he saw anything, just a memory of something that must have been very awful indeed.
Her heart broke for him. She knew bad memories, knew how they could squeeze a heart and haunt one’s dreams until one was afraid to blow out the candle.
Eloise had, at the age of seven, watched her father die, shrieked and sobbed as he’d gasped for air and collapsed to the ground, then beaten against his chest when he could no longer speak, begging him to wake up and say something.
It was obvious now that he’d already been dead by that point, but somehow that made the memory even worse.
But Eloise had managed to put that behind her. She didn’t know how—it was probably all due to her mother, who had come to her side every night and held her hand and told her it was all right to talk about her father. And it was all right to miss him.
Eloise still remembered, but it no longer haunted her, and she hadn’t had a nightmare in over a decade.
But Phillip . . . his was a different story. Whatever had happened to him in the past, it was still very much with him.
And unlike Eloise, he was facing it alone.
“Phillip,” she said, touching his cheek. He didn’t move, and if she hadn’t felt his breath on her fingers, she would have sworn he was a statue. She said his name again, stepping even closer.
She wanted to erase that shattered look from his eyes; she wanted to heal him.
She wanted to make him the person she knew he was, deep down in his heart.
She whispered his name one last time, offering him compassion and understanding and the promise of help, all in one single word. She hoped he heard; she hoped he listened.
And then, slowly, his hand covered hers. His skin was warm and rough, and he pressed her hand against his cheek, as if he were trying to sear her touch into his memory. Then he moved her hand to his mouth and kissed her palm, intensely, almost reverently, before sliding it down to his chest.
Across his beating heart.
“Phillip?” she whispered, question in her voice even though she knew what he intended to do.
His free hand found the small of her back, and he pulled her to him, slowly but surely, with a firmness she could not deny. And then he touched her chin and tilted her face to his, stopping only to whisper her name before capturing her mouth in a kiss that was blinding in its intensity. He was hungry, needy, and he kissed her as if he would die without her, as if she were his very food, his air, his body and soul.
It was the type of kiss a woman could never forget, the sort Eloise had never even dreamed possible.
He pulled her even closer, until the entire length of her body was pressed up against his. One of his hands traveled down her back to her bottom, cupping her, pulling her against him until she gasped at the intimacy of it.
“I need you,” he groaned, the words sounding as if they were ripped from his throat. His lips slid off her mouth to her cheek, then down her neck, teasing and tickling as they went.