This could be her one and only chance.
It was just a bit of touching, she told herself. Harmless. It wasn’t as though he could deflower her here, with a dozen handmaidens hiding nearby.
“Have you changed your mind?” he asked.
Oh Lord oh Lord oh Lord. “No.”
He muttered something that sounded like, “Thank God.” He gathered her skirts in one hand and hiked them to her waist with a single, expert motion.
Izzy reclined against the wall and stretched her arms overhead, feeling wanton and daring. As he ran his hands over her stockinged calf and up her thigh, she let her legs fall just slightly apart.
“Yes,” he groaned. “Open for me. Just like that. Lovely, lovely.”
Impossible, impossible.
That’s what Izzy would have thought about this entire scene just a fortnight ago. She felt like a pagan goddess in an ancient temple. Reclining against the ivy-covered wall of a ruined folly, being ravished in full morning light by a scarred, sensual duke.
This was beyond anything she’d ever dreamed. And Izzy had a vivid imagination. She reeled from the sheer joy of his touch and the exquisite wickedess of . . . of everything.
A new, throbbing pulse started to thrum between her legs. Hurry, it beat. Hurry, hurry.
His hand slid up her thigh, skipping over the garter and proceeding on to the smooth slope of her inner thigh.
“So soft.” He kissed her just above the knee. “Like satin.”
As his touch swept closer to her sex, the building crescendo of pleasure was unbearable.
Higher . . . higher . . . and a little higher still.
Until his thumb grazed her there.
“Oh.”
A rocket of bliss shot through her, racking her from toes to scalp. She clenched her fists, tugging on the ivy branches for support lest her quivering thighs give away.
A dusting of white grit showered down on them both.
Ransom looked up. “What was that?”
“Oh, dear. I think a bit of the wall is crumbling.” She released her grip on the ivy, but another few pebbles shook loose.
“Then come away from there.” He rose to his feet, letting her skirts fall back to the ground, and tucked her close to his chest.
Thunk. An apple-sized chunk of wall tumbled loose and hit him square on the head.
“Oh, goodness! Ransom!”
He cursed and recoiled, pressing the heel of his hand to the wound as he staggered backward to sit in the grass. Magnus circled him, whining.
Izzy rushed to kneel by his side. A fresh bump was already swelling, and a small patch of his skin was scraped raw. It was on the unscarred side of his brow. She didn’t know whether that made things better or worse.
It was almost funny when she considered it. She’d been rescued from ruination by . . . ruins.
She picked up her forgotten shawl and pressed the folded edge to his brow. “Are you all right? Are you dizzy? Look at me, and tell me how many—”
She bit off the absurd question. Of course he couldn’t tell how many fingers she was holding up.
Unless . . .
Unless he’d experienced some sudden cure. She’d heard it could happen. Soldiers blinded in battle, having their vision returned to them after one good knock on the head.
“Do you have all your usual faculties?” she asked cautiously.
He clenched his jaw. “My ears are ringing, and my head is a throbbing knot of pain. But I can’t see any more or less than I could ten minutes ago. If that’s your question.”
“Oh. Good. I mean, not good, of course. I just hope you’re not too hurt, that’s all.”
Izzy sighed. She was a horrible, horrible person. He told her he hadn’t experienced a miraculous restoration of his vision, and her first, instinctive reaction was relief? What kind of person would actually wish for a man’s continued blindness?
A plain kind of person. One who was enjoying feeling attractive for the first time in her life.
But that was no excuse.
In an attempt to atone for her selfishness, she brushed aside his overlong hair and began dabbing at the bloody scrape on his head.
He shied away. “You’re always fussing over me.”
“I’m not fussing,” she said. “I’m blotting. If you like, I can disparage you while I do it. How about this: Ungrateful man.”
“Bewitching she-devil.”
She smiled wryly. It would seem his personality was intact, and she was glad of it. No member of the Moranglian Army would ever call her “temptress” or “bewitching.” And coming from lips so finely formed, she didn’t even mind “she-devil.”
He took the wadded shawl from her grasp and applied to his own head. “First weasels, now stoning. Are you working from a list of archaic torture methods?”
“I must admit, you are bleeding through my supply of clean linen at an alarming rate.”
“My face is already a wreck. Another lump can only improve it.” He lowered the cloth. “How bad is it?”
She tested his bruise with her fingertips. “There’s a bit of a bump, but the swelling isn’t too awful.”
“No, not that.” He turned his head, giving her his profile—and a full view of his twisting scar. “The rest. How bad is it? Tell me honestly.”
Izzy fell quiet, stunned by his sudden earnestness. He was anxious about his looks?
“I can’t see it for myself,” he said. “I’ve wondered where I rank in the spectrum between flawed Adonis and ghastly horror. Clearly, I can’t judge by these silly chits’ reactions, addled as they are by your father’s writing. It will have to be you.”
Her heart twisted in her chest. How could he doubt himself? In full daylight, he was magnificent. His skin seemed to be bronzing by the moment, soaking up every bit of the day’s warmth. The sunlight caught the golden streaks in his hair—hair that was overlong, sprawling over his brow in a rakish fashion. She wondered now at the reason. Was it that he simply couldn’t be bothered to let Duncan cut it, or did he purposely grow it long to obscure his scarred face?
Reaching forward, she brushed the sweep of tawny hair from his brow. “Will you tell me how it happened?”
“I was struck. With something big and sharp.”
Izzy supposed that was what she deserved. Ask a straightforward question, receive a straightforward answer.
She traced the scar with her fingertip, all the way from his brow to his cheekbone, then let her touch linger on his unshaven cheek. How ironic that the blow had just missed his right eye but taken the sight from both.