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None of theulp of acrid, powder-tinged air With the burden of dread lifted, her curiosity took the fore Intrigued, she picked her way down the bank of heather until she stood on the narrow, rutted road In the distance, the figures of theher broith one hand, she peered hard at theto make out their identities One of the men wore an officer’s coat Another wore no coat at all As she approached theor Shouts carried up to her on the breeze Frowning, Susannato better hear the words

"Wait! Miss, don’t!"

Whoht off her feet and sla her off the lane entirely She plowed shoulder-first into the tall grass, tackled to the turf by so lobster-red wool

Together, they bounced away fro the blows Susanna’s teeth rattled in her skull, and she bit her tongue hard Fabric ripped, and cool air reached farther up her thigh than any well-ht to venture

When they rolled to a stop, she found herself pinned by a treaze

"Wh--?" Her breath rushed out in question

Boo into the protection of what she’d recognized to be an officer’s coat The knob of a brass button pressed into her cheek Theshield as a shower of dirt clods rained down on theunpowder

After the dust cleared, she brushed the hair frons of confusion or pain His eyes were alert and intelligent, and still that startling shade of green--as hard and richly hued as jade

She asked, "Are you well?"

"Yes" His voice was a deep rasp "Are you?"

She nodded, expecting hins of ravely injured or seriously impertinent "Sir, you’reer, you’re rather heavy" Surely he could not fail to miss that hint

He replied, "You’re soft"

Good Lord Who was this man? Where had he come from? And hoas he still atop her?

"You have a sers, she brushed a reddish knot high on his temple, near his hairline "Here" She pressed her hand to his throat, feeling for his pulse She found it, thuertips

"Ah That’s nice"

Her face blazed with heat "Are you seeing double?"

"Perhaps I see two lips, two eyes, two flushed cheeksa thousand freckles"

She stared at hiaze darkened with so a little kiss won’t mend"

And before she could even catch her breath, he pressed his lips to hers

A kiss Hishers It arm and firm, and thenit was over

Her first real kiss in all her five-and-twenty years, and it was finished in a heartbeat Just a memory now, save for the faint bite of whiskey on her lips And the heat She still tasted his scorching, masculine heat Belatedly, she closed her eyes

"There, now," he murmured "All better"

Better? Worse? The darkness behind her eyelids held no answers, so she opened the man held her in his protective ereen stare, and his kiss reverberated in her bones with more force than a powder blast And now she felt different

The heat and weight of himthey were like an answer The answer to a question Susanna hadn’t even been aware her body was asking So this was hoould be, to lie beneath ain so between two bodies; dueling heartbeats pounding both sides of the same drum

Maybejustto feel all her life Not swept her off her feet--but flung across the lane and sent tu head over heels while the world exploded around her

He rolled onto his side, giving her room to breathe "Where did you coled up on one elbow "Who are you? What on earth are you doing here?"

"Isn’t it obvious?" His tone was grave "We’re bo the sheep"

"Oh Oh dear Of course you are" Inside her, empathy twined with despair Of course, he was cracked in the head One of those poor soldiers addled by war She ought to have known it No sane man had ever looked at her this way

She pushed aside her disappointht place And landed on the right wo head wounds than fielding gentle of hiard him as a person who needed her help An unattractive, poxy, eunuch sort of person

Reaching out to hihtened," she said in a cal to be just fine" She cupped his cheek and aze directly "The sheep can’t hurt you here"

Two

"You’re going to be just fine," she repeated

Bra damned fine indeed He had a road cleared of sheep, a functioning leg, and a fetching younghis brow Why the devil should he coht he was a blithering idiot But that was ahis wits

In thosethe blast, his first, adht had been for his knee He was alain, ith that ungainly rescue atteirl off the road withto the side of the lane and not down the hill with the others, or he never could have reached her in time