His treatments sound sensible to me, and he’s had a high success rate-” “Why don’t you want me to go, Kev?” she asked gently. She went to close the door herself, while he moved away as if any contact between them would prove fatal.
Color had risen in his tanned face, and his black eyes glittered with emotion he would never allow himself to express. They needed privacy for the conversation they were about to have. Win struggled to remain outwardly calm, even as a hot-and-cold chill went down her spine.
“Don’t go,” he said, so softly she almost didn’t hear him. Because until that day came, she could never have Kev. She would have done anything to be cured. His treatments were unorthodox, controversial, but Win didn’t care. She was departing this day for a French clinic, where a dynamic young doctor, Julian Harrow, had achieved remarkable results for patients just like herself. With her health in such a poor state, there was no possibility of doing any of those things. She wanted the freedom to love … to marry … and to have her own family someday. To dance, laugh, walk through the countryside. She longed to get well, to enjoy the things most people took for granted. A lifetime of bed rest followed by early death. She was thin and frail and given to fainting spells and fatigue. She had been an invalid ever since she’d had scarlet fever two years earlier. The thought of leaving him was breaking her heart.
She knew what lurked beneath his stillness, because she felt the same undertow of yearning. As Win tucked the objects into the leather bag, she was intensely aware of Kev’s motionless form. A hairbrush, a rack of pins, a handful of handkerchiefs her sister Poppy had embroidered for her. He came to Win’s bedroom and stood at the threshold to watch as she packed a valise with personal articles from the top of her dresser. They had known each other since childhood, when he’d been taken in by her family. The irises of his eyes were so dark they were barely distinguishable from the pupil, and his mouth was set with a perpetually brooding curve Win found irresistible. His hair was as black as a raven’s wing, his brows strong and straight. He was a large, striking man, uncompromising in every angle. Win had always thought Kev Merripen was beautiful, in the way an austere landscape or a wintry day could be beautiful.
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