Under His Protection

Chapter 2

Chapter Two

She was in danger, she had to run! She had to run as fast as she could! She awakened with her heart racing and scared. Not knowing why she was in danger, she tried to sit up to look around but couldn't. There wasn't a place on her body that didn't hurt, with her head and left side the worst. She wondered if she'd been in some sort of accident as her eyes tried to focus in the dim light on the strange bedchamber she was in, then on the strange man asleep in the chair beside her bed. Watching him sleeping peacefully seemed to erase all the fear she'd been feeling just a few moments ago.

He didn't look familiar making her wonder who he was and where she was.

What was he doing sleeping here?

What was she doing here? Here in this strange bedchamber.

Pondering the questions with no answers made the ache in her head worse.

The man was asleep in the chair with his chin resting on his chest his long dark lashes crescents on his cheeks. He certainly was a very good looking man with black as coal hair and a swarthy complexion, she thought as she scrutinized him. His black hair was wavy and of medium length, almost to his shoulders, a lock of it had fallen over his forehead. His handsome face showed the dark stubble of a day's growth of beard. She wondered what color his eyes were as she watched him sleeping. Captivated with his handsomeness she hated to awaken the strange man but she really needed some answers to her questions. She bit her lower lip as she pondered how to awaken him.

He must have felt her staring at him because as she debated about awaking him his eyes fluttered open and locked with hers. His eyes were hazel surrounded by his very long and thick black lashes. Most women would die for those lashes, she thought.

"You're awake," he said as his face lit up with a smile.

He had a very nice smile that went all the way to his eyes, she thought. His smile made her heart thud and her body warm. My, oh, my, he was certainly handsome.

She couldn't help but returned his wonderful smile.

Her smile almost took his breath away as he stared into two of the most beautiful emerald green eyes he'd ever seen.

"Yes." She smiled once more. "I woke a few minutes ago," she replied. "Where am I?"

Her voice was deeper then most women's, a sultry sensual sounding voice, a voice that seemed to vibrate through his body down to his toes then come back to settle in his groin.

"Ah...," he stammered, he never stammered, Oliver thought, before he could let her know her whereabouts, "you are at Wainwright Hall. I'm Oliver, Oliver Wainwright."

Nothing about his name or the name of the house was familiar to her at all but the name Oliver Wainwright seemed familiar but she just wasn't sure.

"Where is Wainwright Hall?" she asked him.

"Near Clun, in south Shropshire," Oliver replied still smiling. "Now please tell me who you are?"

"I'm..." Oliver saw her face change from smiling in an instant, her brows knitting together in a frown as his mysterious lady tried to remember her name. "I don't know what my name is," she replied after several long seconds of silence, frightened once more, she wondered why she could not remember her own name to tell Oliver Wainwright. "Why can't I remember who I am?" Oliver saw her eyes close and a tear leak from beneath her lashes to run down her cheek then her eyes opened once more. He could see the pain and confusion in her beautiful eyes now. "Why can't I remember?"