Williams had taken one look at her face and, despite the lateness of the hour, told her where she could find her guardian. Without even considering whether or not he would welcome the intrusion, she opened the door of the library and stepped inside.
Ian was asleep in the same wing chair where she had been drawn against the night, and a low fire burned in the grate, the only light in the room. She stood unmoving for a long time, watching it play across his face.
His hair, tousled as if he had run his fingers through it, it was touched with gold by the subtle firelight. It emphasized the slight hollows in his lean cheeks and the dark shadows that lay beneath the long lashes. And the bone structure that underlay those beloved features was too pronounced, more so than it had been on the day she first saw him at Fenton school. All indicators of the reality behind the facade of her health and vigour her guardian outwardly maintained.
