Hannah swatted at the muzzle of his gun and turned it away from Sarah. “Are you mad? Then we get nothing except a price on our heads. Let’s take her and go.”
He shook his head. “Even if we load up the rig now, they’re gonna make chase. I’m not goin’ back to that cell, Hannah. Not even for you. We kill her and it slows ’em down. We can escape. Get on a boat, go to America like you always wanted.”
“Please don’t,” Sarah pleaded. “Please don’t do this. Think of the consequences to Phoebe. Think of them to yourselves. You aren’t murderers.”
Tooney turned the gun back on her. “I am.”
“No,” Sarah whispered as she looked at Hannah for help. For something. The woman stared back, unreadable, unmovable, and Sarah knew that she would die here.
She braced herself, closing her eyes and thinking of her mother. She’d seen her in her vision when she drowned. She would see her again soon. And she thought of Kit. Loving him, loving Phoebe—she would never regret that, despite what was about to happen.
There was a blast of a gun firing and she tensed, but there was no pain that roared through her. She opened her eyes and found Tooney now lying dead on the ground and Hannah standing over him, smoke curling out of the barrel of her gun.
“I’m the brains, you overgrown bully,” she muttered. She turned to Sarah, and Sarah flinched again. Hannah swallowed hard and then said, “You tell the duke that I’m going to America. You hear? He doesn’t need to chase me—I won’t be back. I come back now and I hang.”
Sarah’s lips parted as she stared at the woman she saw as a monster. The same one who had just been her savior. “Why?” she whispered.
Hannah shrugged. “Because I may not want that girl, but I don’t want to hurt her. I never wanted to hurt her. Tell her that maybe, when she’s grown enough to know. Now I’ve got to run.”
She did so then, sprinting into the woods. As soon as she was gone, Sarah began to scream, hoping her voice would bring the men to her.
The echo of a gun firing brought Kit up short on the path they were following. His chest hurt like he’d been the one shot, and he stared at Lucas, unable to speak, unable to move, unable to think anything but one word: Sarah. It echoed in every part of him, vibrated to his very soul.
“We don’t know,” Lucas said.
And then the most beautiful sound he had ever heard in this world echoed from the same direction as the gunfire. Sarah’s voice, strong and clear, crying out his name. “Kit! Please! Kit!”
Kit shoved past Lucas, not caring that his friend was the only one of them armed, not caring that he was trained. All Kit cared about was getting to Sarah. She was all that mattered. All that would ever matter for the rest of his days. It was her, it was him, it was them and the family they would create with Phoebe and their own children.
And that was what drove him the last few feet, out of the trees and into the clearing. Kit saw her and it was like his world had light again. Sarah was sitting in the middle of the clearing, hands bound behind her back. A huge brute of man lay just a few feet away, blood pooling beneath his head.
As Kit rushed to her, Lucas ran to the man, checking his pulse and then shaking his head. “Dead.”
Kit was untying Sarah’s bindings, his hands shaking so hard he could hardly do it. She was weeping now, tears streaming down her face, and as soon as her hands were free, she gripped his cheeks, his shoulders, his arms, like she was testing if he was whole.
“I love you, I love you,” she whispered. “Phoebe?”
“Is fine,” he said. “She’s unharmed and with Diana.”
“Was there another assailant?” Lucas asked, gun still drawn.
“It was Hannah Beckett,” Sarah said, looking away from Kit for the first time and at his friend. “She was behind it. She ran off less than five minutes ago. That way.”
She pointed to the edge of the clearing and Lucas sprinted forward, leaving them alone, at least for a moment. Kit had so much he wanted to say, to do, to reveal, but only one thing that mattered.
He caught her cheeks and kissed her, breathing in that she was alive, that she was whole, that she was his and he would never let her go again. She clung to him, returning the kiss with the same fearful fever he felt, and their tears mingled before he finally pulled away and stroked her face. She had a bruise beneath her eye, and as she removed her hands, he saw the raw marks the ropes had left on her wrists.
“He hurt you,” Kit whispered.
“A little,” she admitted. “But not as badly as he wanted to. She…she stopped him.”
He drew back in surprise. “Hannah stopped him?”
“She’s the one who shot him, when he threatened to kill me in order to slow your chase.”
He rocked back, collapsing on his backside beside her. “My God, I’m sorry, Sarah. I didn’t know she was capable of so much.”
“There was no way to know,” Sarah soothed him gently. “She wanted us to think she’d left the village, just so we would let our guards down and she could snatch Phoebe.”
His heart felt sick and he bowed his head. Before he could say anything more, Lucas came back into the clearing, his gun put away and his face long and frustrated.
“She’s gone,” he said. “There was a rig on the ridge that she left behind, but she took one of the mounts. I’ll never catch up to her on foot. Did she give any indication as to where she’d go?”
“She said America,” Sarah said as Kit rose and helped her to her feet. “She wanted Kit to know, wanted him to let her go and told me she’d never come back now that she’ll have a price on her head for kidnapping and murder.”
Kit turned away with a groan. “That woman. She is…a demon.” Lucas sent him a hard look, and Kit turned back to Sarah. “But she saved you. Come, are you up to walking back to the house? We’ll likely meet the rescue party Diana is putting together along the way, and we can ride back from there.”
Sarah let out her breath in a ragged sigh. “Yes,” she said. “I’m ready to go home.”
Kit took her arm, and they followed as Lucas led them back through the woods toward the main path. He felt Sarah’s trembling as he helped her through the brambles. And he also felt her uncertainty. But now was not the time for confession. No, he wanted to do that when they were alone and he could truly reveal his heart to her. And hope she would accept what he had to say now that the danger had passed.
Diana stepped into the little room Sarah had been keeping as governess and smiled at her. “Phoebe is asleep?”
Sarah nodded. “At last. It took a great deal to calm her. We will have to be extra attentive for a while. But she’s such a sweet child, with so much love. Strange that her mother has so little.”
“Just enough,” Diana said with a solemn glance at the bandages around Sarah’s wrists and what she knew was a terrible bruise on her face. “Did the salve help at all?”
Sarah lifted her hand to the spot. “Yes, the pain is much better, thank you.”
“I’ll stay until the bandages no longer need changing,” Diana said. “Lucas has already written to have the docks and ports watched for that dreadful Beckett woman.”
“But we both know she’ll be long gone before anyone can do that,” Sarah sighed.
Diana shrugged. “If she truly means to exile herself to another continent, then I think you can feel safe.”
“I’m sure I will, with time.”
“And love,” Diana said. “I was sent here not just to check on you, but because Kit wants to see you.”
Sarah bent her head. She had been waiting for this moment. Dreading it, really, because she already knew what would happen. What she had to say to him and what his reaction would probably be.
But now the moment was here. She got up and trudged to the door. “Is he in his study?”
“No,” Diana said quietly. “He’s in his chamber. Our chamber, I believe is what he actually said to me, meaning yours and his.”
Heat filled Sarah’s cheeks and she peeked up at her friend. “So he still intends to marry me.”
“I would say so, if he’s calling his bedroom your chamber.” Diana smiled. “And yet you love him and you don’t look happy.”
“Obligation is not a great aphrodisiac, is it?”
“It’s more than that, and I think you know it. Maybe it frightens you a little.” Diana patted her cheek. “But that’s up to you and him to work out. I’m just the messenger. Good night, my dear. And good luck.”
She left and Sarah got up. She looked at herself in the narrow full-length mirror. She was bruised and a little battered, marked from her brush with danger. But Kit wanted to see her and there was no avoiding that.
No matter how long she wished to do so.
She stepped from her chamber and made the long walk down the hall to Kit’s room. Outside his door, she paused, gathering herself, and then she knocked. He answered it, his jacket, cravat and boots gone. His shirt was half undone and his normally impeccable hair mussed. He looked like Kit, not the Duke of Kingsacre, as he had that morning. He stepped back to allow her inside the chamber wordlessly. She noted the door to his bedroom was closed and her heart sank a little.
It might be that what she’d come to say would be received more with relief than an argument. And perhaps that was for the best.
Once he’d shut the door, he stepped up and looked closer at the damage to her face. “Oh, Sarah,” he whispered, his voice shaking.
She shook her head. “The bruises will fade. There is nothing permanent to any of it.”
“Except the memories,” he said. “Would you like a drink?”
She nodded. Liquid courage wasn’t the worst idea in truth. He handed over a scotch and she sipped it as he cleared his throat.
“That is the second time you have risked your life to save my sister,” he said softly.
She set the drink aside and worried her hands before her. “Well, I would do it ten more times. A hundred.”
He nodded. “I know you would.”
She took a long breath. “But Kit, that gratitude you feel, it is…it’s not a reason for us to marry.”
He drew back and his expression crumpled, so she rushed to continue before he could interrupt. “Kit, you asked me to be your wife because your sister was in danger. We both know Lucas’s reports will come back saying that Hannah boarded a ship, headed to America. I don’t like that any more than you do, but it solves your problem just the same. She won’t be able to hurt Phoebe. And so your reason for marrying me goes away.”
“That’s what you think?” he said softly.
“Yes,” she said, and heard the strain in her voice. The pain in it.
“You said you loved me,” he said. “When we found you in the clearing this afternoon.”
She flinched, for she hadn’t meant to bare her heart to him that way. Not in that moment. But she refused to deny it, either. “I-I do love you, Kit. I didn’t mean to fall in love. I tried not to, even. But I do. I love you, and that is a greater reason for us not to wed than any other.”
“Your loving me is a reason not to wed,” he said. “Explain that.”
She shook her head. “I could never hold you to a bargain you made under duress is one reason. That wouldn’t be love. And the second…”
She trailed off. Finding the courage for this was harder than she’d thought. Harder than jumping on the back of that behemoth who had threatened Phoebe, certainly.
“The second?” Kit encouraged gently.
“I know you don’t feel the way I do,” she said, ducking her head. “I realize you want me, but wanting fades. And I realize you may even like me, despite your previous thoughts on my character. But those are not love. And I think that I couldn’t be happy, at least not in the long term, knowing that you held my heart, but I couldn’t touch yours. It wouldn’t be fair to me, or to you, or to any children we had in the future.”
He nodded slowly, as if he were taking that in. “Yes, I agree,” he said at last.
The breath went out of her lungs at that statement. It hadn’t been cruelly said, but it felt like he’d reached into her chest and pulled her heart away.
“Then we have nothing else to say,” she said, turning to leave.
He reached out, pressing his palm flat against the door so she couldn’t depart the room. “I agree that if I didn’t return your feelings, then it would be best to part. A one-sided love would be desperate, indeed, and I would never ask someone to suffer it.”
“If?” she repeated, daring to look up at him. He was staring at her in a way she’d never seen before. Not just with desire, but with tenderness. Not just with gratitude, but with something deeper.
Something that called to her heart and made her cling to a wild hope even though she couldn’t dare have faith in it. Faith in him.
“Come with me,” he whispered. “Please.”
She swallowed as he motioned to that closed door in the distance. The one that would take her to his bed. She wanted so much to be there, but he still hadn’t told her how he felt. Still hadn’t given her anything beyond hope to cling to.
But he was a flame, she was a moth, and so when he offered his hand, she took it. He led her to the door, opened it and stepped aside to let her enter.
She caught her breath. His chamber was filled with flowers. So many flowers that she was overwhelmed by the heavenly scent wafting toward her.
“Kit?” she asked, glancing at him.
He smiled. “I picked you some flowers.”
“You picked the whole garden!” she gasped. “What in the world?”
“I started with yellow primrose, of course,” he said. “But as I gathered it I realized that it only represents part of you. That part that was connected to your mother and all you lost once, so long ago.”
Her eyes burned with tears, but she didn’t interrupt him.
“So I began to look for other flowers in my garden that represent you. Daisies mean loyalty, and you have so much of that you would die to protect those lucky enough to have earned your love,” he said.
She found the happy daisy in the magnificent bouquets.
“Hyacinth,” he continued, “for the playfulness you show with my sister. Lilies for your exquisite beauty. And of course, daffodils, because they represent a new beginning, which is what I desperately hope you will make with me tonight.”
She faced him, overwhelmed by the thought he had put into every flower that surrounded her. And by the patience he was displaying when she could see he wanted to kiss her. But it was more than a kiss in his stare. It was so much more.
“I have cocked this up,” he said with a shake of his head. “From the beginning to the end. I realize that. I was cowardly and even cruel in my dealings with you over the years. And then Meg said that perhaps I was jealous of what you were hoping to build with Simon and that blew my entire world apart.”
She stepped back in surprise. “You? Jealous of what I was trying to build with Simon? No, that cannot be true. You didn’t even notice me before that night.”
He gave a wry smile. “Ah, that is what I might have told you too. Before I found…this.”
He picked up a leather-bound book from the table beside the door and handed it over to her. She looked at it. “This looks like one of your father’s journals.”
“It is, in a way. But only of one subject. You and me.”
She opened it, and her eyes went wide as she read the words written in the duke’s hand. Stories of times Kit had mentioned her, for good or for bad, over years and years. Long before he caught her at her worst with Meg.
“I don’t understand.”
“When he died, one of the last things my father said to me was to let you be there for me.” Kit caught his breath. “And it’s because he already knew what I couldn’t see. That I love you, Sarah. I have loved you for a long time and put on blinders so the intensity of tha
t emotion wouldn’t hurt me. But I feel it, and I know it, and it’s true.”
She felt her mouth gaping, her eyelids blinking endlessly as she stared at Kit. Took in what he was saying. “Is this…real?” she asked.
“Very real,” he said, stepping forward and taking her hand. “Yesterday morning, before Hannah Beckett came and nearly blew our world apart, I was trying to ask you to marry me. It had nothing to do with protecting Phoebe. But I did it wrong because I still wasn’t willing to open myself fully. I am now.”
He dropped to his knees, and her heart lurched as she looked down into his utterly handsome and completely open face.
“Sarah Carlton, you are everything that my world needs in order to be complete. I would be lost without you. I love you and I want to make you happy every single day until my last breath leaves my lungs. I want to take care of you and let you do the same for me. I want you to raise my sister with me, and our own children, and help me become the duke you seem to think I’m capable of becoming. I want a life with you. A messy, unseemly, entirely wonderful life. Will you please do me the honor of looking past my many, many faults and marrying me?”
Sarah was shaking as she looked down into his eyes. Eyes that held her whole future in their warm, brown depths. And she had no more doubts, no more fears, and no more reason not to smile.
“Yes,” she said. “Oh yes, I will marry you, Kit.”
He moved to his feet, catching her in his arms as he did so. Their mouths met, passionate at first, gentling as he cradled her against him, and she felt the overwhelming sense of being…home. And realizing that her home had never been a place, but a feeling. With Kit it was safety and joy, pleasure and passion, and a faith that he would stand with her, and for her when she needed that.
Forever.
She parted from him at last, staring up at him with a smile that felt like it could crack her cheeks with joy. His expression was just as jubilant.
“Oh,” she sighed, loving how his fingers clenched along her spine. “I should go back to my room.”
The Last Duke (The 1797 Club Book 10) Page 21