“I hope your husband will make a recovery, Your Grace.” The officer tipped his hat to her. “Good day.”
She nodded, though she hardly noticed when he walked away. She turned back to her window and stared out at the garden without seeing it, either.
“Serafina?”
She jolted at the sudden touch of a hand on her elbow and turned to find her father at her side. She sucked in a breath. “I’m sorry, Father, but I cannot hear haranguing at present.”
His eyes flashed down, as if with guilt. “No. No, that isn’t my intention. I wanted to say—to say that I am sorry.”
She blinked. “Sorry?”
“I am the one who pushed you toward Cyril and into the path of his mother. I only wanted to give you a better life.”
“You wanted to give yourself a better life.”
He hesitated, but did not snap at her as he might have a day before. He only sighed. “Yes. I wanted to further my own desires. But I am truly sorry that it has ended this way.”
She jerked her gaze to him. “Ended. It is not ended.”
He caught her hand, and she stared down at their intertwined fingers. It was the first time she realized her gown was still covered in blood. Rafe’s blood.
She could hardly breathe as she extracted her hand. “He will live,” she said firmly.
Her father nodded. “I’m certain you are correct.”
He moved away from her, and now it was Crispin who walked up to take his place.
“You should go up to change,” he said softly. “Your maid is ready to help you wash and—”
“I can’t be in a state of undress,” she whispered, “where I can’t go to him in a moment’s notice.”
Crispin tilted his head as he looked at her. “You love my brother.”
She nodded, but now the tears sprung to her eyes. “Do you think he knows? Do you think he heard me tell him?”
Crispin swallowed, and she saw his tears sparkle in his eyes too. “I hope so. It would give him a reason to fight.”
They stared at each other, silent in their grief and support, until they were interrupted by the sound of a clearing throat at the door. When Serafina saw it was the doctor, she rushed forward with a cry.
“What is it?” she asked, trying to read his expression but unable.
“I have stitched his head wound. As for his shoulder, we are lucky that the bullet went straight through and did not damage his bones,” the man said.
“But will he live?” she asked, holding her breath.
He nodded. “Yes.”
She heard nothing more, leaving the rest of the family behind as she bolted up the stairs and down the hall to the bedroom they had shared for over a month. The door was open and she all but bowled over Rafe’s valet as she skidded inside. The servant smiled weakly and then left, closing the door behind him.
Rafe was propped up on his pillows, eyes shut. He was no longer in his bloody clothes, but was bare-chested with the sheet pulled up to cover his stomach. His shoulder was bandaged and his arm pressed against his chest in a sling.
“Are you going to stand there all day or come and sit with me?” he asked.
She jolted at his voice, for she had thought him still unconscious. But the sound of it was like music to her ears, and she rushed to him as he opened his blue eyes and smiled at her.
The smile fell when he saw her gown. “Were you injured?” he asked, sitting up and then wincing.
She touched his hand and urged him back. “No, no, the blood is yours. I didn’t want to clean up for fear the doctor would have news before I had changed and I would not get to—to—”
She broke off as the tears she had been holding back began to stream down her face.
He pulled her to the bed beside him and wrapped his good arm around her. “Shhh, shhh, love. I’m fine. I will be fine. Though maybe a little scarred.”
She looked at the stitches on his head with a frown. “I’ve heard some ladies find a scar rakish,” she managed to quip.
He smiled. “Do you?”
“On you? Most definitely.” She couldn’t believe she was laughing with him when they had both nearly been murdered just a few hours before.
“Then I will wear it with pride,” he said. After a moment, his laughter faded. “You saved my life. By telling my aunt how much you truly hated her son.”
She nodded. “At least I got to share that fact before she left this earth. And it made her turn the gun away from you. But you saved me too. Grabbing her ankle made her misfire.”
He stroked her cheek. “You said something else to her too, Serafina. Even through my fog, I heard it. You said you were with child. Is that true?”
She looked up at him and once again was hit with a pang of longing to make what had been a lie into an utter truth.
“No,” she whispered. “At least, not that I know of. I only wanted her to turn her hate away from you. I would have said or done anything to save you.”
“Including sacrifice yourself,” he said, his face falling. “Even though I told you to run away.”
“Would you have run and left me if our roles were reversed?”
He smiled. “No. But we are different, you see. I love you, Serafina, and for you, I would die.”
“You very nearly did,” she said with a shudder. “But we are not so very different.”
She felt him tense against her, though the smooth stroke of his hand over her cheek did not change. “Aren’t we?” he said, his voice strained with hope and fear.
She sat up and looked at him straight on. “Are you saying you didn’t hear what I said to you after you collapsed the second time?”
He shook his head. “It was only blackness once I knew you were safe.”
She leaned in, nearly kissing him but not quite. She held his gaze solidly as she said, “I begged you not to leave me, Rafe. I told you I loved you.”
He tilted his head, edging even closer than she was. She felt his breath on her skin, felt his warmth and his life. Having been so close to losing him, she reveled in his nearness.
“Did you mean it?” he murmured.
She cupped his cheeks gently and met his eyes. “I meant every word, Raphael Flynn. I love you with all my heart, and it thrills me and terrifies me. But since I almost lost you already, I cannot bear to think of losing you again. I would rather tell you my heart and hope that you will keep it safe than resist what you have already offered me and live in isolation from you.”
His gaze lit up, filled with the love he had already declared and with the promise of everything she had ever desired and thought she would live without. She saw in his eyes the children they would have, the home they would make, the laughter they would share, the passion that would stoke them on for years to come, decades. She saw it all, and she could no longer resist leaning in for the kiss they had been teasing about.
His good arm came around her, holding her close as their mouths tangled in a desperate meeting that spoke of fear and desperation and of love, always love.
When they broke apart, she smiled as she traced the lines of his face with her fingertips once more.
“Well, that is resolved,” she said.
He laughed. “What is resolved?”
“We love each other and we shall be happy together—I hope in this house rather than the ducal home—for the rest of our days.”
He settled back on the pillows with a great sigh. “Yes, that is resolved.”
“Then we should likely allow your family in. I know they have been as terrified as I have been as we awaited the doctor. I have no doubt they are huddled about your door waiting to have their turn to see you are whole and unharmed.”
He caught her elbow and pulled her down across his body. His fingers threaded into her hair and just before he kissed her again, he whispered, “Let them wait just a moment longer, Sera. Let them wait.”
And he kissed her.
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Epilogue
Six months later<
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Rafe strode into the parlor and grinned at the sight of Serafina reading on the settee, feet tucked beneath her. Every time he walked into this vision, it thrilled him beyond reason.
She glanced up with the smile that lit up his life on a daily basis and moved to get up, but he crossed to her and sat down to keep her in her spot.
“You are to be resting,” he said with a playfully stern glare as he placed a hand over the slight swell of her belly.
At four months, she had just begun to show her condition, and now that he could see true evidence of the baby inside her, he wanted to dote on her in a way that would have made his old, rakish self roll his eyes.
She smiled as he brushed a brief kiss over her lips. “I’m fine. You fret like a mother hen.”
He laughed. “I will show you I’m nothing like a mother hen.”
“Cock of the walk is more like it,” she said through her own laughter.
He arched a brow. “Saucy wench.”
“So what did your sister want to see you about?”
He leaned forward and poured himself some tea and grabbed a biscuit from her plate. She arched a brow at him, but said nothing as he wolfed down half in one bite. “Annabelle has announced she would like a Season.”
“A Season, as in, with us as chaperone?” she asked, blinking in disbelief at him.
He laughed. “With me as chaperone. You will be round and ready to pop by then.”
“I’m not sure she’ll get much help from either of us,” Serafina said. “The ton still buzzes about your aunt’s attack and subsequent death. We are a scandal of epic proportions.”
He lifted his brows. “True or not, that has not slowed the invitations made to us. Annabelle knows from experience that this family tends to live in a constant state of notoriety, so I suppose she believes the sooner, the better—before Crispin decides to publicly declare his love for a horse or Mama takes up walking the boards.”
“I think your mother would be a fine actress,” Serafina teased.
He smiled again. The past six months together had seemed to put all her fears at ease. And he was more in love with her than he had ever been. A fact he put into practice by settling his plate aside and slowing easing himself over her.
She wrapped her arms around him without hesitation and smiled up at him. He saw her gaze linger on the scar on his forehead, but she didn’t shudder as she had for so many weeks after the attack that had nearly killed them both.
“What about you?” he whispered.
“As an actress?” she teased softly. “Oh no, I never have to act anymore, Your Grace. My feelings are perfectly true.”
“And they are?” he pressed.
She drew him down, closer and closer until her lips brushed his. “That I love you more than anything. And I would like to show you just how much this very moment.”
He said nothing more. He required nothing more. He merely melted into her kiss and showed her how much her love was appreciated and returned.
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Take a Sneak Peek at The Scoundrel’s Lover
Book 2 of the Notorious Flynns:
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Chapter One
April 1814
The rain slid down the windowpane like tears down a woman’s face and Annabelle Flynn turned away with a shudder. She didn’t want to think about weeping at present. She didn’t want to think about heartbreak or failure or humiliation, either. Not on the eve of her first Season in the highest of Society. Instead, she smiled at her brother Rafe and his wife of less than a year, Serafina.
It was hard not to smile at them, standing across the room, heads close together, her once-rakish brother’s hand resting protectively on the swell of his wife’s pregnant belly as they waited for their son or daughter to kick again. They were the picture of domestic bliss and true, passionate love.
Things Annabelle didn’t want, nor expect, as she prepared herself to wade into the deep waters of the ton.
“Serafina, do you have any advice for tomorrow’s ball?” she asked.
Her sister-in-law blushed as she looked up from her belly. But it was her brother who laughed.
“You do not ask me?” he teased as he managed to remove himself from his wife’s side. “The duke? Your chaperone?”
Annabelle rolled her eyes. “Your title is only good to gain entre, my dear brother. But you’ve not yet been a duke for a year, so what would you know?”
He staggered back, gripping his chest with both hands as if he had been shot. Annabelle saw Serafina flinch a little at his playful act. Her brother had been shot not long ago and his wife still thought of that day, as she had told Annabelle time and again.
“You wound me,” he teased. Then he shrugged and walked to the sideboard to fetch a glass of port. “But you are correct. My wife is certainly the better guide for you.”
Serafina moved toward Annabelle, taking her hands gently. Annabelle smiled. She had grown deeply fond of Rafe’s wife over the months. They had become friends and sisters of the heart, as well as marriage. It was a lucky thing, no doubt, as Annabelle had many friends who despised the mates of their siblings.
“You and I have gone over the rules and expectations so many times since you announced your interest in a Season, you know them like your own hand,” Serafina reassured her. “Be your lovely self beyond those rules and no one could dare do anything but adore you.”
Annabelle kept a smile plastered to her face, but inside her heart sank. Be herself. Oh no. That was the very last thing she would ever be. The last thing she would show anyone.
Herself was a very dangerous creature, indeed. One best kept hidden.
“I do wish you could be there,” she sighed.
Serafina touched her belly again. “I show too much or I would.” She smiled at Rafe. “But your brother has been reminded time and again to be on his best behavior. And you have become friends with Lady Georgina. She won’t steer you wrong.”
Annabelle nodded. She had met Georgina at one of Serafina’s gatherings a few months ago. Although a few years younger than Annabelle, the daughter of the Marquis of Willowbath was well versed in everything Society. They had become friends of a sort.
So she would not be alone. Even though it sometimes felt very much that way.
Annabelle shook off her thoughts when she caught Serafina watching her closely. It would not do to worry her sister-in-law.
“Mother was very sorry she couldn’t make it with me tonight,” she said as a way to change the subject. “She has not been sleeping well and she is overly tired.”
Rafe’s smile fell at that statement. “Yes, she looked tired the last time we called. What keeps her up?”
Annabelle arched a brow. “Would you like to hazard a guess?”
Rafe let out a long breath. “Crispin?”
She nodded slowly. “Our brother’s troubles seem to mount each day. I have never seen him so wild.”
Serafina dipped her head. “Since we married, he does seem to struggle.”
Rafe turned on his wife and shook his head. “Crispin’s decisions are his own, do not take responsibility for them, my love.”
“It’s true,” Annabelle tried to reassure her as she reached out to squeeze her hand. “Our brother has been adrift for some time, you and your marriage did not change that.”
“Only magnified it,” Serafina said softly.
Rafe shrugged. “He will overcome it, he always has.”
Annabelle tensed. That was what Rafe had been saying for months, and yet she didn’t feel that Crispin was overcoming anything.
“How can we help him? What should we do?” Annabelle asked.
Rafe arched a brow at her. “There is nothing we can do. If Crispin wants to wreck himself, all we can do is wait for him to come to his senses.”
He paced away and Annabelle’s shoulders rolled forward. She’d had this conversation with Rafe, Serafina and her mother enough times that she knew her brother wouldn’t change his thoughts. He had alw
ays been so close to Crispin that Annabelle feared Rafe might be blind to the truth.
That their brother was spiraling out of control, to his detriment, but also potentially to her own. Their family’s tenuous inroad into societal acceptance was predicated on Rafe’s newfound title, inherited the year before from their rotten cousin.
But Annabelle’s chance at a good match and a calm and ordinary future hinged on behavior as well as rank. Both her brothers had endangered her standing before and Crispin might do so again if his antics grew too out of control.
She didn’t want to see either of them hurt by his current woes.
Serafina wrapped an arm around her and drew her back to the present.
“Will you stay with us tonight?”
Annabelle smiled. It had become a common occurrence for her to sleep at Rafe and Serafina’s, chatting half the night and enjoying long mornings at Serafina’s side.
“Of course,” she said with a smile. “I have heard from Rafe that you are finished now with the nursery.”
Serafina’s face lit up and her beauty, which had always been at the highest level, was almost too much to look at. “We have.”
“Well, I would love to see it,” Annabelle said as she took her sister-in-law’s arm and hugged her.
“Come then,” Serafina said as she led her from the room with Rafe at their heels. “I would love your opinion on the colors.”
But as Annabelle smiled and nodded at Serafina’s joyful descriptions of her future child’s future chamber, she couldn’t help but have her thoughts wander again. And again they landed on deep and abiding fears that her Season’s debut would be nothing but a failure and her future would be destroyed in one broad brushstroke…
Coming March 2015
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Other Books by Jess Michaels
The NotorioUS Flynns
The Scoundrel’s Lover (Book 2 – March 2015)
The Widow Wager (Book 3 – 2015)
The Other Duke Page 22