No smile, no frown on her face. Evan wasn’t sure what was going through her mind, but it was clear she no longer hovered in the land of apparitions and madness.
Unable to stand her emotionless stare, he stood from the cushion of the chair he’d crushed flat in the last day and night. “Good, as I need to have someone come in to get the clamp off your leg. He’s been waiting since this morning, but I didn’t want him disturbing your sleep.”
“My leg?” Her knee moved under the sheet. “The chain?”
He nodded. “I had to break one of those links to get you out of there. But the clamp is still around your ankle.”
“Who is here?”
“A friend of the stableboy.” Evan shrugged. “I’m no good at picking locks so I sent the stableboy to gather his cousin that specializes in such delicate maneuvers.”
The slightest smile came to her face and she tugged the sheet to the side, poking her ankle out from under the sheet and coverlet. “Bring him in.”
Evan retrieved the boy from the hallway where he’d been kicking his heels against the wall most of the day, then watched the boy pick at the lock in silence with a few shards of metal. Thirty seconds, and the lock sprang free. Impressive. The lad must have surely acquired a number of spoils during the years with that skill set.
Evan quickly pulled free the lock and removed the clamp from Juliet’s ankle. Her raw skin underneath the metal made his stomach flip.
The boy stood up from where he’d been kneeling by the side of the bed, grabbing his cap from the floor and pressing it onto his head. Evan pressed five guineas into his hand. Overpayment, but the lock was open and there was no limit to what he would have paid to get that hunk of metal off of Juliet’s leg.
He walked the boy to the door. “Thank you.”
“Happy to ’elp, mi’lord.”
“I trust your fingers won’t latch onto anything on the way out?”
The boy chuckled. “Well, not now that ye said so, mi’lord.”
With a slight shake of his head, Evan closed the door after the boy and turned back to Juliet. She’d shifted onto her side, bending at the waist so that she could rub at the raw skin about her ankle.
She glanced up at him. “Where are we?”
“My room in the Whetland townhouse in Edinburgh. It was the closest comfortable place to bring you.” He walked across the room to her, his hand going along the tall back of the chair he’d been sitting in. “Tell me again that Ness is safe so that I don’t need to worry on her.”
She nodded. “She is. She is with a trusted friend far from here.”
Evan stifled a sigh. Juliet wasn’t about to tell him where exactly Ness was. Which meant she didn’t trust him. Exactly what he deserved.
He glanced about him and his nose wrinkled. “The townhouse is mostly used by cousins that live in town and are attending university. So you’ll have to forgive us in that it has the odor of…men. Lots of men.”
The edges of her lips drifted upward. “Does it have archery grounds in the dining room?”
He chuckled. “No. But the cousins are not the most well-kept—they don’t care what they drag in on their boots from the streets.”
Her hand leaving her ankle, she straightened her body in the bed and pulled the sheet over her leg. “Well, I don’t smell anything. Nothing but your essence in this room.”
“A small favor, then. I’ll keep you in here until you are well.”
She pulled a pillow from the opposite side of the bed and sat up, her movements slow, like she’d aged a hundred years in that dark rathole. She propped the pillow behind her.
Settled, the coverlet tucked across her lap, she stared at him in silence for long breaths before she took a deep breath. “Evan, I’ll not let this hang between us, unspoken. Your brother—he is dead? I saw him fall, but I don’t…I don’t remember what happened next, no matter how I search my mind.”
He moved around the chair and then sank down onto it, leaning back, his look never leaving her. “He’s dead.”
Her eyes closed with a quick inhale. “Did you…”
“Gil jumped.” The words were gravel in his throat and he ran his fingers across his eyes. “He jumped with the words, ‘live with this brother,’ at his lips. Stared up at me the entire way down.”
She gasped, then exhaled a shaking breath, her head swinging back and forth as her eyes remained closed. “Even at that—he left this earth hurting you, Evan. That was all he was determined to do.” A spike of anger cut into her voice and her eyes flew open to him. “You know that, don’t you? That your brother—he was lying? That he only wanted to hurt you? Kill you, even. He was the one that had you—us—attacked in Bicester.”
“What?” His forehead furrowed as his hands flew up, palms to her. “No. I know he lied about finding you, what he did to you—but the attack on us in Bicester? He couldn’t have.”
“Except he did.” Her look pinned him. “His hatred of you was only eclipsed by your belief in him. You were a blinding light to his wretched darkness.” She leaned forward, reaching for his hand on the arm of the chair until she could grasp the back of it. Her hold on him was still weak. “He admitted to me that he sent the men after us—after you. He wanted to dispose of you. Have you killed.”
“No.” His hand under her fingers curled into a fist and a growl ripped through his throat. He stared up at the coved mahogany on the ceiling for several heartbeats.
His brother. His damn brother.
“I’m not believing you again.” The words whispered from his mouth and his look dropped to her. “I swore I would never do that again—not believe ye.”
He heaved a sigh. “But with Gil—it is instinct. I’ve spent my whole blasted life protecting him from every fist that flew his way, dousing every fire he left in his wake, making sure he got everything he ever wanted.” His fist lifted and slammed onto the arm of the chair.
Her hand flew up with the motion, but landed just as quickly on the top of his fist. “It doesn’t matter now. It doesn’t.” Her forehead tilted slightly down, her eyes steady on him. “But how did you know he was lying? How did you know to come for me?”
“I didn’t know—I certainly never imagined he’d stuffed ye into a pit of blackness. I only knew he wasn’t telling me the truth. Gilroy—early on he mentioned sending you back to London as quickly as possible. And then yesterday he mentioned how I got you from London—told me to gather up a new lass from there to replace you.”
“And?”
“And I never told him you were from London. There are scores of places I could have fished about for a fake fiancée. That woman—Mary—from the Den of Diablo, rode with Jasper and me in the carriage from London to the Willows. Her hair color was much like yours. Whoever Gil sent to follow me surely thought you were the same person.”
“So that was suspicious.”
“Aye. And Gil disappeared the morning after you left with Ness, so I assumed he went to try and find you. But he returned saying he couldn’t find the both of you. The whole of it sniffed so odd that I told him I was going to Edinburgh. He tried to steer me to London instead. Didn’t want me anywhere near Edinburgh.”
“So?”
“Gilroy never cared where I was as long as I was out of Whetland and out of his way. His sudden interest in my whereabouts—opinions on it—was enough for me to be leery. So I left Whetland, but then waited and followed him.”
She nodded, her hand tightening over his fist. “And he led you right to me.”
“Aye, but with a dagger at the ready in his hand.” His voice grave, his top lip pulled tight. “I knew the instant he disappeared into the vaults you were in trouble.”
The weight of that image, of Gilroy standing over Juliet, a blade aimed at her chest, crashed into him and suffocated him as surely as he’d been buried under a boulder.
He’d failed her. Failed her on so many levels.
His mouth opened for one second before he realized no words could possibly exp
lain how completely he’d failed her.
He yanked his fist from under her grasp and abruptly stood, moving to the door. It wasn’t until he had one foot in the hallway that he managed to cut a few spare words through the thick of his throat. “I need to fetch you more broth, food, a bath.”
He couldn’t look back at her.
{ Chapter 32 }
Food, along with a bath, and Juliet felt like she’d gained back not just a slice of her sanity, but almost the whole of it. The wounds between her breasts, around her ankle, and scraped along her face were reminders, but that was all. She was weak, but could reasonably move her limbs once more.
As comfortable as this room was, there wasn’t need to stay at Evan’s townhouse for more than the night. The maid that had helped her with her bath had already begun to mend the dress she’d been wearing and had found new stays and a longer chemise for her. She could be on her way to London on the morrow.
She’d always been efficient at moving on, moving forward, whether she wanted to or not.
Even if, in this instance, she didn’t want to. Didn’t want to move on from Evan.
But she didn’t have a choice.
Not with the way he’d abruptly left the room when they were talking of Gilroy. The way he’d avoided eye contact as he’d overseen the bath being brought in. The way not a word had been mumbled as he’d set a tray of solid food down on the table in the room.
He hated her for his brother’s death. For setting the whole of it into motion.
That much was clear.
Wrapped in Evan’s too big banyan, Juliet dragged a tortoise-shell comb through her hair as she stood in front of the fire, staring at the flames. Evan had set two new fat logs into place before exiting and leaving her to the bath. Even with his hate of her, he took care of her.
Blast the man.
The last thing she wanted to imagine was walking out of this place, walking away from him. Facing her life back in London without him. A life that had never looked emptier than it did in this moment.
A knock tapped on the door and before she could turn from the fire, Evan’s head poked into the room. Seeing her in his robe, he stepped into the room, closing the door behind him. He’d changed into a new lawn shirt and waistcoat, but hadn’t bothered with a coat.
“Good, your cheeks have color in them, but was the food not to your liking?” His left forefinger pointed toward the table.
She glanced at her half-eaten plate of roasted beef, beans and seared red potatoes as she stepped past the wingback chairs facing the fire and stopped a distance away from him, her fingers playing with the comb in her hands. “It was good, but I couldn’t eat much.”
“Aye.”
He silently moved another step deeper into the room, his right hand folding in and out of a fist.
Her gaze lifted, staring at him, watching the terse line of his mouth.
Here it came. The end.
She filled her lungs, every muscle in her body tensing, steeling against the blow. She just had to hold on. Not argue. Keep her dignity intact for it was the only thing she had left to hold onto.
Please. Just the small grace of dignity. She couldn’t beg, though she could already feel her knees wavering, starting to sink to the floor.
He opened his mouth, closed it, then opened it again. “Juliet, I cannot say how sorry I am. I’m sorry I didn’t see it sooner, what Gilroy manifested. I’m sorry I couldn’t see what he was. I’m sorry I couldn’t—wouldn’t—listen to what you were trying to tell me.”
Her body swayed, his words not filtering into her mind quick enough. One blink. Two.
He was sorry?
This wasn’t how the end was supposed to happen. He wasn’t supposed to make her want him even more with apologies and graciousness.
She gave herself a slight shake and took a deep breath, her stare landing at the tips of his well-worn black boots. “I know the place you were at—your past had built up so far and so wide about you it was hard to see out beyond the walls—the muck—of it.”
His shoulders lifted, his head shaking. “But I needed to see past the muck of it. Needed to believe you when ye were telling me the truth. I failed at that.”
A tremble flooded her body that she couldn’t control, and her eyes lifted, meeting his. “Swear to me that if I ever have to tell you something like that again, that you will listen.”
“Aye. I only make a mistake like that once. You are the one that I will listen to, believe in. No matter what is around us.” His words vibrated into the room, making the hairs along the back of her neck stand on end.
An oath if she’d ever heard one. An oath to her. And this man was a champion at holding to oaths.
Not only that, he’d said the word “us,” like it wasn’t even a question in his mind where he belonged, where she belonged.
His gaze pierced her, the steel of his grey eyes unsettling her like it never had before. But she held his stare, the devil himself not able to turn her head away from him.
He took a step closer, then another. One final step and he was only a hand away, his air invading her space.
How was it possible that he looked even more serious, more dire than when he’d stepped into the room?
“Words are not my friend, you know that about me. So you must forgive me.” He leaned ever so slightly down to her, the blue flecks in his eyes dancing on fire. “I love you, Juliet, and you love me.”
Her head snapped back at the abrupt, sparse words. “I don’t know that is true.”
His right hand lifted, sliding in along her neck as his fingers buried into the thick of her hair. “Except ye do, lass. You love me. And I sure as hell ken my own mind on loving you.”
The slightest exhale puffed out of her parted lips.
She did love him.
Her head couldn’t fight this battle any longer. Couldn’t fight her heart on the matter. When Gilroy’s dagger was aimed at Evan’s face, she would have done anything—anything to save him. Trade her soul to the devil. Take every ounce of pain Gilroy wanted to impart. Dive under the blade herself.
This was a love she’d never experienced before. This was her soul, outside of her body, attached to this man, feeling everything he did, wanting everything he did, needing everything about him.
Her head was nodding before the words reached her tongue. “I do. I do love you. A love that I didn’t think existed—or shouldn’t exist—as I don’t recommend the shreds it has torn my heart into during the past days.”
His right cheek lifted in a half smile. “It may not be recommended, as long as it’s true.”
“It is.” Her eyes closed as she drew in a shaking breath. “And I…I don’t want to lose you to the fear I have of this—of us. I want all of the things that I’ve never let myself want.”
His left hand wrapped around the other side of her neck. “Tell me what you want.”
Her eyes opened to him. “You. Your children. A life with you in that monstrosity of a castle but with bright tapestries and scrubbed walls and a great hall that is used to welcome family and friends instead of hay and arrows. I want you in a real copper bath with me that we would install in the room next to your chamber. I want to see the snow falling on the curves of the land, blanketing the green from the cold. I want you to pluck me springtime flowers and tuck them into my hair. I want your boys running about the towers playing hide and seek. I want your girls fighting over the fastest horses and challenging you to races. I want your hand in mine when it is old and wrinkled and you are playing at ill so our eldest grandson will stop carousing about at life and get himself married and give us great-grandchildren.”
“That is all?” His smile evened, spreading wide on his face. “You’ve been keeping all this inside, never wanting it for fear you cannot have it?”
Her bottom lip tugged under her top teeth as she nodded.
He chuckled, mirthful and warm. “What else do you want?”
Her arms went wide at her sides. “I want…
I want to matter to you. I want you to matter to me. I want it all. And I want it all with you.”
“Well, then.” His hands moved upward to clasp about her face. “Since we already said our vows, I can only give you this: there will be no higher honor in my life, than to make sure your heart gets every one of those things you desire. My duty, my honor, my life are yours.” He leaned down, finding her lips, kissing her with the promise of the thousands of days to come. He pulled up slightly. “And more.”
“More?” She chuckled against his lips, her fingers finding his chest, releasing buttons.
“I know ye have an imagination, lass. Always leave room for more.”
“I will note that.” The last button on his waistcoat popped free and she worked her fingers under his lawn shirt, his muscles tensing under her touch. “But for now, my husband’s skin against mine shall do nicely.”
{ Epilogue }
Life flooded the room, the blinding lights of pain and determination giving way to a first breath as an innocent, fragile glow took over the room.
A cough.
Another breath.
Evan looked down at the soaked forehead of his wife, her hair matted with sweat against her head, deep lines etched into her forehead and her cheeks from the pain, her lips parted, gasping at breath.
She’d never looked more beautiful.
He hoped he hadn’t broken her hand. He thought it would be the other way around—Juliet breaking his hand. But watching her body writhe in agony, he couldn’t control his muscles, squeezing her hand back with just as much intensity as was surging through her veins.
With her last scream, he thought that was it, that her bones couldn’t survive his grip any longer and he’d surely snapped them.
She didn’t look mad about her hand. Not at all. Her blue eyes huge, she looked up at him, desperate for an answer.
Evan leaned to his right, peeking at the squirming bundle of limbs slick in the midwife’s hands. He searched. Searched again. And one last time.
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