“You’re beautiful.” The awe in his voice cracked through.
She opened for him, and he worshipped her with kisses—thigh, hip, then deeper—until she cried his name.
Breathless, he rose, stripped himself bare in the candlelight, not ashamed, not boastful—only a man offering everything he was. She touched his skin with trembling fingers and he pressed a kiss into her wrist before laying himself between her thighs.
He kissed her again, slow and deep, and when he entered her—inch by careful inch—he whispered for her to breathe. She gasped, then smiled through tears. “I’m all right.”
“I’ll never hurt you,” he said.
“Then don’t stop.”
He moved gently, then with growing urgency as she rose to meet him. Her nails marked his back, her body tightening around him until his control faltered.
“I love you,” he groaned. “I love you—always—”
She cried out, shattering beneath him, and he followed, tremblingwith the force of it. He pulled away at the last, spilling against himself, shuddering as he gathered her close.
“I won’t risk you,” he gasped.
She touched his face, fierce through her tears. “You just did.”
“No,” he whispered. “When I come back, we’ll start a family.”
The city moved on beyond the shuttered window. Another bell tolled. Another carriage clattered past. But here, in this dim room, time bent around them.
He kissed her fingers like a vow. “I’ll come back. Even if the sea swallows me, I’ll crawl back to you.”
She laid her palm over his heart. “And I’ll always love you. Always.”
The candle guttered low. Dawn pressed under the shutters. He buttoned his shirt with trembling hands, bent to kiss her once more, and left the room carrying her name in every heartbeat.
Chapter Ten
The city stillwore its night quiet when Maisie slipped from the dormitory, Faivish’s promise wrapped around her more tightly than her father’s old cloak.
A year, he had said. She had said yes.
One year. It sounded small, like something she could hold in her hand. But already it pressed on her chest like a weight.
By the time she turned onto their street, dawn had begun to silver the rooftops. She expected darkness—shutters drawn, her father still at rest, the practice silent. Instead, light leaked in jagged strips through the curtains of the treatment room, unnatural at this hour.
Her pace faltered. At this hour, light?
Inside, the air struck her. Ash clung sharp and bitter in her throat, as though a fire had died choking. Ink spattered across the desk in dried rivulets; chairs were knocked aside as if there’d been a struggle. Papers wrinkled like autumn leaves left too close to a flame. From deeper in the house came voices—low, overlapping, taut as wires pulled to snapping.
Then a name cut through them like a lash:
“Hofstätter!”
Maisie stilled in the shadow of the doorway. Three young men stood in the hall, their coats cut fine, their expressions smug. She knew those faces—theBurschenschaftmen. One, broad-shouldered, had Hofstätter’s same sharp cheekbones, though he would not look her in the eye. They weren’t visiting, they were attacking.
A sound rose from the kitchen—not words, but a groan thick with pain.
She pushed past before they could block her way.
“Father! No!” Deena cried.
Maisie followed her sister’s voice and found them quickly. Father sat bent in a chair, one trembling hand clutching at his chest, his fingers curled into the fabric as though trying to hold his own heart in place. His other hand braced against the table, nails dug into the wood. “Father?”
