“Come to bed, will you?” She gently touched his cheek and coaxed him with a faint smile. “After all, it is our wedding night, and you seem so very weary.”
Elias swallowed hard and shamed himself for the sudden rush of need burning through him. Celia was in no condition for his company in her bed. “I do not wish to jostle you and cause you any pain.”
“Move slow and careful,” she told him, sounding like a patient nanny instructing a child. “I need you beside me, Elias. To feel your warmth. Have the safety of you here at my side. I want to breathe in your comforting, familiar scent with every breath. Please join me. You won’t hurt me. I saw such terrible things while I slept. A twisted reliving of what happened.” Her voice broke as she tugged on him. “And I dreamt you died. Please, Elias. Come to bed and hold me. I need to feel you with me while I sleep.”
He kissed her, gently at first, and then carefully deepened the connection so she would know he would always protect her. “I am here for you, my love. Always and forever.”
After shedding his boots and waistcoat, he rounded the bed and pulled back the covers.
“What about your shirt and pantaloons?” She squinted at him with a critical frown. “They are surely ruined with all those stains.”
He decided it was best not to tell her that her blood had caused those stains. He peeled off his shirt and tossed it aside. “Mrs. Camp works miracles with stains.”
“Pantaloons, my lord,” she said as he started to climb into the bed.
“My lady,” he said, leaning across the bed. “Your insistence that I be naked has altered me dramatically, and you are in no condition to relieve me of my state.”
Her wicked smile nearly undid him. “I fear you have married a selfish woman, my lord. One greedy to behold all her husband has to offer, whether she can properly enjoy it or not.” She smoothed her hand across the space beside her. “After all, I will not be mending forever.”
“Indeed.” What a deliciously uncomfortable defeat. Elias straightened, unbuttoned the garment in question, and shoved it down to the floor. As he slid into the bed beside her, he reveled in the way she wet her lips and drew in a quick breath. “You do realize I shall have to address your greediness once you are fully healed?”
“I sincerely hope so, dear husband, because I enjoyed ourbetrothaltryst in the garden immensely.” She laced her fingers through his and held his hand tightly. “I wish I could lie on my side with my head on your chest, but I am afraid to try it.”
“Do not, or I shall exit this bed immediately. You must lie still so as not to start the bleeding again.” He kissed her hand, then pointedly placed their entwined arms down at their sides like a chaste barrier between them. “Close your eyes, my precious lioness. Rest and heal. We have the rest of our lives together.”
“The rest of our lives,” she repeated, worrying her delicate thumb back and forth across his as she held tightly to his hand.
Her sudden silence as she stared up at the canopy made him turn onto his side, prop himself on his elbow, and peer at her closer. “I said close your eyes and rest, my love. Not stare up into the night and fret about the future.”
“But that is all I have ever done.” She shifted to look at him. “And now I have dragged an honest man into my illegal legacy. I fear you will regret what you have done as much as I regret bringing you to your ruin.”
“I am not ruined,” he reassured her as he closed her eyes with a gentle touch, then stroked a fingertip over the curve of her cheeks, across the fullness of her lips, and along her jaw line. “Leave tomorrow’s worries to tomorrow, my precious one. Sleep, my love, while the remnants of the laudanum help hold the brunt of your pain at bay.”
“I never want to be alone again,” she said in a drowsy whisper without opening her eyes.
“You never will be, dearest. Never again.” He tickled his touch in slow circles across her forehead, along her cheeks, then back up again across her temples. “I am always with you,” he murmured, smiling as her breathing slowed back to the steady rhythm of earlier while she slept.
“Elias,” she uttered on an exhale.
“I am here, dear one.” He kept up the methodical stroking of her face that mesmerized her into a relaxed state.
“Love…you.”
“And I love you, Celia, with a never-ending fury.”
Chapter Seventeen
“Has madness takenover this entire household?” Propped up in the bed among a multitude of pillows, her face flushed with the vibrancy of returning good health, Celia scowled at the three of them as though ready to pass judgment on their eternal souls.
Elias glanced over at his brother and Duchess Thea in a silent plea for help.
With a tug on his black armband of mourning, Monty cut an amused look back at him as though reveling in Elias’s dilemma of handling his prickly wife.
Celia’s mother, swathed in yards of black bombazine and crepe, blew out a high-pitched sigh and flexed her hands in their black lace, fingerless gloves atop the jeweled handle of her cane.
“Celia—” Elias decided on a different tactic to convince his stubborn new bride that Monty’s somewhat elaborate plan actually held merit and, so far, had worked brilliantly.
The dowager duchess rapped her cane on the floor for silence and marched closer to her daughter.
