He found himself grinning into her lustrous eyes. God, she was beautiful. And good for him, so bloody good for him. The balm his soul had been missing, and he had been too prideful to accept. “That is an excellent way to describe it, my love.” He paused, turning his attention to Rayne. “I want to leave the past where it belongs, in the past. I am willing to forgive the part you played in my capture if you are willing to forgive my attempts to use Leonie against you.”
The earl raised a brow. “I will forgive you for usingLady Leonoraif you promise to never again hurt her. If she sheds even a tear because of you, I will hunt you down and show you no mercy. Are we understood?”
“Perfectly,” he replied through gritted teeth. “You have my oath. I will do nothing but attempt to makemy marchionessas happy as possible for the rest of her life.”
“I love my husband, Alessandro,” Leonie added, her tone quiet but firm. “You need not worry for me.”
“Oh, holy hell,” muttered Monty from the bed, his tone notably weaker. “I’m bleeding to bloody death after shuffering a mortal enemy…er, a mortalwound. And the two of you are mooning like sick…lovesick…fuck, I need some whisky.”
“Whisky is the last thing you need,” Rayne told Monty coolly, before Morgan could say the same thing.
“You have sent for a doctor?” he confirmed with the earl, for Monty looked pale once more.
The sight of blood had made him squeamish, even as a child, and Morgan could only guess the reason for his cousin being carried into Riverford House—and the dowager’s subsequent misconception he was dead—was owed to him having passed out at the sight of it.
“Of course.” Rayne inclined his head. “I am not a savage, though you would like to think me one, Inglés. I have no wish to have the blood of a drunken duke upon my hands.”
How odd, he thought suddenly, to face the man he had once known only asEl Corazón Oscuro, his true identity as a peer who was one-half English, one-half Spanish, revealed. Life was strange indeed. Morgan never could have known the day he had faced the feared Spanish guerrillero that he would one day meet him again in a London townhouse under such circumstances.
Still, though he would make every attempt to move forward in deference to Leonie, Morgan could not forget the sins this man had committed, be he earl or the common Spanish peasant he had pretended to be.
“You have blood enough upon your hands,” he could not resist saying.
Rayne’s jaw tightened. “In that, we are well met. For so do you.”
Morgan’s nostrils flared, a surge of rage beating to life inside him. “And some of the blood I shed is owed to you, Rayne. I would say we have both sinned, and we are both in need of repentance and forgiveness.”
“It is my fondest hope that the two of you shall one day be able to put aside your differences and become friends rather than bitter enemies,” Leonie said then.
Ever hopeful, his angel. Ever too good to be true.
“She has a heart of gold, this one,” Rayne said then, as if reading Morgan’s thoughts. “Break it, and I will break you.”
Morgan raised Leonie’s hand to his lips for a reverent kiss, his gaze never leaving hers. “I will never break her heart, and you can thank her for my benevolence. For she is the only reason you are yet cursing the earth with your presence.”
“Touches my heart,” Monty interrupted. “Truly. But I am bleeding my life’s…blood all…over…the…the…”
“Cristo.” Rayne muttered the oath. “Where the devil is this doctor? We had more luck finding physicians in the mountains of Spain in the midst of war than I have in London.”
Monty’s bandage had slipped and loosened, and a fresh pool of blood was working its way into the bedding, running down his arm. The earl swiftly put the bandage back into place and tightened it with hasty, efficient motions.
“You owe me a debt of honor for this insh-insult,” Monty told Rayne, outraged but notably weakened.
“Happily,” the earl clipped. “Name your price.”
“Marry my sister,” Monty said.
“Done,” Rayne said, his voice cold.
Leonie gasped. “Alessandro?”
Lady Catriona was a hellion. Just the sort of wife a man like Rayne deserved. Morgan grinned. “Capital idea, Rayne. What better way to join the families even further?”
“If she meets my standards, I will wed her,” Rayne said with as much passion as one might muster to describe a speck of lint upon one’s coat sleeve. “Provided she agrees to my terms, I do not object. I am in need of a wife and an heir, and I do not wish to be encumbered with either. My home is not here, though I acknowledge I have duties to the line.”
“I will…hold you to that promise,” Monty warned.
“Done,” Rayne said, looking imperturbable even as his hands were covered in Monty’s blood.
