“Come.” The duchess tugged on his arm in decidedly un-duchess-like fashion. “We shall leave everyone and see Izzy before she is too tired for our intrusion.”
They excused themselves from the room and made haste to the guest chamber where Izzy was staying. Zachary could not deny he found himself pleased at the prospect of joining this family and becoming one of them. Having lost his brothers and parents both, he had not realized how much he would yearn for the connections he had begun to tentatively make. It was plain to see Izzy herself adored her family, and he was coming to understand why.
They were kindhearted, if eccentric. But they genuinely cared for each other.
“I am glad you persuaded Izzy to remain,” the duchess was telling him,sotto voceas they glided up the staircase in unison. “I will own that I had some doubts about Hudson’s suggestion we interfere. Especially after Izzy told me she saw you kissing the widowed Lady Anglesey.”
Ah, so here it was. The censure he so richly deserved yet had somehow avoided these last few days. Her timing was regrettable. His inchoate thoughts could find no suitable answer.
“If I could change what happened that night, I would,” he said simply, the truth. “But I can’t do that, Ellie. I was not kissing my brother’s widow. It was the other way around, but regardless, it never should have occurred. Had I been less in my cups, I would have known what she was about and put an end to it before it had even begun. As it was, I was not myself, and while I declined her advances, it was too little, too late. I will repent that night to my dying day, along with this day. All I want to do is protect Izzy and keep her safe from harm.”
In fairness, he wanted to do other things as well. A great many of them, both to and with Izzy. But he could, occasionally, be a man of honor, so he held his tongue as to the rest.
“If you hurt my sister, I will invent a nasty implement of torture that is electrified and is guaranteed to be most unpleasant,” the duchess warned cheerfully as they reached the top of the stairs. “Fair warning.”
The Duchess of Wycombe was an intelligent inventor, who was currently perfecting an electrified cooking utensil. Her threat was not an idle one.
He inclined his head. “I have no doubt you would.”
The duchess sighed. “Oh, why must you be so conciliatory? It makes it difficult indeed for me to stay vexed with you, particularly after the way you saved Izzy today.”
“I hardly saved her,” he said grimly, thinking again of how close she had come to death. Within inches. “I should have been there at her side, and I would have been were it not for what happened before.”
“You cannot find fault with her for being angry and suspicious of your intentions,” the duchess said as they approached Izzy’s closed chamber door. “I have seen the evidence of your reputation with my own eyes.”
He winced, for he knew the night she was speaking of. It had been the day he had discovered his brothers had drowned on that stupid bloody yacht and he was to become the earl as long as Horatio’s wife was not carrying his heir. He had been soused and bitter, drinking too much and carousing with a room of faceless, nameless revelers.
A Bacchanalian funeral that had somehow devolved into an orgy, and the duchess had been there with Wycombe to witness it all. He regretted that day, in all the ways he could.
“You have seen me at my worst, Ellie, and I would have you know that I am not the man you saw that day,” he said. “I do not pretend to be a saint, but I can promise you that I have every intention of making a good husband to Izzy. And if I ever should hurt her, I will be the first to tell you to retrieve your electrical torture device.”
“Do not suppose I will not,” the duchess said calmly, as if they were discussing something as mundane as tea, before knocking on the door.
The thready voice on the other side of the door was as welcome as it was beloved. “Come.”
The duchess reached for the latch. The portal swung open, and there, across the chamber, her hair a dark curtain falling about her lovely pale face as she lay propped by a small mountain of pillows, was Izzy at last.
Like a complete oaf, he barreled over the threshold, desperate to see the woman he loved.
Zachary was at Izzy’s bedside before realization hit him fully.
Loved.
The woman heloved.
Bloody hell.
He sank into an armchair as his knees gave out on him.
CHAPTER15
Izzy’s arm ached and her wound felt oddly tight, but Zachary and Ellie had joined her, and after the whirlwind of being shot and then subsequently plied with laudanum and stitched back together, she was happy to see them both. Zachary was holding her hand, his thumb traveling in slow, reverent strokes over her bare skin. Ellie was seated in a chair at his side, the one that had previously been occupied by Mama as the doctor had carefully tended to Izzy’s wound.
“How are you feeling?” Zachary asked, his eyes traveling over her form as if he feared she would disappear at any second.
“As well as can be expected. My arm hurts, and the laudanum is making me tired.”
“You gave us quite a fright,” her sister said. “It is good to see you looking well so soon after…”
