“Indeed.” Ellie turned to Zachary. “Do behave, my lord,” she cautioned him sternly.
He grinned, his eyes still never leaving Izzy. “You know that is impossible for me, Ellie dear. But I promise to try.”
“You are incorrigible,” she said without heat, and then took her leave from the chamber.
Izzy watched her sister’s departing form. When the door had clicked closed, she turned back to the man who would, in a few short days, be her husband.
She shifted on the bed to get more comfortable and then winced at the pain the movement caused her.
He was on his feet, his strong arms around her. “Here, let me help you.”
Gently, he helped to position her so that the pillows were propping her injured arm at a more comfortable angle. His scent and warmth enveloped her. The care he was showing her chipped at the wall of ice she had resurrected around her bruised and battered heart. But she would not let him in with the same ease she had before.
“Thank you,” she said. “It would seem you have charmed your way back into my sister’s good graces.”
He lingered near, tenderly brushing a stray tendril of hair from her cheek. “But not yours, I fear.”
“No,” she agreed, equally somber. “But that does not mean I am not grateful for your rescue today.”
“It is not your gratitude I want.” His hand lingered, cupping her jaw and stroking with the softest of touches.
How good it felt to be touched by him, to allow his heat to seep into her, to accept that caress, so wanted. A rush of emotion, the first since the fiery pain of the bullet that morning, hit her. How fortunate she was to be here, in this moment. To be alive.
“What is it you want from me, if not my gratitude?” she dared to ask.
“Everything,cariad.” He leaned nearer, pressing the barest hint of a kiss to her cheek. “Everything you have to give.”
She wanted to hug him, hold him tight. But she also wanted to keep him away. To make certain he could never have another chance to hurt her. Her unaffected hand went to his forearm, thick and muscled beneath his coat. Little wonder he had helped her with such ease earlier. How did he earn that strength? His was not the physique of a pampered lord but the body of a man who gloried in physical exertion.
“What if I have nothing left to give?” she asked, feeling broken, and not just because of her wound.
Feeling shattered and bruised everywhere.
Especially in her heart.
“Whatever you have, I will gladly take it.” His voice was low and deep, his gaze unwavering. “Give me nothing if you must. I could have lost you today.”
“I am still here,” she told him, feeling the prick of tears at the overwhelming emotion in his eyes.
She could have died this morning, yes.
Had she been a step to the left or right.
Had the bullet ricocheted off something else…
The list of ifs was endless, and what a bizarre realization it was, to have to acknowledge her own mortality. So often, she passed through each day without a thought of death, that inevitable shadow. She had thought her entire life awaited her.
Today had proven how fallible she was. How mortal. It had shown her how the difference between life and death was a scant few inches. And how the divides between love and anger and pain were little different.
“I am so thankful you are here,” he rasped, before kissing her other cheek with every bit as much reverence as he had the first. “I need you,cariad. You know that, do you not?” His breath was hot on her ear, a promise, a brand. “I need you in my life, by my side, as my wife. I did not realize just how much until I found myself faced with almost losing you for the second time and in a far more permanent way.”
His admission made her dizzy.
Or perhaps that was the combined effect of the laudanum, injury, and blood loss.
Or all of it.
She clung to his arm, releasing a sob she had not known she had been containing. The fear she had tamped down, the shock and the worry and the pain.
