A rock struck Winnifred’s leg, and she bit back a cry.
Sin growled, his eyes searching for the assailant even as his feet carried him and his wife out of the storm and into the sheltered nook of a nearby bookstore.
“Are you all right?” He hefted her higher in his arms. “Tell me you’re unharmed.”
Winnifred dug her hand into his cravat, her fingertips brushing over his racing heart. “My injuries are all minor. I turned my ankle and fell. There were people everywhere, stepping on me. I tried to crawl away ….” She shuddered.
Sin turned, pressing her closer into the corner, trying to put as much as himself as he could between her and the violence.
She took a deep breath. “Then your friend was there. Pulling me away from getting trampled upon.” The smile she gave him was shaky, but genuine. “He has more than made up for his previous rudeness.”
She was safe. His pulse slowed. Safe and in his arms. Pressing his lips to her temple, he inhaled her scents of oranges and woman. “If anything had happened to you ….” His heart stuttered at the thought. If anything had happened to her, he wouldn’t survive it. Somehow, in their short marriage, his life had become inextricably linked to hers.
He pressed his forehead to hers, his chest aching. “I love you, Winnifred.”
Her body went stiff, and Sin pulled back, frowning.
A curtain fell across her eyes, another damn wall when he’d thought he’d knocked them all down.
Nausea swirled in his stomach. “Winnie?” Blood pounded in his ears and he told himself to hold his tongue. That no good would come from this. But he needed to know. “Don’t you love me?”
***
Her chest went tight. Why did Sin have to spoil a relationship that had been running so smoothly? She knew he was a passionate man, but she’d thought their feelings were similar when it came to such fancies as love.
She stared at the stick pin in his cravat. It was nothing fancy, no flashing jewels like in his friend, Summerset’s, only a plain silver pin. Elemental and simple, just like her husband. She believed the truth in his words, because he never tried to hide behind artifice or pride, not with her. The yearning in his voice caused something within her to ache.
She couldn’t hurt this man who’d given her so much. She didn’t know how to explain that love was beyond her. Running her finger over the pin, she bit her lip. She’d never felt diminished by her lack of womanly feeling. Until now. She would give anything to be normal. To be the wife her husband deserved.
She licked her lips and tried to force a smile across her face.
By the cloud of pain that darkened his eyes, she knew she was unsuccessful.
“Sin, I—”
“Don’t.” His voice was a hoarse rasp. “Don’t say something you don’t feel.”
The hollowness in his eyes slayed her. She dropped her forehead to his chest.
“I care for you greatly.” Why had he done this? Why would he ruin the balance of their marriage by developing such an irrational emotion?
He barked out a harsh laugh. “Well, at least that’s something.”
“Isn’t it enough that we enjoy a satisfying physical relationship and have a good friendship?” She clenched his lapel. “I am most content.” Why wasn’t he?
“I don’t want you content.” He shook her in his arms. “I want you as mad as I am.”
She had no response to that so they fell silent. She would rather have been back in the riot than be faced with his crushing disappointment. “I believe the crowd is dispersing. You can set/put me down now.”
He turned, but kept her in his arms. They waited in their nook until Sutton and Summerset found them.
The baron’s hair was sticking on end, his shirt torn, his lip bloody.
The earl flicked a speck of dirt from his otherwise pristine tan velvet tailcoat. Aside from the bruise Sin had left on him days before, Summerset appeared completely unharmed. “Nasty business.” He pulled a crumpled piece of paper from his pocket. “This is what stirred them up. Some rubbish about that professor teaching favorable about the history of England.” He jerked his head back toward the school. “We left him barricaded in his office where he’ll remain until the mob disperses.”
“He was a history professor?” Winnifred chewed the inside of her cheek. “Just teaching about a subject was enough to rouse this amount of anger?” She gazed at the square. One man lay propped on an elbow, a friend holding a handkerchief to his bloody brow. The ground was littered with papers and torn gowns. An eerie silence lay heavily in the riot’s wake.
“He wasn’t teaching it the correct way, apparently.” Sutton fingered a tooth, gently testing its hold. “Too favorably towards England according to one of the students.”
