Julia’s sigh interrupted his conjured image of the man she’d said she intended to marry. His mind wiped clean as he gazed down into her peaceful face.
She needed rest.
Butshouldhe let her continue to sleep? Or was this one of those times too much sleep was a bad idea…?
He’d dealt with people suffering effects of cold. But not in a long time. And never on his own. Best course was to stay watchful until certain she was out of danger.
…Although the idea she was safe with him was laughable at best.
With one exception, at every point in his life—including his time in New York—he’d placed his own needs first.
Here, on the floor of a dirty little wayside inn, he’d finally run out of lies. He wanted to be the kind of man who was right for Julia. He wanted to be that man more than anything he’d ever wanted in his life.
He brought his lips down against the part in her still-damp hair.
Was it so inconceivable that he could be the person she’d once believed him to be?
Every day in New York, he’d pushed his body past bearing. At night, he’d collapsed onto his cot, thinking he couldn’t go on. Then, in the morning, he’d reached deep. He’d risen from the warmth and faced whatever task the day had for him. Because work had been his charge. His obligation. His salvation.
He’d come as close to being happy as he’d ever been…until now.
She turned in his arms, finding a position of comfort with another sigh.
Reluctant fullness seeped into his groin.
Not now.
Not ever.
He wasn’t that man. She’d just confessed she intended to meet some gentleman in Gretna, for goodness’ sake.
Which wasn’t to say helikedthe idea of Julia throwing herself away on some sniveler who couldn’t even be bothered to properly elope.
But if Rayne marched her right back to London, with Katherine increasing and her anxious husband by her side, wouldn’t Julia just find some other means to run off with Edmund Alistair Cracked-skull?
He shifted so that his shoulder bore more of her weight.
Of course she would outwit them again.
This was Julia.
Shealwaysfound a way to get what she wanted. And if what she wanted did not exist, she found a way to make the impossible real.
She sleep-whimpered and curled closer. He brushed her hair from her face. Her expression was peaceful. Content.
He couldn’t force her to go home. Nor could he ask her to stay with him. Not if what she truly wanted was Cracked-skull.
But he could make sure she remained unharmed.
He could, and he would.
The only other time he’d felt the same inner imperative had been that long-ago night, when Katerina—unknown to him then—had arrived on his doorstep with a transformed and desperately ill Theodora.
Theo, he corrected himself.
He’d risen to the occasion then; he’d do so now.
He’d do what he could to give Julia the life she wanted. People—like Julia, like Katerina, like Theo—people who refused to yield—were rare…and precious. He would keep her safe.
