Chapter 30
My life flashed before my eyes.The moments long in the past, an enjoyable journey.Others more recent, awash with regrets.Those as I live and breathe them, while pleasant, would have been mired in dissatisfaction were they to end where they now stand.
I feel I must make some greater strides to achieve my purpose before I haven’t another chance.
~From the journal of the Marquis of Aylesbury—May 1895
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“Are you sure you’reall right?”
“I am.Thank you.I just need some rest.”After assuring her sister-in-law that she would ring if she needed anything, Fiona went to her dressing table and sat down with a sigh.
It had been all bravado, of course.She wasn’t fine at all.It was nothing more than a veil of humor and nonchalance to mask the real terror that might have overcome her if she paused even for a moment that afternoon to think about how extreme their situation truly was.And Ramsay—all Eve knew of it—had very little to do with her dejection.Crumpky and his associates had been determined to track them down today.To take her, even if it meant hurting or possibly killing Harry in the process.
And Harry!Trying to be light-hearted over the entire matter, she knew, but there was nothing amusing about it.How reckless she had been!How unconcerned when they had both been in very real danger!
While it had been one thing to toy with her own safety, it had been quite another to realize that he might have been harmed because of her willfulness.What would she do if he had been hurt?
What would she do if she lost him?
Truly lost him?This time, not just his company, his presence, or even his affections.What if she cost him his very life, and he was gone from this earth forever?
It didn’t bear thinking about.
Show a little respect for the peril we are in, won’t you?She remembered those words as she brushed out her tangled hair.Real peril.Death.Not theirs, but only because he had taken the deathblow before it could be theirs.
He risked everything for her.
Surely, that meant something.
She finished brushing her hair and rose, unbuttoning the sumptuous Worth floral silk taffeta wrapper she had donned after slipping out of her ruined day dress.She slipped it from her shoulders and let it fall to the floor before untying the petticoats around her waist.Letting them fall as well, she bent to untie her garters, but a deep, pained rumble sounded from the shadows at the corner of her room, freezing her in place.
But a throaty baritone broke the silence then.“I beg you.Please, don’t stop.”
* * *
He’d snuck up to herroom while the family was at dinner and the staff occupied serving them.He couldn’t wait until morning to assure himself that she had recovered from their afternoon or from Ramsay’s assault.That she hadn’t succumbed to hysterics or nerves.
