“Constables!” a voice shouted, sharp and commanding.
The room flooded instantly with movement. Heavy boots thundered across the floor. The sudden crush of bodies and authority broke the fragile balance of the moment. Hale barely had time to lift his hands before he was seized from behind, wrenched upright with brutal efficiency. He staggered under their grip, shock draining the color from his face as the pistol was torn from his fingers and sent skidding across the floor.
“Get off—!” he choked. The protest was weak and disjointed, panic finally overwhelming whatever confidence had sustained him moments before.
Rachel screamed. The sound was thin, piercing, edged with hysteria, and it cut straight through Madeline’s skull. The Countess lashed out as she was grabbed at anything within her grasp. Her composure was utterly gone now, her voice dissolving into shrill accusations and curses that tumbled over one another without sense or restraint.
“You ungrateful—after everything—I am her mother?—!”
Her words dissolved into incoherent fury as she was dragged from the room, heels scraping uselessly against the floor, her shrieks echoing down the corridor long after she was gone.
Madeline barely registered any of it. Her world had narrowed to a single, horrifying point.
Wilhelm lay on the floor where he had fallen with one knee drawn slightly beneath him and one hand braced against the boards as though sheer will might force his body upright. His breathing was rough and uneven. Each inhale was visibly controlled, and her gaze locked instantly on the dark stain spreading across his shoulder, soaking steadily into the fabric of his coat.Blood.
A cold wave crashed through her.
“Untie her!” Wilhelm barked hoarsely, his voice strained but unmistakably furious, already trying to push himself up despite the constable reaching instinctively to steady him.
A man knelt beside Madeline at once. With quick and practiced fingers, he worked at the knots binding her wrists. The rope burned as it loosened, sensation rushing back painfully, but she barely noticed.
The moment her hands were free, she surged forward. The chair toppled backward with a sharp clatter as she dropped to her knees beside Wilhelm. Her skirts tangled beneath her. Her entire body shook so violently she could barely hold herself upright.
“Oh God—” The words broke apart on her tongue. Her hands hovered uselessly over him, afraid to touch, afraid not to. “You’re hurt. You’re hurting!”
Her breath came in short, panicked gasps. Tears blurred her vision as the full weight of it crashed down on her all at once.
“This is my fault,” she sobbed, the words spilling out in a rush she could not stop. “I never should have left. I never should have?—”
Her hands finally found him, clutching at his coat, her fingers coming away slick and red as she pressed instinctively against his shoulder, terror roaring through her with renewed force.
He looked up at her then, and despite the pain etched sharply across his features, he smiled.
“There you are,” he said softly, as though greeting her after a long separation rather than lying wounded on the floor. “I’ve been looking for you.”
The words struck with devastating force, the double meaning unmistakable. He must have searched for her through roads and inns. And he had been searching for her in the quiet spaces of his life long before she ever arrived.
Madeline broke. She collapsed against him with a sob. Her hands clutched his coat as though she might tie him to the world through sheer force of will. “I’m so sorry,” she cried. “You shouldn’t have come. You shouldn’t have gotten yourself shot for me.”
His uninjured arm came around her immediately, strong and sure, pulling her close despite the constables’ protests. “Hush,” he murmured, his breath brushing against her temple. “I would do it again. I would do worse.”
She pulled back just enough to look at him. Madeline’s tears streaked her cheeks. Her heart ached with love and terror and overwhelming relief. “You frightened me,” she whispered.
His thumb brushed gently along her jaw, wiping away a tear with infinite care. “Youfrightened me,” he replied quietly. “Leaving like that.”
“I thought—” She swallowed hard. “I thought I was protecting you.”
“I don’t need protection from you,” he said. “I need you.”
The truth of it slammed into her, fierce and unrelenting. Desire surged hot and sudden through her fear, a visceral awareness of him alive beneath her hands, of the strength in his body, the heat of his skin, the way he held her even now as though nothing could tear her from him again.
Before she could speak, he leaned up and kissed her. The contact was firm and certain. His mouth silenced every protest, every apology she had left. She kissed him with desperate urgency, pouring into it all the love and terror and longing she had carried for him, her fingers threading into his hair as though to assure herself he was truly here.
They pulled apart only when breath failed them both.
“I love you,” Wilhelm said simply, the words unguarded.
Her heart felt too full for her chest to contain it. “I love you,” she answered without hesitation, the truth ringing clear and absolute between them.
