“Why are you still angry?” Eliza asked, stepping back to let him in.
“You took risks tonight you should not have, Eliza.”
“You can leave if you are going to yell at me. I’m tired and wish to sleep.”
“Then why aren’t you?”
Though his feet were bare, he still wore his trousers and a shirt, unlike Eliza in her nightclothes.
“That is what I am trying to do,” she snapped back. “Go away, and I will try again.”
“First, I’m going to talk some reason into you to ensure you never take a risk like that again,” Mungo snarled.
His hair was standing on end and he had dark smudges under his eyes, and yet she still wanted to run at him. Have him hold her and drive away all the hurt and pain. All her fears and suffering. But that wasn’t how her life worked. Eliza could rely on no one but herself.
“We’ve discussed this, and I will always take a risk if it is to save you—or anyone,” she added.
“Not anyone. Me,” he said, his rigid stance softening.
“Why are you up here, anyway? You should be sleeping, Mungo.”
“Because I can’t stop thinking about you. I keep seeing you launch yourself at Ellington, like Boudica.”
He had her in his arms in seconds, and Eliza didn’t put up a fight. After the night she’d had, she wanted this—him.
“I was scared for you.”
“You’re always scared for someone,” she said, kissing his jaw. “But I don’t need you looking out for me.”
“Someone has to.” His breath was hot on the skin of her neck. “I want you, Eliza. So tell me to leave, or I’m staying.”
“I should want you to leave.”
“But?”
“But I don’t.”
He eased back, and then his fingers were lifting her chin so their eyes met, and every doubt she’d had fled. “I don’t want to hurt you.”
“I’m not an innocent, if that’s what you are asking me.” The words came out fast. “That’s why my uncle threw me out of his house.”
“Tell me.” He kissed her softly.
“No.”
His lips teased hers for long seconds. “Please.”
She couldn’t remember a time he’d said please.
“Niall worked in my uncle’s stables. We started talking.”
She’d been so desperate to have someone see her. Someone care about the pain she was going through. The girl with the burned hand and broken heart that she’d known would never heal.
“My uncle found us one day in a stall.”
“Bastards, both of them,” Mungo rasped.
His arms locked around her, crushing her to him. Eliza felt the anger thrumming through him, leashed and dangerous, but all of it aimed outward at the two men who had hurt her.
