No, she wouldn’t let it out, wouldn’t cry, because if she did, she’d never stop. But even as she denied the grief it took her, seized her by the neck and shook her like a ragdoll until there was nothing else she could do but sob against him, great heaving sobs that threatened to tear her apart.
He held her head against his chest and stroked her hair until the wracking cries subsided into quiet tears, and still he held her and murmured to her like a child, his hands warm and soothing against her back. When she was exhausted from the storm of emotion, he gathered her into his arms without a word, lifted her onto his horse, then retrieved her horse’s reins and swung up behind her on the saddle. “Lean back on me.”
She let herself sag against him.
“That’s it.” He settled her so her back rested against his chest and wrapped one arm around her waist. “Sleep.”
Miraculously she did, cradled in the curve of his body, his breath a soft, steady rhythm against her back. She thought she felt his lips at her temple and his whispers in her ear, but then she succumbed to the kind of sleep that had eluded her for months, deep and dreamless.
When she awoke, the sky was dark over her head. Someone was speaking, but she couldn’t quite make sense of the words. “Julian?”
“I’m here, sweetheart. Slide your arms around my neck.”
She obeyed without question. The saddle disappeared out from under her and for a moment she panicked as she became groundless again, suspended, but then she felt Julian’s arms under her, and her cheek found his chest, which vibrated with a low sigh as she relaxed against him. Then he was moving—door, stairs, hallways, and more doors until at last she felt a soft coverlet beneath her and knew he’d brought her to her bedchamber.
She must have slipped into another dream for a while because she lost some time. When she awoke later it was to a hushed argument taking place at her bedside.
“You can’t be in here with her,” a voice hissed. Mrs. Boyle? “It’s not proper, Captain West. I can’t allow—”
“No.” Charlotte struggled to sit up, but her eyes seemed fused shut and sleep threatened to take her down again. “I want him to stay.”
“Now, don’t agitate yourself, my lady.” A soft, motherly hand pressed her back down into the mattress. “You’ve been through quite an ordeal. You can thank Captain West tomorrow—”
“No.Julian.” She forced her eyes open and grasped his hand. “Don’t go.”
His fingers closed around hers. “I won’t. You heard Lady Hadley, Mrs. Boyle. She wants me to stay, and I’m sure you don’t wish to upset her, as fragile as she is right now.”
Charlotte fell back against the pillows and let her eyes fall half closed.
Mrs. Boyle huffed and fretted, but at last she accepted the inevitable. “Oh, very well.” She meandered around the room, straightened a few perfectly straight objects on Charlotte’s dressing table, and then closed the door behind her with an offended click.
For a moment after she left neither of them said anything. Then, because there was so much to say and no place to begin, Charlotte blurted, “You’re bleeding.”
“What?” Julian glanced down at the long, bloody scratch on his arm. “Oh. It’s nothing.”
“It bled quite a lot.”
He smiled. “And now it’s stopped.”
“It looks deep. May I see it?”
“It’s nothing, I promise you.” But he sat down on the edge of her bed, obediently turned over his arm, and held it out so she could inspect the cut. The smooth skin seemed too vulnerable to belong to Julian, too fragile to protect such a muscular limb.
She hesitated for a single moment before she touched him—only a moment, a breath in time, but it lengthened, stretched, became infinite, for surely a mere moment wasn’t enough to hold such emotion, such promise.
Or such risk. Once she touched him, she might not be able to stop.
And yet it was already too late, wasn’t it? She hadn’t touched him yet, and already she couldn’t stop. Her fingertip met his warm skin and stroked lightly down his arm, just to the right of the gash.
His breath caught hard in his throat.
She looked into his eyes—dark and heavy-lidded—drew his hand slowly to her mouth, and pressed her lips into his palm.
Chapter Twenty-two
As soon as her soft, red lips met his palm, those lips he’d longed for in one fevered dream after another, Julian knew he was lost. Cam and Ellie, Jane, even Colin—they all faded from his mind the instant her mouth touched his skin.
She brought his hand to her cheek and held it there. Her eyes found his, a question in their bottomless depths, but he didn’t give her a chance to ask it. There wasn’t any need. They both knew the answer—they’d known since that night more than a year ago when he found her waiting for him under a sky full of stars. So he simply brought his other hand up, cradled her face in both his palms, and touched his mouth to hers.
