“I know,” he murmured.
“How?” she asked. “How could he be dead? I just saw him the other day, and he was fine.”
“Come home.” He started leading her down the steps. “You’re still ill.”
“No!” She yanked her arm suddenly and surprised him enough to pull it from his grasp. “No! I want to see him. Maybe they’re wrong. They hardly look in on him at all. Maybe he’s just… just . . .” She trailed away, looking around wildly. “I want to see him.”
She started back up the stairs.
He came up swiftly behind her and picked her up. “You need to go home.”
“No!” She flailed her arms and hit him—whether on purpose or accidently, it was hard to tell. “Let me go! Let me see him!”
He no longer tried arguing with her. Instead he ran down the rain-slicked steps and took her to the carriage.
“Home!” he yelled to the coachman before ducking into the vehicle.
The footman slammed the door behind them, and the carriage bumped into motion.
He wrapped his arms about her to contain her movements so she wouldn’t pull the stitches out of her wound, but she’d stopped struggling. Deep, heaving sobs shook her frame.
He laid his cheek against her wet hair. “I’m sorry.”
“It isn’t fair,” she choked.
“No, ’tisn’t.”
“He was so young.”
“Yes.”
He murmured into her hair, gently stroking her cheek, her shoulder, and let her sob against him. Her grief was uncontrolled, childish and wild and without grace, and such raw emotion stirred something within him. This woman was real. He might never again be the sort of civilized English gentleman she deserved, but she was exactly what he wanted. What he needed. She was warm and caring, and she was home.
He wanted her.
So when the carriage at last pulled up in front of Blanchard House—his house—he took her in his arms and carried her up the steps and into the house as and his ancestors with their brides. He passed the butler, the footmen, and the maids, and all fell back, making way for him and his prize.
“No one disturbs us,” he said, and then mounted the stairs to her room. The master bedroom—the one used by his father and all the Earls of Blanchard before him—would’ve been better for what he intended, but the usurper was using it, and it didn’t matter anyway. This was between only the two of them and no one else.
He made her room and walked in. The maid was there, dithering by the wardrobe.
“Leave us,” he said, and she did.
He set Beatrice down gently by the bed. She had her face still buried in his shoulder and was as limp as a rag doll.
“No,” she said feebly, though what she still protested he had no idea. She probably didn’t, either.
“You’re wet,” he said gently. “I need to dry you.”
She stood without protest as he unlaced her bodice and stays, stripping the wet fabric from her body. He did it dispassionately. It was important to get her warm and to make sure she hadn’t reopened the wound. When she was nude, he took a cloth from the wardrobe and rubbed her all over, drying what wet there was. Her skin was white and peach, a smooth, beautiful expanse. He took the pins from her hair and dried them with the towel, watching as the silky gold strands curled against his fingers. When that was done, he wet a corner of the cloth at the basin on the dresser and washed her face. Her cheeks were reddened, her eyelids and lips swollen, and he knew she didn’t look her prettiest, but his cock didn’t care. He’d been erect since he’d walked into the room.
Finally, he pulled back the coverlet on her bed and, picking her up, laid her on the bed and tugged the sheets over her to keep her warm.
It was only after he’d taken off his coat and begun unbuttoning his waistcoat that her eyebrows knit.
“What,” she said softly, “are you doing?”
HER CHEST HURT. Her heart and lungs and breasts, they all hurt with every breath she took. She felt as if part of her world had broken off and fallen, never to be reclaimed again. Jeremy was dead. Dead, and she’d not even known it until Putley had blurted the news. Shouldn’t she have known? Shouldn’t she have felt his passing in some fundamental portion of herself?
She shied from the thought, from the bone-crushing hurt, and looked at Lord Hope. Somehow he’d taken her to her rooms and undressed her. She should be scandalized, but she just hadn’t the will to be. And now… and now he appeared to be taking off his own clothing.
She peered at him, only a little bit curious. “What are you doing?”
“Undressing,” he said, and that certainly made sense because he was.
He took off his waistcoat and shirt, and she watched, detached. His arms were strong and brown from the sun. Had he worn a shirt when he’d lived with the Indians? He unbuttoned the fall of his breeches, and she watched him strip those off as well. His smallclothes were tented over his masculine parts, and at any other time she would be very interested at the sight, but at the moment she felt… nothing.
Or at least almost nothing.
“But why?” she asked, and even in her sad state, she knew her voice sounded like a small child’s.
“Why what?” he asked as he removed his shoes and stockings.
“Why are you undressing?”
“Because I intend to lie with you,” he said, and took off his smallclothes.
Well, that certainly was something she’d not seen before. His cock stood up as proudly as a soldier, thick and round and almost a purplish red, particularly at the head. She blinked at the sight. Then he was walking toward her, that part of himself bobbing with each step, and he got into the bed with her. He gathered her close and he felt so hot. So hot he was like a furnace and she sighed a little at how nice his hard, hot body felt against her cold skin.
She looked up at him, so close, his black eyes only inches from her own, and said, “He’s dead and I’ll never forget him.”
“Yes, I know,” he replied.
“I want to die, too.”
His eyes hardened. “I won’t let you.”
And he kissed her. His mouth was hot, too, and this time he didn’t wait but thrust his tongue into her mouth. She moaned a little at the sensation. He tasted of rain-water and salt, and suddenly she couldn’t think of anything better to taste. She grasped at his shoulder and felt bare, masculine skin, and she dug her fingernails in. If she wasn’t allowed to die, then she would live and forget the rest of the world for right now.