His left shoulder had been injured—she still suspected the Fenian who had shot him had been aiming for his heart—so she curled against his right side, loving the weight of his arm around her.
She buried her face in his neck and pressed a kiss to the place where his pulse was a steady, reassuring thrum. What a beautiful gift—his life. This man had been a blessing to her. The sunshine at dawn, chasing away the strains of night. She had never imagined love could be like this. But she rather fancied this was the way Mama and Papa had felt about each other—their feelings so strong that they had been willing to overcome any obstacles in their way, just to be together.
“I would do it again,” he said, his voice low. He kissed the crown of her head. “I would do anything to see you safe. That is the definition of love, is it not? I would give my life for yours. Protect you over myself. You are my heart, Isabella Hilgrove, and I want nothing more than to have you at my side forever.”
He humbled her, this man. His fearlessness inspired her.
She kissed his neck again, that sweet and steady promise of life that was his pulse. “I love you.”
“I love you, sweetheart.” He kissed her forehead, the fingers of his right hand tangling in her hair. “Did you mean it when you said you would marry me?”
How could he question it?
“I have never meant anything more.” She kissed her way up his neck, over his strong jaw, to his lips. Her mouth moved over his slowly, tentatively, waiting for him to respond.
And respond he did. His lips settled over hers. This was not an erotic kiss by any means. It was a kiss of understanding. A kiss of love. A kiss of reunion. A kiss of brightness and potential after the darkness.
“Mmm,” he said against her mouth. “If we are not careful, I will have you on your back in this bed in the next five minutes.”
She smiled, then kissed the well-defined philtrum that so oft had driven her to distraction. “You do not have the strength, you wicked man.”
“Test me, and you shall see,” he teased back, sucking her lower lip, then nipping it.
She lifted her head after a few moments of kisses so sweet, they brought tears to her eyes. “I am sorry about what happened before, about my reaction to Lady Entwhistle.”
A cloud seemed to pass over his countenance, and his jaw hardened. “Isabella, we need not—”
She held a finger to his lips, staying his words. “Yes, we must. Or rather, I must. I owe you an apology. I allowed Lady Entwhistle to heighten my worries about not being worthy of being your duchess. That was wrong of me, and I am so very sorry. You deserved better.”
He kissed the pad of her fingertip and then moved his head, dislodging her. “I should have been honest with you from the start, and I should have been honest with her as well. I could have saved us all a great deal of heartache and pain. It was never my intention to cause you upset. I cannot imagine any woman more worthy of being my duchess than you. There is no one else I would have by my side. No one else I have ever loved in the way I love you.”
He was breaking her heart. “Oh, Benedict.” She cupped his face. “I have never loved another the way I love you, either. It would be my greatest honor to become your duchess.”
He caressed up and down her spine, his hand traveling slowly, as if he savored her. And she clung to him too. They were quiet for a moment, reveling in the rare understanding of a man and a woman who had nearly lost each other forever. She breathed deeply of his scent, relishing the tactile beauty of his large body against hers.
“Did I kill that bastard?” he asked suddenly.
She thought again of the horrors of that day, a shiver going down her spine. “Yes, darling. You did.”
“Thank God.”
“And according to the Times, his death enabled Scotland Yard to find the last man responsible for the Westminster bombings as well,” she told him. “So you see? You did not just save me. You saved all London as well.”
She thought back upon the frantic moments of that day. She had found the driver and footman, and the two had hauled Benedict’s bleeding, lifeless body back to Westmorland House. The doctor had been summoned, and then Isabella herself had sent word to the Home Office and to Scotland Yard.
The Fenian’s body had been collected from her school, and she had been forced to close its doors while she tended to Benedict and hired staff to clean the blood from her new schoolroom. Part of her wondered if she could bear to ever set foot inside the establishment again, given what had happened there.
But that was a worry for another day, because Benedict had not died that day. He was here, so very alive and loved.
“We did it together, sweetheart,” he said then. “If not for your calm in the face of such violence, neither of us would have survived.”
“Together,” she agreed, kissing him again.
Chapter Twenty
April, 1885
Isabella decided there was no better sight in all the world than that of her husband standing before her in his dressing gown.
“Husband,” she greeted him, trying out the word.
It sounded good.
It sounded right.
Perfect, in fact.
“Wife,” he returned, offering her an elegant bow at odds with his state of dishabille.
She curtseyed to him, holding the silk of her dressing gown as if it were the finest ball gown. In truth, it was as fine as any ball gown. Part of the extensive trousseau Benedict had insisted upon commissioning for her in preparation of their nuptials, it was fashioned of ivory lawn and lace. His edict had been definitive: no black.
They had
