“What happened to your face?” She placed her stub of a candle on a small table and then dropped down on the leather next to him. She wanted to inspect the damage but wasn’t sure if he would welcome her fussing.
“I had another run-in with my brother.”
Eliza shook her head. “I hope he looks worse than you.”
Darius’s mouth tightened to a thin line. “I didn’t lay one finger on him.”
“But he hit you? You didn’t fight back?”
Darius attempted another smile. “You’re a bloodthirsty wench tonight. Considering we were standing in the middle of the village with hundreds around to witness, no, I did not hit him back.”
“That must have been hard.” She would have hit back, witnesses be damned.
“His intention was to have me brawl with him and then probably have me taken in. Then he would have galloped his horse straight here to you.”
“Me?”
Darius laid his hand over hers where it clenched in the folds of the robe she wore. “He wants your dowry still. I’d be a fool to believe he didn’t want you too, but it’s your dowry he pines after.”
“But it’s too late for that. What use would I be to him?”
Threading his fingers through hers, he played with her hands before finally answering with a long drawn-out sigh. “He doesn’t know you’re mine.”
Instead of outrage at Darius’s possessiveness, his declaration made her fairly glow inside. “Well then, just tell him. He’ll leave me alone.”
He lifted her hand to his mouth and kissed the back of it, setting off sparks within her body, sparks she tried valiantly to suppress but to no avail. She might have even breathed a sigh of her own.
“If he leaves you alone, then Gabriella will be the one he sets his ambitions on.”
Eliza tensed and drew her hand away so she could stand and pace. “But he can’t have her. She is too young, barely sixteen.”
“But she is sixteen. With her guardian’s approval, she can be married off.”
The room spun and dipped. Eliza’s knees buckled. Darius caught a hold of her and sat her on his lap, drawing her head to his shoulder. “I won’t let it happen. We leave first thing, all of us together. When we get to London, we’ll board the ship straight away. Marcus should have everything in order by then. We can set sail the dawn after that.”
“Do you really think that will be the end of it? That it will be so simple?”
Darius dropped a kiss into her hair. “No. Not simple. Not the end. Harold will never let this go now.”
“What about Wickham?” she asked, sitting up straight so she could meet her husband’s eyes. How it must kill him inside to know Wickham was free to roam about, his debt unpaid, his lungs and legs still working.
Darius shrugged but his eyes betrayed him with a flash of anger followed by defeat. “I don’t know what will happen to Wickham. He is ruined though. It’s only a matter of time before society hears of his exploits, his gambling, his bastard and heir fighting in the middle of the street in view of women and children. I’ll have to make do for now with the knowledge that he suffers.”
“It isn’t enough.” Eliza’s statement shocked them both and she immediately wished she could take back the words.
“Would you slay dragons for me, my queen?”
Eliza placed her hands against his shoulders and leaned closer, her lips touching Darius’s like a feather floating towards the ground only to be lifted again by the wind. “Give me bullets for my gun and I’ll slay them all.”
Darius threw his head back and laughed, the sound pleasing to Eliza’s ears. She hated to see a man so full of life sitting alone in the dark, brooding about a family he neither chose nor wanted. He had more honour in a soul swimming in blood than the two legitimate men who could claim rights to the title of Earl of Wickham. But life wasn’t fair. It hadn’t been fair to either of them so far but now they had each other. She wondered if it would be enough for her husband.
“You shall have all the bullets your heart desires,” he told her before pressing a kiss to her lips and adding, “You can have anything your heart desires.”
“Anything?”
His voice dropped to a husky whisper. “Just name it and if it is within my power to give it to you, I will.”
Could she name it though? Part of her was terrified that he would think her beyond shameless but the other part of her, the part who didn’t have the least bit of a problem with what he’d done with his mouth to her in the attic, that part of her wanted it all. Everything.
“Don’t be shy, love, tell me what it is you desire.”
Her gaze snapped up from her twisting hands to find his sparking with humour and hunger and a third emotion, unidentifiable to her. Did he already know what she wanted? He’d pre-empted her so many times already. As he hardened beneath her buttocks, it was as if he knew her better than she knew herself.
“I didn’t come down here looking for you.” She felt as though she had to say the words out loud, to make the statement so he would know she didn’t need him or yearn for him when he wasn’t at her side. Which of course, she didn’t.
His answering smile said he saw through all of her lies, but he didn’t call her out on it. “I wish you did,” came his murmur. He slid his hands around her, one on her derriere, the other edging higher up the outside of her thigh as he sought to encircle her in his arms.
She stilled his movements by placing her hands over his forearms. She liked his arms, his wrists, his hands, and with feminine appreciation, enjoyed the way he shucked dress codes and rolled his sleeves to his elbows. Trailing her fingers up his arms now,
