Viscount Breckenridge to the Rescue

about to charge. “Thank God. Or the Lady.”

Breckenridge was rapidly losing strength. Even with Marcus’s and her help, he’d only managed to reach the second rung down from the top of the fence — then he sagged, and tipped over it. She flung her arms around him, with Marcus battled to slow his descent, then he was lying in a sprawl on the thinly grassed track.

And she finally saw the jagged wound in his right side. “Oh, God.”

Blood was pouring from the gaping tear. Falling to her knees, she slapped her hands over the gash, pressed hard. One glance at his face, at his pinched eyelids, at the white lines bracketing his mouth, told her he was still conscious.

She flung a glance at the twins. “Race to the house and get your mother and Algaria. Tell them what happened. Quickly!”

They’d turned before she’d uttered the final word. They pelted back along the track, then around the corner of the stable toward the manor’s back door.

She refocused on Breckenridge, on the blood welling between her fingers. Her palms side by side barely covered the wound. She needed material to staunch the flow.

With no shawl, and no hands free to undo his cravat, she grabbed the loose side of his jacket, bundled it up, and pressed it down — then let go, leapt to her feet, stripped off her lawn petticoat, and shook it free as she fell back to her knees. She wadded the material, lifted aside his coat, and pressed the makeshift pad firmly over the wound.

Better. She leaned on the dressing and the bleeding slowed.

She glanced at his face. From the set of his lips, knew he was still conscious. Was it better if he remained so? Staring at his face, at the angles and planes now beloved, she felt a chill touch her soul.

He might die.

“Don’t misunderstand, but how dare you risk your life? What the devil did you think, to leap over like that? You could have stayed safe on this side and just helped me over.” Even to her ears, her tone bordered on the hysterical.

Beneath her fingers, the white lawn started to redden.

She sucked in a shaky breath. “How could you risk your life — your life, you idiot!” She leaned harder on the pad, dragged in another breath.

He coughed weakly, shifted his head.

“Don’t you dare die on me!”

His lips twisted, but his eyes remained closed. “But if I die”—his words were a whisper—“you won’t have to marry, me or anyone else. Even the most censorious in the ton will consider my death to be the end of the matter. You’ll be free.”

“Free?” Then his earlier words registered. “If you die? I told you — don’t you dare! I won’t let you — I forbid you to. How can I marry you if you die? And how the hell will I live if you aren’t alive, too?” As the words left her mouth, half hysterical, all emotion, she realized they were the literal truth. Her life wouldn’t be worth living if he wasn’t there to share it. “What will I do with my life if you die?”

He softly snorted, apparently unimpressed by — or was it not registering? — her panic. “Marry some other poor sod, like you were planning to.”

The words cut. “You are the only poor sod I’m planning to marry.” Her waspish response came on a rush of rising fear. She glanced around, but there was no one in sight. Help had yet to come running.

She looked back at him, readjusted the pressure on the slowly reddening pad. “I intend not only to marry you but to lead you by the nose for the rest of your days. It’s the least I can do to repay you for this — for the shock to my nerves. I’ll have you know I’d decided even before this little incident to reverse my decision and become your viscountess, and lead you such a merry dance through the ballrooms and drawing rooms that you’ll be gray within two years.”

He humphed softly, dismissively, but he was listening. Studying his face, she realized her nonsense was distracting him from the pain. She engaged her imagination and let her tongue run free. “I’ve decided I’ll redecorate Baraclough in the French Imperial style — all that white and gilt and spindly legs, with all the chairs so delicate you won’t dare sit down. And while we’re on the subject of your — our — country home, I’ve had an idea about my carriage, the one you’ll buy me as a wedding gift. . ”

She rambled on, paying scant attention to her words, simply let them and all the images she’d dreamed of come tumbling out, painting a vibrant, fanciful, yet in many ways — all the ways that counted — accurate word picture of her hopes, her aspirations. Her vision of their life together.

When the well started to run dry, when her voice started to thicken with tears at the fear that they might no longer have a chance to enjoy all she’d described, she concluded with, “So you absolutely can’t die now.” Fear prodded; almost incensed, she blurted, “Not when I was about to back down and agree to return to London with you.”

He moistened his lips. Whispered, “You were?”

“Yes! I was!” His fading voice tipped her toward panic. Her voice rose in reaction. “I can’t believe you were so foolish as to risk your life like this! You didn’t need to put yourself in danger to save me.”

“Yes, I did.” The words were firmer, bitten off through clenched teeth.

She caught his anger. Was anger good? Would temper help hold him to the world?

A frown drew down his black brows. “You can’t be so damned foolish as to think I wouldn’t — after protecting you through all this, seeing you safely all this way, watching over you all this time, what else was I going to do?”

She stared at him, at his face. Simply stared as the scales fell from her eyes. “Oh, my God,” she whispered, the exclamation so quiet not even he would hear. She suddenly saw — saw it all — all that she’d simply taken for granted.

Men like him protected those they loved, selflessly, unswervingly, even unto death.

The realization rocked her. Pieces of the jigsaw of her understanding of him fell into place. He was hanging to consciousness by a thread. She had to be sure — and his shields, his defenses were at their weakest now.

Looking down at her hands, pressed over the nearly saturated pad, she hunted for the words, the right tone. Softly said, “My death, even my serious injury, would have freed you from any obligation to marry me. Society would have accepted that outcome, too.”

He shifted, clearly in pain. She sucked in a breath — feeling his pain as her own — then he clamped the long fingers of his right hand about her wrist, held tight.

So tight she felt he was using her as an anchor to consciousness, to the world.

His tone, when he spoke, was harsh. “Oh, yes — after I’d expended so much effort keeping you safe all these years, safe even from me, I was suddenly going to stand by and let you be gored by some mangy bull.” He snorted, soft, low. Weakly. He drew in a slow, shallow breath, lips thin with pain, but determined, went on, “You think I’d let you get injured when finally after all these long years I at last understand that the reason you’ve always made me itch is because you are the only woman I actually want to marry? And you think I would stand back and let you be harmed?”

A peevish frown crossed his face. “I ask you, is that likely? Is it even vaguely rational?”

He went on, his words increasingly slurred, his tongue tripping over some, his voice fading. She listened, strained to catch every word as he slid into semidelirium, into rambling, disjointed sentences that she drank in, held to her heart.

He gave her dreams back to her, reshaped and refined. “Not French Imperial — good, sound, English oak. You can use whatever colors you like, but no gilt — I forbid it.”

Eventually he ventured further than she had. “And I want at least three children — not just an heir and a spare. At least three — more, if you’re agreeable. We’ll have to have two boys, of course — my evil ugly sisters will hound us to make good on that. But thereafter. . as many girls as you like. . as long as they look like you. Or perhaps Cordelia — she’s the handsomer of the two uglies.”

He loved his sisters, his evil ugly sisters. Heather listened with tears in her eyes as his mind drifted and his voice gradually faded, weakened.

She’d finally got her declaration, not in anything like the words she’d expected, but in a stronger,