By the time she stopped rolling, knocking into Theo’s bare feet, Toren was standing over the bastard, knife bloody.
The man wasn’t moving. Dead, she hoped.
Her look lifted to Toren, and he was staring at her with a strange mixture of wonderment and rage in his eyes. And then he grinned. Pure, unadulterated pride beamed in his look. “Well done, Adalia.”
She nodded, unable to speak, her body still moving purely on instinct.
His eyes darkened. “But do not ever dare to do something so foolish again.” He nodded to Theo. “Let us remove ourselves.”
Slitting the last rope free from Theo’s ankle, Toren slid his arm around her brother’s back, lifting him from the chair. Upon standing, her brother instantly swayed, and she could see Toren bear almost all of Theo’s weight as his own.
Not that there was much left of Theo. Her brother was tall, but the skin she could see through the blood and wounds hung loosely from his bones.
Within a minute, they were up a tiny circular stone staircase and moving out into the daylight.
Her hand lifted to shield her eyes from the bright early-morning light. She shook her head, slightly confused at how time had moved to morning. She had to have been unconscious for some time.
Mr. Benson rushed toward them and quickly wrapped his arm around Theo to support the other side of him.
“The others?” Toren demanded over the top of Theo’s slack head.
“Taken care of. But I do not recommend we stay in the area,” Mr. Benson said.
Both men supporting her brother, the four of them started moving along an overgrown lane leading from the side of the castle toward a line of trees. “Adalia, your feet—can you walk out here?”
She looked down. Bare feet. She had forgotten she’d lost her boots and stockings. The dewy grass cold against her toes, she nevertheless nodded. “Yes. Nothing has hurt them yet.”
“Grab the reins of the horses.” Toren flicked his head to the two horses tied a few steps into the forest next to the trail they were walking toward. “The road is only a quarter mile ahead. It will be easier if we don’t have to balance Theodore on a horse.”
Adalia ran ahead to untie the leather straps from the low-slung branches. Waking them, she tugged the horses to follow Toren, Theo, and Mr. Benson.
Rogue sticks poking into the soles of her feet, Adalia bit back a blasphemy at each prick shooting up her leg. She would never complain about pain again. Not after that. Not after seeing what Theo had been through.
Unimaginable pain.
In front of her, she watched the limp rolling of her brother’s head as Mr. Benson and Toren carried him forward. He was awake, grasping at threads of consciousness, but her brother could not even hold his head up.
Unimaginable pain. But he was alive. Alive.
She just prayed his soul had somehow survived the last three months as well.
The trees thinned as they approached the road, and within minutes of walking alongside the dirt lane, a man and a wagon crested the hill before them.
Toren waved him down. “You. We need your wagon.”
Hay piled low in the back of his wagon, the farmer slowed, his gray donkey coming to a lazy stop.
Adalia stepped up beside her husband, poking him in the ribs. “You cannot just take someone’s wagon, Toren.”
Toren glanced down at her, his eyebrows arched as though the thought was novel. He gave a slight shrug, glancing to his driver. “Benson?”
Shifting Theo’s weight onto his one arm, Mr. Benson awkwardly fished out a heavy sack of coins from inside his black coat. He tossed it up to the farmer.
Squeezing the pouch, the farmer heard the coins clinking, and a toothless smile broke onto his face. “It be yers, sir.” He jumped off the driver’s bench, and with a tilt of his worn cap he turned and walked away in the direction he had come from.
“Let us get Theodore in the back on the hay,” Toren said, and he and Mr. Benson walked Theo to the rear of the wagon and lifted him up onto the flat boards. After stripping off his coat, Mr. Benson jumped up onto the bed of the wagon. He laid the coat down and then dragged Theo forward until his entire body was splayed on the coat and hay.
Toren turned to Adalia to take the leather reins of the horses.
Through the fog she was still in, she felt his knuckles brush the back of her hand, and it sent a shock up her arm. She lifted her eyes slowly, almost afraid to meet his look in case she was dreaming and he was about to dissipate into the wind.
His chin. Dark stubble along it. His lips. A cut along the bottom left.
She held her breath.
His eyes. The warmest brown, tender in the midst of the rage that still pulsated under his skin.
Real. He was real.
“You . . . you didn’t die. I feared . . .” She could only now utter the words that had been stuck in her chest since he had appeared in the bowels of that castle.
His free hand lifted and settled against her neck, his fingertips pressing into the muscles along the base of her hair. “No. I didn’t die. You do not curse those around you, Adalia.”
She blinked hard, still afraid to believe he was alive and in front of her. Maybe he was right. Maybe she didn’t curse those around her. “And you found me.”
His eyes closed. He visibly swallowed, his head shaking. It was a long breath before he opened his eyes and met her look fully. “I did. I will always find you. Always protect you, Adalia. I swore that. For that alone I will live through anything.”
She nodded, her chest swelling. In spite of all his idiocy—his lies—she loved this man. Loved him fully and unconditionally, and knew she would until the day she died.
A slight grin lifted the side of his mouth. “Though I must give due credit, Adalia. I did not technically find you. Mr. Benson did.”
“Mr. Benson?” She leaned to the side, looking at Mr. Benson still getting Theo’s limbs comfortable on the bed of hay. It appeared as though her brother had lost consciousness again.
“Benson is one of the crown’s preeminent trackers. He has been one of the men searching for Theodore, but I took him off that task when I learned you were in London. He shadowed you until I arrived. He was going to accompany us back to Dellon Castle.”
“Yes.” She nodded, Mr. Benson’s face registering. “I recognize you from the Revelry’s Tempest.”
Lifting one of Theo’s legs, the ragged shreds of her brother’s trousers tangling in his fingers, Mr. Benson glanced up at her, tilting his head. “That you do, Your Grace. Pleased to be of service.”
She looked up at Toren. “I wondered why Mr. Beal was not driving the carriage last night.”
“I left him at the castle. He is teaching the girls about how he trains the horses.”
“Why on earth?”
“Mary wants to learn how to drive a carriage.”
Adalia chuckled. “She is about ten years too young and a quarter of the weight she needs to do that properly.”
“Yes. But she can learn. And whatever those two want to learn, I am going to move heaven and earth to teach them.”
Adalia smiled, her thumping heart expanding hard in her chest.
Toren motioned to the wagon. “Where do you want to ride, Adalia? On the bench or the back?”
She glanced at her brother and then looked up at him. “I want you—no—I need you, Toren. You. I need you holding me.”
“Then I bow to your needs.” He nodded, a glow sparking in his brown eyes. “We will ride in back together with Theo.”
“I think that best.”
His hand dropped from her neck, and he moved to tie the horses to the wagon, but she stopped him before he escaped her, her hand going up to his cheek to turn his face toward her. “Before I forget to argue over your latest edict, you should know that I will foolishly tackle a thousand men for you, Toren, whether you wish it or not. Do you understand there is nothing I would not do for you?”
He stared down at her, his brown eyes p
iercing her. The twitch of his cheek under her hand said volumes. But then he sighed. “I know it, Adalia. I know it full well.”
“Good.” Her hand dropped from his face and she motioned to the wagon. “Then let us make our way home.”
{ Chapter 20 }
Pleasantries with the Earl of Bayton satisfied for the evening, Toren sipped from a short, thick glass, watching the fire in the guest quarters.
The brandy slid down his throat slowly, fighting past the clenched muscles along his neck. That his hands were not shaking at this point was a miracle.
He had almost lost her.
He leaned forward, his hand gripping the heavy oak mantel above the hearth to steady himself.
Even now, even though his wife was physically safe, he quite possibly had lost her because of his actions the day before. Because of the months of lies.
But she had needed him above everything else after being tied up in the undercroft of that abandoned castle.
She needed him.
He clung to that wisp of hope. Adalia had been overwhelmed, he knew that. The entire wagon ride, she had needed him to hold her because of it. Her fingers clutching her brother’s hand, she’d watched Theodore like a hawk, ignoring how her own body shook, the reality of what had happened to her manifesting in her uncontrolled tremors.
And he had held her. Happily. Gratefully. For there had been moments in the last twenty-four hours when he had thought he would never get the chance to again.
Those moments had nearly destroyed his soul.
Mr. Benson had driven the wagon to the nearest haven Toren could think of, Lord Bayton’s Berkshire estate. Theodore needed a surgeon, and he needed one sooner rather than later. In residence, Lord Bayton was happy to welcome them under the circumstances.
Toren knew Adalia would want to get as quickly as possible to the twins at Dellon Castle, and they would travel onward to there once they could properly move Theodore.
He guessed he would have a fight on his hands with Theodore to get him to remain at Dellon Castle for the immediate future, but Toren wasn’t about to chance someone else’s coming after him or Adalia or the twins. So there they would remain until this bloody war was over.
The door opened, and his wife walked into the questionably appointed room. Decorated in cherubs and soft pastels, it was the furthest thing from his taste—but he wasn’t about to complain. Lord Bayton was one of the few men in Parliament who actually had the ability to practice discretion, and Toren didn’t want a soul to know of their whereabouts. Not to mention that the man knew his horseflesh.
“How is your brother?” He set the glass of brandy onto the mantel and walked across the room to her. Her left hand had been rewrapped after the wounds from the glass had reopened, and she had changed into a simple yellow muslin dress a maid had procured. Touches of pink had also returned to her ashen face since he had left her with Theodore a half hour before.
Progress.
“Sleeping, mercifully.” She sighed, exhaustion lacing her breath. “I thought he would lose consciousness when they set all those bones. I needed him to, but he didn’t. I don’t know how he suffered it.”
“Theodore has always been strong.”
She nodded, rubbing the back of her neck, rolling her head to stretch her muscles. He had seen how stretched out she had been tied up, and imagined the aches in her muscles and limbs were throbbing. He stepped around her, brushing her hair to the side, and slipped the pads of his thumbs up and down the tight muscles of her neck and shoulders.
Her eyes closed and she leaned into him, near purring within seconds.
More progress.
Her face dipped downward to stretch the lines of her neck as his fingers kneaded through the tightness. “Will the girls be safe, Toren? I am worried.”
“Josalyn and Mary are no longer valuable as a device to make your brother talk, so yes, they are even safer than they were a day ago. And the war will end eventually, sooner if all goes well with Wellington’s plans. After that, hiding them away will not be necessary. But you know I will take every precaution until that time.”
“I do.” She took a deep breath. “I want to be back with them.”
“We will leave tomorrow if we can find a suitable, well-sprung enclosed wagon to carry your brother laid out. Even at that, I feel we should not move him until he heals more, but that could take weeks, and I prefer the safety of Dellon Castle.”
“As do I.” She nodded. “So we are safe?”
“Yes.”
She stepped away, turning to face him. “Good. Then I can currently be irate with you.”
“Irate?” Toren blinked hard. His wife had been purring a moment ago, and now she was irate? He deviously grinned—purely manipulative. He would use whatever means necessary to veer her off whatever irate course she was determined to follow. “I do not think irate is allowed. Not now.”
“Yes, now.” Her hands went onto her hips. “Your lies. Potatoes.”
“Pota—what?”
“Potatoes. You tossed me over your shoulder like a sack of potatoes, Toren.” She thwapped his shoulder. “Your blasted shoulder. Like I was nothing. Like I was a . . . a . . . thing. A sack of potatoes you bought at the market.”
“Ah . . .”
Her head shook, her lips pursing as her green eyes skewered him. “Overbearing tyrant.”
“At least you dropped the fiend.” His head cocked to the side with a wry smile.
She was not amused. Fiend would be added back to the insult if he did not step carefully around his next words.
He sighed, his hand rubbing his forehead. “I have no defense, Adalia. I did toss you about like a sack of potatoes. In that moment in the garden, all I could think of was keeping you safe—safe from yourself. I had no idea where you were going—what you were about to do. The need exploded so brutally in me that I was blinded to everything except getting you out of there—getting you out of London before you did something stupid.”
He shrugged. “So, yes, I was tyrannical. I apologize for that. But at the same time I cannot profess that I would have done anything differently. Anything to keep you safe means anything, Adalia. Even throwing you over my shoulder if that is what is necessary. Even if it means I have to face down the look you are currently giving me.”
Her hands slipped from her hips, and her arms crossed over her rib cage. “And the lies? The lies were not a sudden uncontrollable urge, Toren. They were premeditated. You lied to me for months—months—about Theo.” Her voice had gone soft, near to cracking.
Toss her about, and she was mad—but this, this had caused real hurt. A wound that she attempted to cover with a veil of anger, but it was there, plain as day.
The lies were trickier, for he had no defense. He had hauled her away from London to protect her from her own idiocy. But the lies. The lies about Theodore’s death were all of his own making.
Mercy. The only thing he had left was to ask for mercy. Beg if necessary. “I cannot defend the lie, for when I told it, it was entirely for my own benefit, and I thought nothing of it. But you are well aware of that, aren’t you, Adalia?”
She nodded, her lips drawing back into a tight line.
“There were moments after . . . after we married, when I wanted to tell you. But I could not do so, Adalia. Some lies just need to remain lies—for the hurt they would cause if revealed. Hurt for no reason. Hurt I could not inflict upon you.”
“Hurt is not a reason to hide truth, Toren.”
“No. Yet I still could not do it. Could not watch you crumble as you did. It was selfish of me, and I can only beg your forgiveness on the matter.”
She opened her mouth, ready to retort, ready to unleash a maelstrom of condemnation upon him.
He deserved all of it.
But then her lips suddenly clamped shut, her head shaking, her green eyes pinning him.
Toren pounced on the slight hedge. “I only have one question for you, Adalia.”
“What is it?�
� Her words seeped out through gritted teeth.
“Do you trust me?”
She stared at him. Wavering. Wavering enough that Toren could not discern on which side she would end up—forgiveness or damnation.
“I always have.” She exhaled, defeated, her eyes not leaving his face, her voice weary. “I cannot deny that truth, as much as I want to in this moment.”
His held breath seeped from his lungs, an inordinate amount of pride filling his chest. “I know how much that just cost you.”
“You do? How?”
“You said the words, yet you are still staring at me like that.”
Her eyebrows cocked in question.
“As if you would like to see me roasting on a spit over a fire. It would curdle my toes if I didn’t know you possessed the exact opposite of that look and, on occasion, you grace me with it.”
Curiosity sparked in the center of the raging storm brewing in her green eyes. “What look is that, exactly?”
“As if you want me naked in the middle of the bed, suffering your fingers slipping into nooks to torture me. Like lust. Like wanton devilry. As if I am the only man you will ever want. Like wonderment.” He took a step toward her. Any means necessary.
She fought it, but the slightest crack slipped into her ire, her lips softening.
He set his hands upon her shoulders, gentle, pressing just enough to draw goose bumps up along her neck. “I am never going to let harm come upon you, Adalia. I swore it when we married. And I swear it every day, every minute, every second. Everything I have done was to keep you safe—from both man and harm to your soul.”
Raw vehemence shook his words, and slowly—far too achingly slowly—he watched the last of her ire dissolve, her green eyes turning to resigned adoration. She lifted her right hand to his face and flattened her palm along the line of his jaw.
That one touch from her marked the moment—the one moment in his life that would stay with him until the end of his days—the moment his life truly began. And he knew it, recognized it fully, and accepted it with every fiber of his being.
His mouth opened, his words near to cracking. “Will you listen to one other thing I need to tell you?”
Of Valor & Vice: A Revelry's Tempest Novel Page 21
