“I’m sure it will all have been arranged.” Her arm still supportively twined with his, Henrietta waited patiently by his side. “Penelope’s organizing is always very thorough.”
James grunted. Fitting the key to the lock, he opened the door, then waved Henrietta in. Walking into the hall, she paused by the central table and set down her reticule.
James shut the door, waited until she glanced his way, then arched a brow.
She smiled. “Set the locks. I’m staying.”
“If you’re sure.” Which wasn’t really in question. Using his good arm, he slid the bolts home.
“Aside from anything else”—she studied the way he moved while she shrugged off her cloak—“your wound needs tending. I’m certainly not about to leave you alone with such an injury.”
James glanced at his bound arm. Grimaced. “I would say, if that’s the case, then I’m almost glad he shot me—but it hurts too much.”
Smiling in sympathy, she crossed to take his good arm and steer him toward the stairs. “Come along—I’m sure Mrs. Rollins will have left all the supplies we’ll need waiting.”
“Speaking of which.” Allowing Henrietta to guide him onto the stairs and up, James glanced frowningly down into the hall. “Where is everyone? Seeing I didn’t return home last night—”
“I sent around a note, of course.” Henrietta met his gaze. “It was one of the first things I did after I got Affry’s note this . . . no, yesterday morning. He threatened to kill you if I raised any alarm, any hue and cry, and, of course, the same applied to your household, except Affry didn’t know you didn’t just have lodgings. I realized I needed to reassure Fortescue and Mrs. Rollins, and make sure they didn’t make any fuss, either, so I did.” Facing forward, she went on, “Then when we reached Penelope’s this evening, I sent another note to tell them all was well, but that you had been shot in the arm, a flesh wound, and I would need cloths and hot water and bandages to tend it, but we wouldn’t be home until late and they shouldn’t wait up for us.”
Reaching the top of the stairs and stepping into the gallery, she halted and faced him. “I told them we’d see them tomorrow, meaning this morning.” She tipped her head. “I hope that’s all right?”
James smiled—found he couldn’t stop smiling. “It’s more than all right. Did you realize you just called this house ‘home’?”
She lightly shrugged but didn’t take her eyes from his. “I suppose that’s because I already think of this house as my home.”
He felt—literally felt—every last iota of tension, of uncertainty for their future—fall from him. Holding her gaze, he raised her hand to his lips, kissed. “That makes me beyond happy.”
She smiled at that, one of her radiant, glorious smiles. “Good.” Linking her arm with his again, she turned them toward the master suite.
They went in, and sure enough, Mrs. Rollins had left all the required supplies laid out on the chest of drawers, along with a samovar of hot water. Henrietta helped him remove their rough bandage and ease out of his coat, then cut him out of his shirt and dampened the fine material that had stuck to the wound in order to peel it away.
The gash looked ugly, red and raw; she bathed it, then applied the salve Mrs. Rollins had left, and between them they bound the wound tightly.
“With luck,” he said, testing his arm, “there won’t be too much of a scar.”
Standing by the chest of drawers and drying her hands, Henrietta drank in the sight of him, seated on the low table, naked to the waist, his magnificent chest bared to her gaze, and smiled, then she considered the bandage and softly said, “I don’t mind if there is a scar. Every time I see it, I’ll think of how you got it.” She met his eyes. “How you worked to keep Affry’s gaze, his attention, fixed on you—his pistol trained on you—away from me, so that I could shoot him. Even though that put you in danger of being shot, even knowing you very likely would be.” She held his gaze steadily. “Don’t think I didn’t see that. Don’t think I didn’t appreciate that for what it was.”
Transparently uncomfortable, he shrugged the words away, then rose and came toward her. Prowled toward her, intent edging his features, his approach designed to distract, but she kept her gaze on his face, drank in the now familiar, well-beloved features, and thought, I know you now.
Outwardly, he remained a wolf of the ton—an ex-wolf, perhaps, yet the pelt was still there—but beneath the glamour he was a man who moved quietly through life, who did what needed to be done, what should be done, what was right. He didn’t see that as any distinguishing feature, as anything special, but . . . that made him the right man for her.
So she smiled and opened her arms, opened her heart and embraced him.
/> He studied her eyes, then he closed his arms about her, bent his head, and set his lips to hers, and together, step by step, whirling stride by stride, they stepped out together, reached for and found the ineluctable rhythm, and gave themselves up to the unutterable pleasure of their own, private celebration.
It started as that, as a compulsively necessary worshipping of life, of living, in the aftermath of escaping death’s shadow.
A simple matter of acknowledging they still lived, that they still breathed, still desired, still needed.
But as they shed their clothes, as their skins met and the flames flared, then raced over and through, claiming them, and they fell, limbs tangling, on the big bed, the engagement transformed into something more. Something broader, grander, more wild and joyous and passionately enthralling—a true celebration of their wider triumph.
Built on the joy of having found each other, of having discovered, uncovered, and learned. Of having grasped the challenges that fate had sent them, of having met those challenges and succeeded beyond their wildest dreams.
Of having forged a relationship, sound and true, a partnership that had seen them through the last fraught hours and brought them safely home.
To home.
To having won through to that blessed place.