Chapter Twenty

C HAPTER T WENTY

Among the fairies was Sabinus, looking quite dazed. At once, Christina started for the man.

The Fairy King clapped his hands, making her freeze. “Give me a poem,” he told her. “A fresh poem, not the one in your pocket.”

Christina opened her mouth and then burst into tears.

Lady Long-Nose felt her heart seize with fear.…

—From Lady Long-Nose

When Elspeth awoke, the room was sunny, and Julian was staring at her. His gray eyes held tears.

“Don’t move,” he whispered. “You were shot. I thought I lost you.”

She slapped him, which made her arm hurt very much. “Ow!” Belatedly, she noticed that her arm was bandaged.

His eyebrows snapped together. “What—?”

“You walked right into a trap,” she said, her voice breaking. “He was going to shoot you. Make you watch and then… then sh-shoot you!”

And she started sobbing like a ninny, and he gathered her into his arms and gently scolded her. “I told you not to move. The bullet went in your arm.”

“I wouldn’t have been shot if you hadn’t been so stupid,” she said rather nonsensically. “I heard you in the hall, and so I had to kick your uncle. Couldn’t you see it was a trap?”

He stroked a thumb over her cheek, his brows still drawn together. “You’re very brave.”

“Yes, I am,” she said, swiping at the tears on her cheeks. Her eyes were never going to recover. “I won’t ever have to do it again and be shot, if you simply use your intelligence and do not walk into traps trying to save me. Promise me.”

He kissed her nose and murmured, “I would promise you nearly anything, but not that. If you were ever, God forbid, in such a circumstance again, I’d walk right into the trap. I couldn’t not. You are my heart and I can hardly live without a heart.”

She sniffled, her eyes welling up again , and said, “Oh Goddess, I’ve fallen in love with a fool.”

“Have you?” he asked, almost shyly.

“Yes.” She bit her lip, looking away and saying rather gruffly, “I know that you don’t trust me, still—” He tried to say something, but she only talked louder over him. “But I’ve decided to trust you. I think trust is something that has to be free. You can’t harness it, or confine it, in the hope that you’ll be able to hold trust forever. You can only let it go and believe in your heart that it will stay.” She inhaled shakily, turning back to him. “So I’ve decided to trust in you, Julian Greycourt.”

“Elspeth,” he whispered against her lips, kissing her softly, his breath leaving his body to enter hers, “I trust you as well, my love. I do. And I’m so sorry for my anger towards you. I think part of it was grief that I’d lost you.”

“You haven’t lost me,” she murmured, closing her eyes and reveling in this moment between them, finally.

But she had to breathe after all, so she pulled back. “What will you do about the duke?”

“Nothing.” His voice was odd. “Augustus is dead. Ann shot him in front of more than a dozen witnesses, including my brother-in-law and the Earl of Rookewoode. Apparently, he had been poisoning her.”

“What?” she asked faintly, and then considered the matter. “Oh, good show, Ann.”

He snorted. “I agree, but unfortunately there were witnesses.”

“Oh, dear,” Elspeth said, much more worried over Ann’s fate than her late husband’s. “What will become of Ann?”

“We can’t hide who killed my uncle,” he said, “and even as a duchess—perhaps especially as a duchess—the murder of one’s husband is a grave crime in the eyes of England.”

Elspeth frowned with concern. “She won’t be sentenced to death, will she?”

He shook his head. “We called in a doctor, a friend of Rookewoode’s, and the man made a statement to the court that Ann had a fit and is mentally and physically unwell. She wants to live with her older brother at his country estate. Of course, most of society will think she’s imprisoned, but I won’t make that stipulation with him.”

“What if he doesn’t treat her well?” Elspeth demanded.

“She seems certain that her brother loves her very much,” Julian said. “It was their parents’ idea to marry her to Augustus, not his.”

She nodded. “Good.” Elspeth suddenly thought of something. “The maid! Alice, from Adders Hall, she was one of the people in the carriage that took me.”

But Julian was nodding already. “And she gave Augustus all the information about what I do in the bedroom. Don’t worry, she’s been arrested.”

She sighed at the news and leaned back on her pillows to truly look at Julian for the first time since waking. There were dark patches under his eyes and a bruise turning a lovely shade of purple high on his cheek. “How long have you been sitting with me?”

He glanced away, and she rather thought he meant to prevaricate, but then he said, “Since you were shot. It’s six of the clock now.”

“Surely a new duke has better things to do,” she said softly.

“Not this new duke.” He took her hand firmly in his. “When I thought you dead, Elspeth… God, I think I lost my sanity for a time.” He touched his forehead to hers. “I can never lose you.”

“Oh, Julian .”

Then his mouth was on hers, and she felt pure delight streak through her, like the parting of the clouds after a thunderstorm. The world was colorful again. She had hope.

She tugged gently at his bottom lip and then whispered against his mouth, “I suppose you’ll be looking for a duchess now that you’re a duke. An ordinary, proper lady.”

His breath puffed against her lips. “If I wanted an ordinary duchess, I’d never have fallen in love with you.”