Chapter 18

Rufus made it into the corridor before his legs gave way under him, and he sank against the wall, knees pulled tight to his chest.

“You’re supposed to be watching her,” he snapped as Gil joined him a few minutes later.

“She’s asleep. She’s fine. You aren’t.”

“I’m not the one who got shot.”

It was to Rufus’s annoyance that his tired, whirling brain had taken this moment to recognise that Gil had a soft, mobile mouth. It was currently possessed of a too-knowing curve. “You seemed to take it harder than she did.”

“I don’t think it even occurred to her she was in danger.”

“Oh, I think it did. She just didn’t want to worry you.”

Rufus could barely muster the energy to raise an eyebrow, so he twitched it instead. “You seem very taken with her, considering you nearly killed her. Maybe you should be eloping?”

“I would in a heartbeat, if she’d have me.”

“Didn’t think she was your type. Or are you flexible in your menacing?”

“Not at all.” Lowering himself to the floor opposite, Gil crossed his legs neatly. “But that doesn’t seem to be a problem for her. Are there many such women in the world?”

“Probably more than you’d think. Women who prefer other women. Women not interested in coitus. Women with better things to do than tolerate our bullshit.”

“It had not before occurred to me to seek one.”

A soft laugh worked its way up Rufus’s throat. “You’re unlikely to find another Arabella Tarleton.”

“Well, I do not, in general, expect women to be interchangeable.”

“No, but she’s ...” Rufus broke off, not sure what term would be appropriate. “You know, she’s completely ruined my life?”

His companion offered a gently enquiring sound. “How so?”

“I mean, I’ve as good as jilted another lady. I’m likely disinherited. Her brother will probably never forgive me for running off with his sister. The brother’s extremely rich, extremely powerful husband-in-everything-but-name will consequently condemn me also. And I had all these plans, Postlethwaite ...”

“Plans?”

“Yes, I was going to be dutiful and decent, and as profoundly miserable as I deserve to be.”

“And now that’s off the table?”

“She makes it very difficult to be miserable.”

“Monstrous of her.”

“Isn’t it?” Recollecting the indignity of being curled up against the skirting boards like a very large snail, Rufus extended his legs, his booted ankle brushing Gil’s knee. “Especially considering I’ve loved her brother since I first laid eyes on him. It was in an inn, not so different from this one. He’s very like her, but softer, and brighter, as though nothing sordid or cruel or debasing has ever touched him.”

“Do you feel touched by those things?”

He asked too many questions, the damn bookseller. But Rufus was too exhausted, and too defenceless, to do anything other than answer. “Most of the time I feel touched only by those things.”

“I’m truly sorry to hear that,” said Gil, finally.

Rufus shrugged. “Strange words from a man whose primary interest lies in menacing.”

“You realise you’re only proving your lady correct.”

“In what particular?”

“That you have not been properly menaced.”

“Going to show me what I’m missing, are you?” The idea was not, in that instant, completely repugnant. He welcomed the idea of a body that was not bleeding, almost dying. Wanted something to overwhelm the memory of frayed skin and knotted thread. “It might be your only chance. I don’t have much fight left in me.”

“Good Lord.” Gil sounded less than enthusiastic. “I said I had a wish to menace a man. Not molest him in a corridor.” He stood, offering a hand to Rufus. “Come.”

Rufus regarded the hand. “You would like to molest me somewhere else?”

“I would like to take you to bed.”

“Doesn’t seem very menacing, but I’m game.”

“To sleep.”

It took a moment for the meaning—for the rejection—to sink in. It was disconcerting, the way one could accumulate mountains of them, snowdrifts upon mountains of them, and yet they never failed to bite. Leave the memory of themselves behind. “You’re unexpectedly choosy for someone attempting to arrange assignations by correspondence.”

Gil’s grip, as he hauled Rufus to his feet, was warm and sure. “Don’t be nonsensical. You’re quite one of the loveliest gentlemen I’ve ever laid eyes on.”

“I?” said Rufus, dazedly, swaying slightly where he stood.

“Positively baroque. But if you’re sincerely interested in me in return, I would at the very least like you to be awake.”

“Fussy, fussy.”

“And,” Gil added, steering Rufus firmly into the room next to Belle’s, “compos mentis enough not to regret it.”

“If you think being in full control of my faculties is enough to stop me doing things I regret, you have either under- or over-estimated me quite considerably.”

With a little push, Gil propelled him onto the bed. Rufus told himself he could have resisted, but he wasn’t entirely sure what it was he would have been resisting. The second his body came into contact with something soft and supportive, his limbs turned to blancmange, and he folded onto the mattress in a boneless heap.

“Try to rest?” Gil suggested. “You were remarkable today.”

He rolled his eyes. “I’m all to pieces, and I don’t know why. I was in the army. I’ve stepped over the dying without looking back. Seen men blown apart. Bleed out.”

“Did you care about any of them?”

“Experience has taught me not to make a habit of caring about anything.”

Pulling the covers off the bed, Gil cast them over Rufus where he lay. “Well, you’ll find it makes a difference.”

“I think,” said Rufus sleepily, “I preferred it when you couldn’t say anything but um .”

“I’d been played with, manipulated, stood up, attacked, and I’d recently shot someone. I was not at my best.”

“And this is you at your best, is it?”

Gil seemed unperturbed by this transparent—indeed borderline Tarletonian—attempt to rankle him. “I would say this is me at my daily median. Me at my best seems to exist mostly in my head.”

“At least he exists somewhere.”

“Please. Your best self has been much in evidence today.”

“Then your standards must be very low. I’ve not exactly been kind to you.”

“I shot your fiancée. Kindness wasn’t merited.”

“Nevertheless, I was going out of my way to be unpleasant.”

Leaning over him, Gil pushed a lock of hair away from his brow. “Beautiful people can get away with being a little unpleasant sometimes. Besides, I can see how you adore her.”

Some very tragic part of Rufus’s brain noticed the word beautiful and wanted to hold on to it like an urchin with a farthing. The rest of his brain, thankfully, possessed enough wherewithal to dismiss it, though this left his mouth disgorging words without supervision. “We’ve been engaged for less than a week. I wasn’t prepared to lose her. For the idea that I could .” He let out a sound, half mirth, half pain. “There’s something about them, Belle and her damn brother. Stubbornness or naiveté, I’ve never worked it out. But it feels like the rules should be different for them, somehow.”

“In what way?”

“Oh ... you know, fairy-tale rules. The good end happily, the bad end unhappily, dragons are defeated, princes are kissed, love conquers all.”

“And nobody,” Gil finished for him, “gets their arm grazed by a stray bullet while grappling with a bookseller dressed as a highwayman?”

Rufus inclined his head in vague assent.

“You saved her. What more can you expect of yourself?”

“And the next time?”

“Perhaps she’ll save you. Or she already has.”

“Or I’m not worth the gamble she’s taken on me and she’ll regret our union, and the few people who’ve ever thought passingly well of me will hate me for it.”

There was the slightest of pauses. “The brother again?”

“Mmm.”

“You recognise, of course, that you cannot win the favour of one with the other?”

At that, Rufus actually laughed, and laughed unhindered. “Is that what you think is happening here? Don’t be absurd. Bonny’s never given me a second glance and never will.”

Gil offered a crooked half smile. “You talk about him a lot.”

“Unrequited love, I’m afraid, turns one tedious.”

“I wouldn’t know.”

“You’ve never been in love?”

“I’m not in a rush to be.”

“Too preoccupied with menacing?” Rufus asked, not sure whether he was trying to be teasing or derisory.

“For the moment.”

“To be honest”—kicking off his boots, Rufus dragged himself into a more comfortable position on the bed—“I think it’s mostly habit with me at this point. I probably wouldn’t know who I was anymore if there wasn’t someone to make me feel worthless.”

Picking up the boots, Gil placed them neatly by the door. “Perhaps you could consider it?”

“Sorry,” said Rufus with a touch of unearned irritation, “my head’s a little fuzzy because I just had to sew up a woman’s arm before she bled out on a kitchen table. Consider what?”

“Finding out who you are in the company of those who don’t make you feel worthless.”

“Well, I’m about to marry one. Though God knows what she sees in me.”

“I think she sees someone who saved her life today.”

“So what you’re saying,” returned Rufus, sulky with exhaustion, “is that I’ll be a fantastic husband when she’s in mortal danger.”

“Yes”—Gil gave him the sort of look he thoroughly deserved—“that’s exactly what I’m saying.” But then his expression softened, and he went on treacherously, “You know, as part of your resolution to spend time with those who treat you well, you might also consider being a little kinder to yourself.”

Rufus threw a sheltering hand across his eyes. “Maybe when I do something to merit it.”

“I don’t think you should have to earn—”

“For God’s sake,” Rufus snapped. “Arabella Tarleton has probably treated me better than anyone in my entire life, and I did nothing to protect her today.”

“I do not know the lady as you do.” Gil’s voice was almost unbearably gentle. “But I get the sense she needs your friendship far more than she needs your protection.”

“And I am getting the sense,” said Rufus from beneath his arm, terrified that he might start weeping, “that you ought to fuck off.”

“Then I’ll be with Miss Tarleton.”

“Wake me if anything changes. Anything. ”

“I promise.”

The door closed behind Gil with a click.

Despite his exhaustion, Rufus’s thoughts swirled unhelpfully for long minutes. Strange how quickly you could grow accustomed to things. Even relatively inconsequential ones like sharing space. One would have thought, after long days in a carriage with Belle, he would want distance, not increased closeness. But she had awoken some brutal, terrifying hunger in him, and now he missed the certainty of her body tucked behind him, the tickle of her hair against his neck, the possessive, protective arm thrown across his waist. He missed her scent and her breath. He missed being held. He even missed the fairly extensive conversations she would have with herself sometimes while deeply asleep. The cold little feet she would plunge mercilessly between his knees as though she had the absolute right to his body heat.

Since Belle had been shot, he had been clinging to anger like driftwood. Gil’s foolishness. Her recklessness. How this was all somehow typical of the Tarletons. Because ... it was? But that was fading now, breaking apart between his fingers as he lay alone in the dark, in an unfamiliar room, the events of the day—the sound of the pistol, Belle growing colder and colder in his arms, her blood on his hands—spinning through his head in an endless, agonising waltz until all that remained was fear.

Particularly useless fear, even by the standards of that specific emotion, because it couldn’t change anything. It could only strike out of nowhere like a snake and fill him full of poison, for he could so easily have lost Belle today. A thought which might, not so very long ago, have felt in some dark way freeing, not that he would ever have wanted something quite so catastrophic to happen to her. Now, though, it just made him feel a kind of pre-emptive grief. For the possibility of a life he still could not truly picture, and would never have chosen, but which nevertheless gleamed richly with the promise of unimagined, undared contentment.