Adelaide nodded, riveted to his stillness before she whispered, “What do I do now?”

  “You let Tobias carry him to bed.”

  “And?”

  A shrug. “Pray?”

  Adelaide huffed a single, wild laugh. “I tried that on the drive here. I am not very good at it.”

  “Luckily, it is a skill that does not require finesse.”

  The highwaywoman turned away to fetch the man who stood sentry outside the door—protecting the woman he loved inside—and Adelaide stood watch over Henry, riveted to his chest and the way it rose and fell, evenly, if a touch too quickly.

  Focusing on his bruised and battered body and the now too pale look of him.

  Hating the way watching him restricted the breath in her chest, as worry and frustration and nerves coursed through her.

  She’d spent a lifetime running from this feeling. From the way it made her weak. Vulnerable. Out of control.

  But there, alone in that kitchen, surrounded by the silence of the English countryside and the flickering light of a few dozen candles and him, filling the space even in slumber, she could no longer run.

  She was out of control.

  Doing the only thing she could think to do.

  Saying please.

  Chapter Fourteen

  The Duke of Clayborn rarely slept for more than six hours at a time.

  Oh, he told his valet that he was a man who did not require more than a few hours’ sleep. He woke early for morning rides and worked late into the evening, and he simply lived a life that neither required nor had space for languishing in bed.

  It was a fine tale, but a false one.

  Henry did not sleep, because he dreamed. He dreamed in full, vivid color, with loud sounds and intense smells—the kind of dreams that left a man drained and exhausted when he woke. And sometimes, they left him wishing for something beyond his stern, serious existence.

  So he had trained himself to go to bed late and wake early.

  But that night, as he lay in that strange bed in that strange house on the top of the hill in the depths of Lancashire, Henry dreamed.

  That night, and the next, and the next, as the fever took hold, raging through him, the dreams came wild and vivid and inescapable.

  Ominous shadows. Men lurking at the edge of his vision, disappearing every time he tried to see them more clearly. Secrets.

  A woman, hair like fire. Eyes like velvet. His name on her lips like the cool water on his brow.

  Sometimes, she was joined by another. They made a pair—bright-eyed highwaywomen on tall, stolen horses, stopping carriages to collect more members of their merry band. And the one with the fire in her hair wore enormous skirts that tied round her waist with long, brightly colored ribbons. She twirled and twirled while they waited for the next carriage, the skirts going wide, expanding until he could touch them from where he watched, miles away. But just as his fingers brushed soft silk, she disappeared.

  A broken carriage. A boy in a tree.

  The flame-haired woman again, this time laughing as she leapt from the edge of a dock into the cool blue lake at his country estate, breaking the water like a mirror. Wait. Was it the country estate? No. It was the Thames, those brightly colored skirts spread out around her as she floated away, her laugh on the wind as he chased her, terrified that he would lose her to the current. To the muck. Terrified he wouldn’t be able to keep her safe.

  He couldn’t catch her; she didn’t want to be caught.

  But he chased her down the bank, first on the docks and then on the boats and then onto the water itself, then into it, frustration in his chest as he tried to shout for her, but somehow couldn’t find her name. He was desperate to get to her, knowing that this chase, however long it took, however it ended, was all he had.

  And then, when he caught her, by chance, by the tip of one long, golden ribbon, she turned to him, the ribbon coming loose, a bright, ornate key at the end of it.

  He tucked it in his pocket, close to his heart, keeping it warm, as she had done, and they floated, the water cool on his heated skin, her fingers stroking down his arm, tangling in his own.

  “Henry,” she whispered.

  Stillness.

  The water was still, a mirror once more. Repaired.

  The dream was over, but he could not wake.

  * * *

  It had been four nights since they’d packed the wound and he’d fallen asleep. Four nights of watching him writhe on the bed. The fever had come mere hours later, Adelaide sleeping fitfully in the chair at the side of his bed, waking to spoon broth down his throat and change his bandages and spread salve on his wounds.

  On the third morning, they stood watching him as he twisted and turned and kicked freshly washed blankets from his body, and Lucia had voiced the concern Adelaide was too afraid to contemplate.

  Or, at least, she voiced half of the concern, sounding more serious than Adelaide had ever heard her. “If it doesn’t break soon . . .”

  Adelaide’s throat closed in the heavy silence that trailed after the words, the place behind her nose stinging with frustrated knowledge. “I know,” she said, barely recognizing her voice, exhausted from worry and lack of sleep and the constant repetition of his name—the only word she spoke, because she didn’t know what else to say.

  She asked Lucia to track Helene and Jack—to make sure they’d found their way to Gretna and were somewhere safe. She might not be able to keep Henry safe, but she could damn well find his brother. Her friend left, tucked beneath Tobias’s heavy arm, promising to do what she could, and Adelaide returned to Henry, finding different words now. More desperate ones.

  Don’t die.

  Not now . . . not just as I’ve found you.

  He’d promised he’d wake up, hadn’t he? He’d said it. I will take better care of you. He’d said it like she was precious. Not just a woman to be traded for partnership, or a thief to be used for business, or a quiet watchman in a ballroom full of awful toffs collecting information worth more than money. Not just a girl from the South Bank dreaming of a duke.

  He said it as though she was worthy of care simply because she was.

  And she wanted it to be true as she watched over him, pleading with the universe to let him live. She imagined that he would make good on that promise. That he would stand with her. Protect her.

  Be with her, instead of the two of them being alone. Make their fantasies real.

  What would that be like?

  Impossible.

  Still, Adelaide spent the long, interminable days watching over Henry, telling him stories, willing him to wake, willing him to heal—this impossibly strong, impossibly powerful man who now seemed impossibly quiet.

  At first, it seemed that she could calm him with a touch. With a cool cloth and a gentle whisper. She told him a thousand stories in those days—things she hadn’t thought about in years. About the cat she’d had as a child, the one she’d hidden from her father, because he thought pets made children soft. About the time she’d stolen hair ribbons from a haberdashery in Croydon. The time she’d snuck into a Drury Lane theater and found herself in the wings of the stage.

  She stopped short of telling him the worst bits. The secrets.

  But she bargained with the universe and whatever gods might be watching, and when that did not work, she bargained with Henry, promising she’d tell him everything he asked if only he’d wake.

  The dreams had stopped soon after that, and Adelaide did not know whether to take it as a good sign or not.

  He stopped thrashing and groaning, falling into something that all the world would recognize as slumber, and Adelaide imagined that some would think it a boon. But she hated the silent stillness to which he had succumbed. Hated that his breathing was even and he no longer moved. Hated that he no longer turned toward her when she whispered his name. That he no longer turned away when she pressed a too-cool cloth to his too-warm brow.

  Hated other things, too. That she hadn’t thanked him for taking a blade for her. For fighting for her. For letting the brute break his nose and one of his ribs.

  That she hadn’t thanked him for the night he’d held her in his arms and made her feel pleasure like nothing she’d ever experienced.

  That he wouldn’t wake up, so she might be able to do those things. To have more of them. To have more of him.

  She watched him, still as death—terrible phrase, that—until she couldn’t anymore. Until she had to move, finding a pot of salve in her bag and tending the bruises and scrapes he’d collected for her.

  His nose. His cheek. His ribs. The painful-looking bruise on his thigh. The wicked scrape at his shoulder. The raw knuckles he’d earned when he’d gone mad to keep her safe.

  She cursed harshly in the quiet room. He’d been in her company less than a week, and this was what she had done to him. This was her world, and it threatened this good and decent man every step of the way.

  The heat at his brow scorched like flame. How long could a body survive a fever? The question threw her from her seat, across the room to rinse another length of linen, a final effort.

  He didn’t move.

  “Henry,” she whispered, filling the word with all the fear and sorrow she would never speak aloud. There was nothing left to say, except “Please.”

  She was tired.

  And so, with another soft whisper of his name, she folded herself in the chair, set her cheek to the counterpane, and with her fingers threaded tight through his, slept.

  Chapter Fifteen

  When he opened his eyes, the room was aflame, and he imagined for a heartbeat that it was another dream, this one featuring nothing but her shining, beautiful curls wrapping themselves around him like fire.

  He lay there for a long moment, cataloguing the space—the wood beams on the ceiling and the white plaster walls and the window on the far side that looked to the east, where the sun rose, chasing the night from the land.

  It was cold, the fire in the hearth having died sometime in the night, and he turned toward it, an ache waking in his neck, as though he hadn’t moved in days. Had he moved in days? It had been night when he’d last been conscious, just before Adelaide had taken a needle to his side. Just before she had knocked him out with a concoction no doubt designed by one of her crew. They would have words about that.

  He shifted, testing the place where he’d been stabbed. New, but not fresh.

  Slowly, he tracked the state of his body, the sting at his side, the ache in his neck. The simultaneous sense of exhaustion and rest, as though he’d been unconscious for both a moment and an age.

  The hand in his.

  Her hand in his.

  He looked down the bed, over the coverlet, and the aches and pains faded away, his breath catching in his chest. Adelaide was there, hunched over in a chair, her cheek on the edge of the bed, facing him, asleep.

  Asleep, and holding his hand, her fingers tangled in his, as though she was keeping him there, tethered to that bed. To that room. To the earth.

  To her.

  And in that moment, a wild thought raced through him.

  Maybe she had kept him there.

  Maybe Adelaide Frampton, by sheer force of her will, had kept him alive.

  He tightened his fingers, knowing he shouldn’t. Knowing he should let her sleep, but wanting her to open her eyes more than he’d ever wanted anything before. “Adelaide,” he whispered. His first word, like a new beginning.

  Her eyes snapped open, wide and beautiful and instantly alert, even without her spectacles. Shock flared in them, and a tiny furrow formed between her brows, as though she could not quite believe what she saw, and he couldn’t help the way it pleased him—the idea that she might be happy he was awake.

  She shot up, pulling her hand from his, and he resisted the urge to chase it, to claim it once more. To touch her again.

  “Adelaide—” he said again, softly, as though he might scare her if he spoke above a whisper.

  She sucked in a breath at the word, her spine going straight. And then—

  Tears. Her beautiful brown eyes filled with tears, and he couldn’t help himself then, reaching for her, saying her name again.

  He sat up, ignoring the sting of his wound, the ache in his ribs that didn’t matter. Not as long as she was crying.

  “You shouldn’t—” She started to tell him not to move, but stopped, shaking her head, going silent for a long moment, one hand—that hand that had been his mere moments earlier—fisted and pressed tight to her mouth as she looked at him, tears spilling over. “I thought—”

  His throat tightened as she struggled with the words. He set a hand to his chest, where the worst of all his aches flared, the one that came with her pain. “Love . . . no. Don’t cry.”

  “I thought you would—” She paused for a moment, then added urgently, as she wiped away her tears, “I’m not crying.”

  “Of course not,” he said, watching the tears she was powerless to stop, wanting to pull her close and hold her tight and do battle with whatever it was that had summoned them.

  It was him, though. He had summoned them.

  Because she liked him.

  Not that she would confess it. She was babbling, trying to explain them. “I’m not—” She stopped and started again. “This isn’t—”

  He nodded. “I know.”

  “I’m only relieved, you see.” She brushed a tear away. And another. And gave a little wild laugh that made him want to do the same.

  “Of course,” he said. “You didn’t want a dead duke on your hands.”

  Another laugh, this one richer. The kind of laugh that made a man wish he could summon it every day. For a long time. “Exactly,” she agreed. “You’re not a bad sort of duke. You shouldn’t die.”

  And while he did not like the tears, he liked the sentiment a great deal. “Not a bad sort of duke,” he repeated. “High praise indeed from you, Miss Frampton.”

  He moved to stand, ignoring his body’s protests.

  She shot forward. “Be careful, you’ll hurt yourself.” She reached for him, not hesitating, her cool fingers sliding over his skin to help him, as though he were hers to touch.

  Which he was, with pleasure.

  She did not seem so certain however, and she let him go too quickly, pulling away as though she’d been burned. “I’m sorry,” she said softly. “I shouldn’t be so—”

  He cut her off, not wanting her to finish the sentence. Not when she absolutely should. Not when he wanted her to. Anytime she wished. For as long as she wished. “Why were you here?”

  She blinked. “Here? At the house?”

  “Here, in this room. Is there nowhere for you to have slept more comfortably?”

  Her lips formed a little O, and for a moment he thought she might not answer him. And then, simply, “You were here. In this room.”

  Pleasure bloomed in his chest. She didn’t want to leave him. Good. He cast a glance at the bed, wide enough for two. “With only this bed?” She nodded and he raised a brow at her. “There is a shocking lack of beds in this country.”

  She gave a little, watery laugh. “Shall I draft a letter of complaint?”

  There. The tears she shed for him were gone, at least. Christ, the way they’d made him feel, both full of rage and full of pride—it was primitive.

  “No need,” he said. “I have been looking for a new parliamentary issue, and I think this is something the whole of Britain will support.”

  “Additional beds?” Her eyes sparkled, playful, and he tilted his head to watch her, to delight in her, as much a balm as an open window or a hot bath or a bit of tooth powder would be in that moment.

  “Now that I think on it, I am quite happy with the number of beds we’ve encountered during our journey.” He paused. “How long have I been in this particular one?”

  “Today is day five,” she answered.

  “My God, really?”

  “We thought you might not . . .” She inhaled deeply before the tears could come again. “Well. You did. So it doesn’t matter.”

  “And have you been sleeping here, in this chair, for four nights?” He hated that.

  She nodded. “You might have woken. You might have needed me.”

  “Did I? Need you?”

  He knew the answer instantly. Could recall the dreams, the way he followed her, the way he ached for her. The way he ached for her here, too. In reality. Even now, after four days of unconsciousness and a half-dozen pains that were more than a little uncomfortable, the way he ached for her—the need clawing at him—was the worst of them all.

  “You might have,” she repeated, taking a step back as though to put distance between them. “And so I stayed here.”

  “Only one chair,” he whispered, finally, finally letting himself reach for her. Catching her by the hand—the same one that he’d been holding when he woke. Like it was home.

  She let him take it. “It’s a small room.”

  “And a large bed.”

  She swallowed. “Henry, you were unconscious.”

  “Mmm,” he said. “I am not unconscious now, however, and I don’t like your tears. Let me hold you. Let me chase them away.”

  “I did not cry,” she insisted even as, miraculously, she let him pull her closer, letting him wrap his arms around her and breathe her in, fresh rain and rosemary.

  “You took care of me,” he whispered to the top of her head. “Just as you promised.”

  She inhaled deeply and relaxed in his arms, going soft and languid. His poor girl was exhausted, which was perhaps why she admitted, “I was scared.”

  The words shouldn’t have run riot through him, and still they did, on that twin course of pleasure and pain—that she had feared for his life and also that he had been the source of her worry. “I am sorry,” he said to her fiery curls, tied back but cascading past her shoulders. “I am sorry that I was not with you. But I am here now. Christ. Five days—” he said softly. “They’ve made it to Gretna.”

  “Likely,” Adelaide replied. “They are being followed by others now.”