Jake, their driver, had elected to wait. He took them up and drove them the short distance to Half Moon Street. Dillon insisted on tipping him generously, even though Jake protested that the excitement had been gratuity enough; they parted with good wishes all around.
Dillon used his key to the front door. The house lay silent, sunk in peace; the servants had retired, and all the other above-stairs occupants were still at Horatia’s. Quiet content wrapped about them as in the dark they climbed the stairs; reassurance that all was well had laid calming hands on him by the time they reached Pris’s chamber and went in.
Pris crossed to the dressing table and set down her reticule; shrugging off her cloak, she let it fall over the stool. Dillon lit the candelabra on the dresser, shrugged out of his coat and waistcoat, then crossed to the hearth, where a fire was burning low. Crouching, he stirred it to life.
With a sigh, she turned, sank onto the stool, and watched him. Watched the flames rise, leap, and light his face.
She’d eagerly lent her aid with his plan to disgrace her four attackers; she’d stood beside him while they’d told Horatia’s guests their tale. Now, however, she felt not just outwardly bedraggled, with her crumpled gown, her disarranged curls, and the bruises on her wrists, but rough and rather ragged inside, as if her very emotions had been abraded.
As for Dillon…she hadn’t recognized or understood that look in his eyes, but she’d sensed, from the moment they’d taken stock in the brothel chamber, that he’d slammed a door on his reactions and had ruthlessly contained them through the following hours…none knew better than she that such control had its limits.
He reached for a log and laid it on the flames. She watched, savoring the play of muscles beneath the fine linen of his shirt, content that he was there, soothed by his presence. He was the only person she could have imagined being alone with in that moment. He’d spent most of the recent nights with her, in this room; she would have missed him had he not been there.
Soon he had a lovely fire blazing in the hearth, throwing light and welcome heat into the room. He rose, and stood staring down at the flames. She rose, too, and went to stand beside him.
His hand found hers; she twined her fingers with his.
After a moment, he shifted, and drew her into his arms.
She went readily, eagerly, lifting her face as he bent his head. His lips covered hers; she parted them, and welcomed him in.
Not the smooth, sophisticated, charming him but that other him, the passionate man that lurked behind the social mask. She tasted him, the untamed, not entirely safe, thrilling, exciting, wickedly sinful him.
She drew him to her. With her lips, with her body, she tempted and taunted, lured him with a wild and wicked promise of her own, offered her own passion, her heart and soul, in return for his.
The kiss turned greedy; her head started to spin.
One arm tightened, possessive and steely, about her waist. His other hand rose, pushing aside her loosened curls to frame her face-
Pain stabbed, sharp, intense; she jerked, winced, before she remembered…
“What is it?” He’d lifted his head on the instant. He looked at his fingers, then pushed back her curls. “My God, you’re bleeding!”
Pris fleetingly closed her eyes. Damn! “It’s just a little nick.” Opening her eyes, she tried to push back, but the arm about her waist gave not an inch.
“A nick? When…”
Dillon realized. He saw the faint powder burns around the ragged tear in the rim of her shell-like ear, the perfect alabaster curve desecrated beyond repair. She wouldn’t die, the wound would heal, but that perfect curve would never be perfect again.
Remembered terror, he discovered, could be worse than the original fear. Could be deeper, broader, courtesy of time and the ability to think, to imagine, to fully comprehend what might have been.
An icy rage filled him, fueled by that stark terror. He blinked, and all he saw was the black well of despair that had so nearly claimed her-and him.
“You got this when you tried to save me.” His voice was even-too even-his tone deathly cold.
Her head rose; his hand fell from her face as she angled her chin at him. “I didn’t just try-I saved you. You were just standing there, letting him shoot at you!”
Everything male in him rose up and roared, “Damn it! That’s not the point!”
She didn’t so much as flinch. Instead, she leaned nearer and face-to-face clearly enunciated, “It is to me. You were about to get shot-what did you expect me to do? Sit safely shielded behind you and wring my hands?”
“Yes!” He forced his hands from her; it was that or shake her. “That’s precisely what you should have done.”
She pulled back and stared at him. “Don’t be daft.”
“Daft?” He clutched his hair and swung away from her. “Damn it, Pris, you were nearly raped. Would have been raped if Rus and I hadn’t got there in time-and all because of me. Because of my wonderful plan to trap Mr. X, to protect us, to…to do what duty suggested.”
Unyielding before the hearth, Pris frowned at him. “Yes, I know. But you did get there in time.” She watched him pace before her, read the agitation in every wild and violent movement. What was this?
He shook his head. His face was set. “Yes, but…none of that was important. I thought it was, and at one level it is, but not at the level that matters most. You are important, and you-and what we have, you and I-all of that I put at risk.” He halted, met her eyes, his gaze dark, turbulent, a little wild. “Bad enough. That’s something I’ll have to live with-something I’ll never do again. Never risk again. But”-his hands fisted at his sides-“then you-you risked yourself! Trying to save me! Don’t you ever do such a foolish thing again!”
She returned his furious glare, opened her mouth-
“Don’t think I’m not grateful, but…” He dragged in a breath, spoke through clenched teeth. “You are going to promise me you’ll never, ever, put yourself at risk again, not for anything. You promised me you never would-”
“Not unless you were with me! You were! That was the point-I had to save you.”
“I don’t care! You are going to promise me you’ll never, ever, regardless of anything, risk yourself in any way what ever again!”
She narrowed her eyes on his. She let a telling moment tick by. “And if I won’t?”
His nostrils flared, his chest swelled; his entire body went rigid. “If you won’t, then I’ll just have to make sure you never again have the chance…”
She listened, amazed, as he described in inventive detail just how he would restrict her freedom, hem her in and restrict her ability to ever put herself in the way of any risk-no matter how infinitesimal.
How he would make it totally impossible for her to be her.
If it had been anyone but him, she would have screamed her defiance. Instead, she watched him pace, rant, and rave-watched his sophisticated carapace crack and shatter and fall away, leaving him exposed, vulnerable…
Blocking out his words, she concentrated on what he was really saying.
What emotion was riding him, driving him.
You are my life. You mean too much to me.
She saw, understood, and waited.
Eventually, he realized she wasn’t reacting. He stopped and looked at her. Frowned. “What?”
She couldn’t tell him what she’d seen in him, how it only made her love him more. She met his gaze, and quietly said, “Do you remember, when I asked how much you would surrender…for me, for my love? Do you recall what you replied?”