A Rescue by the Rakish Duke (A Game of Rakes #5)

Chapter 25

Chapter Twenty-Five

“ S he’s awake,” someone said, the voice so muffled as if she was underwater.

Damp grass. Buzzing sounds. No, they were not insects. She was hearing people murmuring above her. Above her? What?

She groaned as her hand instinctively reached for her forehead. She felt a bump there. Touching it elicited more pain than she had anticipated. The back of her head and the rest of her body also ached. It was like she had gotten into some kind of accident.

Again? What happened?

When her eyes fluttered open and she saw Damian’s face hovering above her, she remembered just what happened. His forehead was creased with worry, but something else flashed in those gray eyes.

Fury.

As she regained full consciousness, she could feel all her aches and pains more.

The whisper she’d heard at first could be Evan, but she couldn’t be too sure. Images of herself swimming in the river while her mother watched from the bank, smiling, flashed through her mind. She felt like crying. She was drowning.

She groaned as Damian helped her sit up. Slowly. Gently. He did that even though his eyes remained stormy, as if he could kill someone at that very moment. She smelled and tasted blood.

Damian kneeled before her and cradled her face, his touch gentle even though she could feel his anger simmering beneath his skin.

“Gwen, are you all right?” he asked, his voice trembling with emotion.

It brought her back to where she was. She was sitting on the grass—not like her mother, who was sitting on the river bank. That was a long time ago.

“I-I believe so,” she managed to reply, her voice hoarse and her throat tight.

Damian’s eyes softened with relief, but the tension in his body did not dissipate.

“Timothy?” she asked weakly, recalling how her cousin’s pistol landed on her temple. Her head throbbed.

“He’s gone,” Damian replied gruffly. “The cowardly bastard fled as soon as Evan and others had arrived on the scene. But we will hunt him down. I’m done with us being prey.”

Gwendoline’s eyes widened when he said ‘the others.’ It was then that she noticed a small crowd gathered around her. She attempted to rise quickly, embarrassed by her vulnerable state, but Damian’s gentle hand stopped her.

“Don’t rise too quickly, Duchess,” he whispered.

She knew he lowered his voice so that the others wouldn’t hear. He could feel her discomfort. If there was one thing that she had learned about him, it was that he could read her well.

“We’re leaving,” he said, gently helping her to her feet. Then, he turned to Evan. “Make sure the carriage is ready. We’re going back to Greyvale. Immediately.”

“Aye, Your Grace,” Evan replied, but there was no hint of humor on his face.

Damian put his hands on his wife’s hips, keeping her upright. She swayed slightly, her vision blurring a little with dizziness. Her knees shook, but she didn’t want anyone to see how shaken she was. How unsteady.

“I can walk,” Gwendoline said softly, but she wasn’t certain that was true.

“I know you can,” Damian replied gently. She was surprised that he wasn’t arguing with her. “But I won’t take any more chances. I’ve broken my promise to you, told you that I would protect you, and then I almost lost you.”

“No. You thought I was with my friends.”

“It’s still my fault. He hurt you. I promised you that I would be watching you closely, and I… I d-didn’t.”

Painful silence followed as they made their way through the ballroom. Gwendoline was limping slightly, and she bit her lower lip to keep herself from crying as she heard the whispers. He was her lifeline, holding her against him and supporting her weight.

The walk through the ballroom took an eternity, but she guessed it couldn’t have been more than a few minutes. They were soon in the carriage, but the heavy silence lingered between them. Gwendoline realized that for the past few weeks, she had been in harm’s way three times.

Three times.

At least, those were the instances she was aware of. Who knew if Timothy had been eyeing her from afar or had been sending people her way? She remembered that Daisy could have been tampered with by someone they knew and trusted. Someone who lived in Greyvale.

She breathed deeply, trying to ease the tightness in her chest. She felt as if something was sitting on it. Her head throbbed. Her back ached. She leaned back into the cushioned seat, hoping to find a measure of relief.

Damian sat beside her. While his back was rigid and he was staring out the window, his calloused hand rested on hers, squeezing gently now and then.

“Damian?” she asked tentatively.

More memories flashed through her mind. The almost intimate way Timothy had strangled her with an embrace. The way he had shifted his gaze to the window where Damian stood laughing with another gentleman. Timothy’s demand that she give him the location of the documents.

Damian turned to her, his face impassive even as his hand caressed hers. “You could have been killed, Gwendoline. And it’s not the first time,” he said with so much anguish that her self-control almost shattered.

Anger. Anguish. She wished that Damian didn’t have to hold on to those feelings for a long time. They were the reasons he married her and kept her close to him. She couldn’t help but remember Timothy’s taunts. He said that the duke would not have anything to do with her after all of this was over.

“I’m sorry, Damian. I didn’t mean to make you worry,” she whispered, squeezing his hand.

“It’s not your fault. I should have kept a better eye on you. We also can’t move on with our lives as long as Timothy lurks in the shadows,” he replied, his voice husky and strained.

His fingers curled around hers tightly as if he did not want to let go, but Timothy’s words echoed in Gwendoline’s head. In her heart.

“You couldn’t have known he’d attempt something like this with so many people around,” she said gently, comforting her husband even though her heart was shattering into pieces.

She wondered how her emotional pain could eclipse the physical one.

“I’ve promised you over and over that I’m taking no chances and that he won’t get near you. And here we are, going home after you had an encounter with the man himself. The devil himself.”

Gwendoline couldn’t help but stare at her husband’s ticking jaw. She might have been hurt physically, but he was in anguish. She continued to remind herself that he simply cared as anyone would about the people near them. He simply wanted to avenge his friends against her cousin.

“We’ll face him together,” she promised.

But her heart sank even further the longer she didn’t tell Damian what she’d done. What she’d said.

“Together,” he agreed, looking at her with a big grin on his face.

He leaned forward and kissed her on the forehead so tenderly that even as she opened her mouth to tell him that Timothy knew about the location of the documents, no words came out.

The carriage rumbled toward the disturbed peace of his London residence. Gwendoline leaned against him, trying to draw strength from his formidable presence. She hoped that he would still mean the word ‘together’ after he realized what they had just lost.