Claiming his Cursed Duchess (Cursed Brides #2)

Chapter 33

Chapter Thirty-Three

“ R osaline.”

She was floating on a sea, a raft of driftwood holding her up above the waves, safe from the flames, no longer fighting to breathe.

She smiled happily, knowing that Adam had been with her on her last day on this earth and they were together at last.

“Rosaline.”

She opened her eyes, the glow of the fire in the distance illuminating Adam’s blackened face, smudged with soot.

His eyes were urgent as he looked at her, and suddenly the dream faded, and she fell violently back to reality.

“Adam,” she whispered. “Is it really you?”

Gently, Adam knelt on the ground as several guests from the inn gathered around them throwing out their cloaks to cover her. Someone shouted to bring water, but she only had eyes for her husband.

“Are you all right?” Adam asked urgently. “What happened to you?”

Adam’s finger fluttered over the side of her head against the throbbing site where Claridge had struck her.

Rosaline’s fingers found his, gripping them tightly.

“He…he struck me from behind.”

There was a long, ominous silence until she looked into Adam’s eyes, his hand tightening on her back as the glow of the flames illuminated his furious expression.

She had never seen him look so dangerous before.

“Who struck you?” he asked, his voice like iron.

Rosaline moistened her lips, her mouth impossibly dry and the stench of smoke hanging all around her.

“It was Claridge,” she said firmly. “He came to my room, crazed, furious. He was the one who started the fire.”

“I can bear witness to that, Your Grace,” the innkeeper said as he walked up to them. “I saw him go up to her room, and later he ran past without a word. Didn’t buy a drink or nothin’. Then I understood why.”

Adam looked back at the inn, his face a mask of suppressed rage as there was an ominous crash and the roof of the building collapsed down upon itself.

“By God, I will kill him,” he growled but even as he said it his fingers tightened against her and he turned back to her. “But not now. Now I must see to my wife. Can you stand?” he asked, with so much fear in his voice that she attempted a reassuring smile.

“I am all right, Adam.”

“Your face is covered with blood, and your gown is singed and black with soot. Do not tell me what I can see with my own eyes to be false.”

He lifted her to her feet as they walked away from the heat of the inn. She leaned heavily on his arm, her head still throbbing painfully.

Adam enquired with one of the staff as they passed him if anyone had been left inside, and he confirmed that all the guests were accounted for.

Small mercies perhaps. My uncle would have slaughtered them all without a second thought.

The horse Adam had arrived on was some meters away from the inn, staying well back from the flames and grazing on some grass. Her flanks were wet with foamy sweat, but her eyes were bright as she watched them approach.

“One more journey, and then we will give you a rub down and a well-deserved rest,” Adam said, stroking her nose as she nickered at him.

It was such a gentle gesture that Rosaline could not take her eyes off him.

There were tight lines of pain around his mouth, although his eyes had softened somewhat.

What fear he must have fought against to run into the flames like that.

“Come, let us get you up and we can return to Oldstone.”

She did not protest as he pushed her into the saddle, pulling himself up behind her and securing an arm around her waist.

They stared ahead of them at the flames that engulfed the inn, huge swaths of smoke billowing upward into the sky as the fire took hold.

Adam directed the horse away from the sight, and Rosaline heard him give a great sigh, a tension in him easing as she leaned into his comforting heat.

“Sleep, my love,” he said softly, the words warming her heart even as a stab of doubt struck her chest. “It will not be long before we are home.”

Her eyes grew heavy as she began to fall asleep.

Home. But for how long?

Although their arrival at Oldstone was unexpected, Adam realized that Rosaline must have sent word ahead before leaving Ravenshire.

Despite the late hour, there were several members of staff awake to welcome them.

The butler’s stoic mask slipped a little as Rosaline staggered through the door on Adam’s arm.

“Call a physician immediately,” he said firmly.

“Your rooms are prepared, Your Grace,” the butler said stiffly.

Adam scooped Rosaline up into his arms again and carried her up the stairs to his own bed chamber. She would not be leaving it any time soon if he had his way, but he knew he still had a lot of explaining to do.

The physician arrived a little time later. He was a passive man in his mid-fifties who had cared for Adam when he was a boy. He had bushy eyebrows and a grim expression that gave the impression everyone he treated was at death’s door.

All the same, after he had examined Rosaline, he rather seriously declared that the duchess would live to see another day and told her to rest as much as possible over the coming weeks.

Rosaline had answered his questions, and he had bathed her head wound, but it was only when Adam had seen him out and returned to the room that her demeanor changed.

Rosaline’s posture was suddenly stiff, her eyes sharp and assessing as he reentered the room.

“How did you find me?” she asked.

“I went to Ravenshire to talk to you. Your cousin told me where you would be.”

“Well, now you have ascertained I am safe, I am sure you wish to spend the night apart. Do not feel that you need to stay with me.”

Adam clenched his teeth, tugging at his shirt sleeves awkwardly as she watched him passively from her position on the bed.

“Thank you,” she added formally, “for saving my life. I would not have survived much longer in that place, and I know how terrible it must have been for you to face the flames after losing David.”

“You do not need to thank me.”

“Is that so?” she asked coldly. “I am surprised you felt compelled to act at all. Surely if you had lost a wife, you could simply procure another.”

Adam stalked across the room, lowering onto the bed beside her a gripping her hands.

“Do not speak of such things. I cannot bear it.”

She raised her eyebrows at him. “You cannot bear it? Why? I left the townhouse in London, and you told me to ‘do as I must’, Adam. Do you know what that was like?”

“I am sorry.”

“I do not need your apologies. I do not need you at all.”

She snatched her hands away, her face red and angry as she glowered at him. Adam leaned back, settling himself more comfortably upon the bed.

If my duchess thinks I will be deterred that easily, she is in for a surprise.

“I came to find you tonight, to beg you to return to London with me. You will not believe me, perhaps, but I have recognized how much of a fool I have been. My family and my friends have taken pains to remind me at every step.”

He edged closer as she gave him a warning look.

“Rosaline, I love you. I would walk through fire a thousand times over if you would come back with me and be my duchess. I have made some grave mistakes, and treated you abominably—I know that. But this marriage is so much more than a mere convenience to me.”

Her eyes were filling with tears now, but the stubborn set of her jaw did not change.

“I have been an independent man all of my life. I have had to be. I have lost people who I loved more than anything in the world. I was afraid of allowing you to be one of them. I told myself that holding you at arm’s length would protect me from the pain of losing you.

“But I know now, that we must face life’s challenges together, not apart. Please forgive me. I will do everything I can to atone for how I treated you.”

He waited, his breath held for a frozen moment. Rosaline did not look at him, staring off into the middle distance, her expression impossible to read.

Slowly, a tear ran down her cheek and he gently brushed it away, his heart clenching with fear that she would turn away from him after all he had said.

Why would she trust me now?

“Rosaline?” he whispered. “Please say something.”

Rosaline’s mind was a whirl of indecision.

Hearing Adam say that he loved her had made her heart sing. She had known her own feelings for some time, but it was thrilling to hear them from his lips.

But still her mind was filled with doubts.

He had looked at her outside the inn as though she was the most precious jewel in his possession.

But can I trust it?

She sighed, rubbing a hand over her face, forgetting the throbbing lump on her head.

She winced, glancing back at Adam, who was looking at the site of it with a familiar expression of rage.

“You hurt me,” Rosaline confessed. “You dismissed me, and told me I was worthless to you?—”

“I know. I am sorry. I wanted to protect you.”

“Protect me from what ?” she asked. “And do not lie to me again.”

Adam’s gaze met hers and her pulse quickened as she saw his eyes turn sad as he finally began to speak.

“Claridge had a letter in his possession. A letter that implicated Henry in something very serious. My brother is not a perfect man, but he made a decision for the greater good of the men in his regiment. However, if the truth got out, his superior officers would not see it that way—if Claridge had leaked the contents of that letter, Henry could have hanged.”

Rosaline’s lips thinned. “And that was why you married me?”

“Initially, yes. I had no choice. Claridge dangled the letter as a bargaining chip and I agreed to the marriage, believing that it would be a simple transaction—that we could live alongside one another peacefully enough. Then I met you, and all of my plans were put asunder.”

“With a cursed bride?”

“With you, Rosaline. Only you.” He carefully pushed a lock of her hair behind her ear. “My love. Whatever curse has dogged us, let it be gone. Fire has reclaimed our curses, both yours and mine. Let them stay in the ashes. I may have begun this marriage on rocky ground, but I have come to see you as my foundation now. I do not want to be without you.”

He squeezed her fingers as their eyes connected and she sighed, finally able to admit the truth as the moon came out from behind the clouds and bathed the room in a pale silver light.

“I love you too, Adam. I do not wish to live apart from you either.”

Adam leaned forward, his eyes wild with delight, and covered her mouth with his own, their tongues meeting together in a delicious dance as he groaned desperately, pulling away from her.

His gaze clouded as he looked over the bruise on her head. “Claridge will pay for this, I swear it on my life.”

She took his hand gently in her own. “But not now. Tonight we will be together, in spite of him.”

“You will sleep beside me, is that understood, my duchess?”

She chuckled. “It is, Your Grace,” she said smiling broadly and he laughed, walking to the window and drawing the curtains.

He returned to the bed, lying down beside her and putting an arm around her waist.

She felt safe and secure in a way that she never had before, and when she closed her eyes, it was with the promise of a new day.

And a better future to come.