Chapter 26
Twenty-Six
She didn’t have time to scream.
Callum’s hand closed around her wrist like iron. His eyes gleamed—too close, too calm—as if he’d been waiting years to touch her and had only now decided how.
Eleanor reacted before she thought. Her fist flew on instinct, driven by sheer terror and the sickening realization that no one was coming.
It landed.
The jolt traveled up her arm. He stumbled back with a grunt but didn’t fall.
She had half a second to breathe before something knocked into him from behind—a blur, fast and solid—and this time, he did fall.
It all went fuzzy.
The world twisted, swerved, spun on its axis. She blinked, breath catching in her throat. Her wrist throbbed. Her legs felt boneless. And suddenly—hands. Arms. A figure moving in front of her. She thought for a dizzy second it was another attacker until the coat caught her eye.
Ramsay.
She knew before she could even say his name. Her body recognized him. The shape of him. The way he moved. Like wind through trees, all unspoken power and force made flesh.
He’d come back. She barely understood it, but he was here.
“Don’t ever touch my wife.”
Callum lunged up with a snarl, but Ramsay was already moving—grabbing his coat, slamming him back down into the dirt. Fists flew. Grunts. The sickening thud of impact. Ramsay fought like a man who had already seen hell and survived it, clean and brutal.
Eleanor staggered back, watching—unable to look away.
She should have been frightened. She was frightened, but—
God help her. He looked beautiful.
Her mouth went dry as Ramsay’s coat flared with each movement as his muscles pulled taut under his sleeves, as his body curved and slammed with a violence she had never seen in him—never even imagined. Not like this.
He wasn’t fighting for show. He was fighting to save her.
Something inside her clenched. Not fear. Something hotter. He was all heat and danger and that voice in her head whispered mine when she should have been running.
Callum landed a blow to Ramsay’s jaw. “You will pay for my brother!”
Ramsay barely flinched. He took it, twisted, and drove his fist into Callum’s stomach with enough force to fold him in half.
Eleanor gasped.
Blood bloomed at the edge of Callum’s lip. He spit it to the ground and laughed. Ramsay grabbed the front of his coat and slammed him again, harder this time. The ground shook. Eleanor’s legs nearly gave out.
How could he do this?
This man who had once looked at her like she was something soft. Something worth touching with reverence. Now he was pure fury, carved in shadow. It hit her all at once—how real that old fear had been. Ramsay had killed before. He could do it again. To protect her.
And she had never wanted him more.
But this needs to stop.
She took a step forward.
Callum reached for a rock—something jagged—and Ramsay caught it just before it struck. His hand closed around Callum’s wrist, twisting it.
Callum screamed.
Eleanor flinched.
“Stop,” she said, her voice hoarse. “Ramsay—stop.”
He didn’t.
His grip stayed tight. He looked like he didn’t even hear her. Like the blood roaring in his ears was louder than everything else.
“Ramsay,” she said again, firmer now.
His head jerked. His eyes snapped to hers, and something in him broke. He looked at her like he’d only just remembered she was there. Slowly, his grip loosened. Callum groaned on the ground, curling onto his side like a wounded animal.
Ramsay rose, breath heaving, fists still clenched. Dirt smeared his coat. Blood marked his sleeve. His eyes—those cold, hard eyes—softened when they met hers.
He looked at her, not like a duke. Not like a man who had just nearly killed someone in her garden. But like a man who’d been drowning and had just broken through the surface. Like she was air.
“Ramsay,” she said again, softer now. Her throat tightened. “You’re hurt.”
He glanced down. Blood was dripping from his knuckles, slow and thick, a bloom of red across the back of his hand.
But he didn’t seem to feel it. His chest rose and fell, hard and uneven.
His coat hung open. His waistcoat was torn.
And when he stepped forward, the sunlight caught the smear of blood on his jaw.
“You shouldn’t be here,” he said, voice low and hoarse.
She blinked. “You left me.”
His eyes flinched.
“I didn’t want you in danger,” he said, jaw taut.
“Then you should not have made me your wife.”
He exhaled once, like he’d been punched again. And in that same moment, Callum groaned behind them.
Ramsay turned. In one stride, he was looming over the man on the ground again. But this time he didn’t strike.
He stared down at Callum—battered, wheezing, half-conscious. His voice came out rough.
“You should be dead.”
Callum coughed, spitting blood into the grass.
Eleanor stood frozen, barely breathing.
Ramsay crouched beside him. His body cast a long shadow over the lawn. “If you came three weeks ago, I’d kill you here. Slowly.”
Eleanor took a step forward. “Ramsay.”
“But I won’t,” he said, not looking at her. “Because of my wife—” His voice cracked on the word. “—and you owe your life to her.”
Callum laughed. It came out broken. “How noble of you.”
Ramsay stood, fists still clenched.
Just then, the sound of hooves broke through the stillness. Eleanor turned. A group of riders was storming through the gates—two of Ramsay’s men at the front, another three just behind.
The first rider dismounted in a rush.
“Your Grace,” he called. “We came as fast as we could. Lady Penelope sent word.”
Ramsay didn’t move. “Take him.”
Two of the guards immediately seized Callum’s arms and began dragging him across the grass. He didn’t fight. Just looked up at Eleanor with that same sick smile, blood caking his teeth.
“I should have killed you when I had the chance,” he muttered as they hauled him away.
“Shut his mouth,” Ramsay said. “Gag him. I don’t want to hear another word.”
The others obeyed.
Eleanor watched them go. Watched the man disappear beyond the hedge, his threats still echoing faintly in her ears.
Her legs felt weak. Her throat was tight.
But it wasn’t until Ramsay turned back to her—his eyes wild, his chest heaving, the echo of violence still written all over him—that her composure cracked.
“Eleanor,” he said.
She moved toward him without thinking.
“Ramsay,” she whispered, reaching for his sleeve. “You—he was—”
But she didn’t finish. Because the moment her fingers touched him, he surged forward and kissed her.
It was the kind of kiss born of blood and desperation and fear, the kind that grabbed by the throat and didn’t let go. His hands were on her waist, then her back, pulling her in so fiercely her breath disappeared. His mouth found hers, rough and searing, and she tasted sweat, and copper, and him.
She gasped. He drank it in.
The pressure of his body against hers made her knees weaken. Her hands clutched at his ruined coat then fisted in his shirt. Her thoughts—every single one of them—dissolved.
She didn’t care that the servants were still on the edge of the lawn.
She didn’t care that the sun was overhead or that anyone might see.
She only cared that he was here. That he’d come back.
That his mouth was crushing hers, and he was trembling beneath her hands like he was barely holding together.
She pulled back just enough to speak, her lips brushing his.
“You left.”
“I know,” he rasped. His forehead rested against hers. “I was a damned fool.”
Her chest rose. “You almost got me killed.”
His breath hitched. “I know that too.”
Eleanor didn’t move. Her eyes were burning again, but she wasn’t sure if it was from anger or relief.
“You can’t keep running from me,” she whispered.
“I’m not running anymore.”
She searched his face. There was a bruise forming on his jaw. A cut on his brow. His lip was bleeding. He looked like hell.
And still, she wanted him.
Something dark and warm and shameful twisted in her stomach.
The same part of her that had burned when he held her on horseback.
The same part that had woken up when he kissed her in the meadow.
She looked at his throat, the way it flexed as he swallowed.
The blood at his temple. The way his shirt clung to his chest with sweat.
“I thought you were gone forever,” she said.
“I was,” he said. “And I regretted it the second the carriage pulled away.”
She closed her eyes. She wanted to believe him. She needed to. Because if he left again, it would tear her in two. The wind stirred the trees. Eleanor could feel the thrum of his heartbeat beneath her hands.
“What happens now?” she asked, her voice quieter.
Ramsay looked at her. Not just at her face. At all of her. Like he was memorizing every inch.
“I take care of it,” he said. “For good this time.”
Eleanor drew in a slow breath. The kiss had left her dazed. His presence—his heat—was still so overwhelming, she felt like her skin didn’t belong to her anymore.
He stepped closer, tilting her chin up with one blood-streaked hand. “Now, I’m going to spend every day proving I don’t deserve you—and begging you to let me try anyway.”
Her lips parted. Her heart turned over.
And then he kissed her again. This time it was softer, slower, as if the urgency had passed and all that was left was need. When he pulled away, she leaned into him. His breath warmed her cheek. His fingers curled at her waist.
He was hers. And she was his. No matter what came next.