Chapter 35
Rosalind sucked in a breath, trying not to wince as the carriage hit a bump in the road.
Yuri frowned from where he sat across from her. “I thought you told me the pain was getting better?”
“It is.” Or rather, it had been. Until she’d decided to overdo it today. Her ribs had been screaming at her for the past several hours, and in a single afternoon, it felt like she’d lost all the progress she’d made after three weeks of healing.
But at least her money was safe. A bit of pain was a small price to pay for that, wasn’t it?
Now the only thing she was waiting for was the transfer of her stocks and ownership shares.
That would take a few days, but as soon as everything had been moved to Riggs and Company, she’d be able to go anywhere in the country without worrying about her father having access to her money.
It almost seemed too good to be true.
Still, she’d rather not have the pain. She pressed a hand to the bottom of her ribs, where the pain was always the worst, then looked up to find Yuri watching her.
The moment their eyes met, he stood and moved to the other side of the carriage, positioning his warm body right next to her.
“Don’t tell me you’re fine.” He wrapped an arm around her, tugging her against him. “I can see the pain on your face. How bad does it hurt?”
She didn’t answer. Instead, she pressed her eyes shut and settled into his warmth.
He held her there for a few seconds, his fingers stroking idly up and down her arm as the carriage rattled and bumped its way toward their hotel.
When he finally spoke, his voice rumbled out of his chest, low and deep.
“I wish you would have gone back to the hotel to rest after you finished at District National Bank.”
“Mr. Holloway was right. Having my money converted into bearer bonds was a huge risk. Anyone could have taken the bonds from me and put my money into their own accounts. I wanted to see that they were deposited before the banks closed.”
“I could have made the bond deposits for you, at least for the two banks that have my name on the account. And you could have waited until tomorrow morning to take the other bond to the third bank.”
She stared out the window. Of course he would say such a thing. He was too sweet, so sweet, in fact, that she couldn’t imagine saying good-bye to him once he’d taken her to Texas.
They hit another bump, and she grimaced.
“We’re almost there,” he whispered against the top of her head. “I don’t like how shallow your breathing is. We’ll get you out of this monstrosity of a dress as soon as we’re back; then you can lie down and rest.”
She looked down at her dress, which truly was a monstrosity.
She’d worn a fancy gown of midnight blue faille, with a tightly fitted bodice and rows of decorative buttons down the front.
It was elegant and respectable, but the high collar pressed against her throat, and the corset beneath it dug mercilessly into her ribs.
Even the narrow-cut sleeves felt too snug now, as though her body had grown too weary to bother maintaining good posture.
They’d met one of her old friends and her husband for brunch before she’d headed to the bank to meet with Mr. Holloway, and she’d known what would be expected of her both with Agnes and at the banks.
She’d also known the dress was too tight and that she’d have trouble breathing before Yuri had even finished buttoning it that morning, but she hadn’t said anything.
That had been foolish, because her ribs had been getting steadily better, and she didn’t remember them hurting this bad since they’d left Portland.
The carriage slowed, but it still managed to hit a bump before stopping, and she couldn’t help the whimper that escaped her lips.
Yuri moved to the door and opened it before the driver climbed down from his perch. He stepped out first, then turned and held out his arms. “Come here.”
She didn’t want to even breathe, much less climb out of a carriage in full view of the busy Washington street, but she forced herself away from the seat anyway and reached for Yuri’s hand.
He helped her down the steps, taking a bit more of her weight than was customary, then steadied her against his side before they entered the grand marble lobby of the Arlington Hotel.
Fortunately the lobby was too busy for anyone to pay them much mind, and Yuri guided her straight to the elevator, where he gave their floor number to the attendant.
He kept her tucked against his side as the elevator jerked, then groaned, then started to move.
She rested her cheek against the soft wool of his coat and closed her eyes, trying to suck deep breaths of air into her lungs, but the dress was simply too tight for that, and the bindings beneath it didn’t help.
Yuri thanked the man after the elevator stopped and he opened the gate, but he kept his arm tucked firmly around her as he guided her to their room.
The moment the door closed behind them, he swept her into his arms.
She gasped. “What are you doing?”
“Carrying you to the bed. You’re about to fall over.”
She probably could have made it to the other side of the room, but she didn’t argue, just let herself rest against him until he set her down at the edge of the bed.
He moved to undo the top button at her neck next, but she stilled, the breath freezing in her lungs. “Yuri, I can do the front buttons.”
She didn’t have a lot of dresses with the buttons on the front, but she had enough that most days she could manage dressing without Yuri’s help.
“Just let me get you out of this, Ros. Then I’ll have hot water sent up from the kitchen and make you some willow-bark tea, and you can rest.”
She settled her hand over his. “I can do it.”
He looked up at her. “Are you sure? It will take you twice as long.”
She nodded.
“Very well.” He stood, then glanced around the room, raking a hand through his hair. “I’ll . . . ah, I’ll give you some privacy and see about the hot water myself.”
“Thank you.”
He gave a short nod, his eyes moving to her face but not drifting lower to the handful of buttons he’d already managed to undo; then he walked to the door.
It took her a ridiculously long time to undo the rest of the buttons, just like it had taken her a ridiculously long time to button them that morning, but Yuri wasn’t knocking on the door after two minutes or even five.
No, she had the buttons completely undone and the dress off, and was fumbling with the bindings around her ribs before a soft rap sounded on the door.
“Are you decent?” Yuri poked his head inside. “Can I come in now?”
She was the farthest thing from decent. Her dress and petticoat were both pooled at her feet, and she was sitting there in nothing but her stockings, bloomers, and chemise, with only a few layers of her bindings unwrapped.
But Yuri only briefly glanced at her discarded clothing and the way she was sitting there in her undergarments as he entered with a cup of steaming tea. His eyes found her face in less than half a second, and he kept them there.
“I would have helped with the bindings had you waited.” He set the tea on the bedside stand and then sat beside her, still keeping his eyes on her face.
“I got it tangled.” She tugged on a twisted length of cotton at her side.
“Here. Let me help.” Yuri’s voice was soft, his movements slower than before as he brushed her hands aside.
His fingers were steady as they found the knotted edge and began to loosen the worst of the twists.
“You must have been in agony walking around with both the bindings and the corset and the tight bodice on that dress.”
She swallowed. “I needed to look professional.”
“You needed to let your body heal.”
Agnes hadn’t thought much of Yuri when they’d met for brunch.
Her new husband, Arnold, worked for the Treasury Department.
Both Agnes and Arnold had asked the same types of questions as Mr. Holloway about what Yuri did for work and whether he owned a company.
And though Agnes hadn’t found anything she could outright criticize about Yuri, Rosalind had been able to see the judgment in her friend’s gaze.
He wasn’t wealthy enough, he didn’t wear a fancy enough suit, he didn’t refer to politicians by their first names or belong to any of the prominent clubs for gentlemen in the city.
But perhaps his worst offense had been not treating their waitstaff with condescension, or Agnes and Arnold with the deference they would have believed was theirs.
No. He was simply kind and polite to everyone, and extra attentive to her in a way Arnold hadn’t been with Agnes.
Yuri hadn’t said anything about Agnes and Arnold’s probing questions or the smug looks on their faces when he gave them an answer that displeased them.
He’d simply supported her throughout the entire meal, leaning his head close and asking if she was in too much pain, watching her carefully to see if he could spot anything amiss.
Just like he was supporting her now by helping with her bindings without ever looking at her in a way that made her feel ashamed.
She’d known for months that if she ever married, she wanted to marry someone like Yuri Amos. But somehow, over the past few weeks, he’d gone from being the kind of person that she wanted to marry to being the one and only person she wanted to spend the rest of her life with.
Or rather, to stay married to.
Because they were married. And the longer she was married to him, the more she didn’t want their marriage to end.
A lump rose in her throat. She hadn’t meant for this to happen. She’d signed those annulment papers with the full intention of granting him the annulment once she’d moved her money and was safely in Texas.
And she’d known she had feelings for him even then, but having a bit of attraction wasn’t the same thing as love. She couldn’t quite say when her feelings turned to something more, but now she’d gone and fallen in love with the man beside her in a way she couldn’t ignore.
“Yuri,” she whispered, leaning close.
His eyes met hers. He was nearly done with the bandage now, but when she spoke his name, his eyes moved immediately to hers, and he paused. “Is something wrong?”
Was it just her imagination, or did his voice emerge lower and more gravely than usual?
But nothing was wrong. Her ribs still hurt, but she barely noticed the pain, because for the first time, it seemed like everything in her life might finally be right.
She was married. To a man she loved and wanted to spend the rest of her life with. To a man she knew would spend his every last breath taking care of her the way a husband was supposed to care for a wife.
There was only one more thing she could possibly ask for. Her gazed dipped to his lips, and she leaned closer, then pressed her mouth to his.
The warmth of his lips flooded through her like sunlight after winter. He let out a small sound, then moved his hand from the bandage up to the side of her neck and pulled her closer.
He kissed her slowly, but it was so very tender, as if he was putting every last bit of energy he had into memorizing the shape of her mouth.
His thumb brushed the hollow behind her ear, and her hands curled into the front of his shirt, where his heartbeat thrummed steadily beneath her palms. She leaned even closer, the ache in her chest melting into a pool of warmth.
And then he was pulling back. He gave no warning, just wrenched himself away from her and jumped off the bed.
“I’m sorry, Ros. I shouldn’t have done that. I don’t know what I was thinking.” His eyes were closed, as though he couldn’t quite manage to look at her.
“Don’t say that. I liked it.”
“I did too.” He raked a hand through his hair. “That’s the problem.”
“I don’t understand. We’re married. There’s nothing wrong with us kissing or . . . uh, doing more than kissing.”
His jaw clenched. “There is when we’re getting an annulment.”
“But what if I don’t want an annulment? What if I want—”
“It’s not safe for us to openly be married until we know your father is in prison.
” He opened his eyes and held up a hand, then backed farther away from the bed, as though standing any closer to it might catch him on fire.
“And I’m not going to do anything to compromise you either.
We got married knowing that what we have wouldn’t last, that it was just a legal way to protect you for a few weeks until you can hide in Texas.
That’s all our marriage is, and it needs to stay that way.
Now I’m going to go for a nice long walk and let you rest without me being around to distract you. ”
He was out of the room before she had time to tell him not to go, the door closing behind him with an unmistakable thud.
She sat there for a moment, staring at the door in nothing but her undergarments, willing it to reopen and him to walk back inside.
But he didn’t. And why would he? He might be right about it not being safe for them to be married until her father was in prison.
But her father had kidnapped his youngest brother, for heaven’s sake.
Then her father had the Amos family’s ships searched and one of them had even been seized.
He’d brought ridiculous charges against both Sacha and Mikhail for things they weren’t guilty of, and attempted to have their shipyard burned down.
And now he and Uncle Simon were trying to steal shipping contracts out from under them.
She’d never had anything to do with her father’s vendetta against the Amoses, but Yuri probably thought of the cruel things her father had done every time he looked at her. How could he not?
Oh, it was a miracle Yuri had agreed to help her as much as he had.
What he’d said about their marriage was right. They’d been wed with the understanding that it was nothing more than a short-term, legal formality.
Which meant she needed to resign herself to the fact that there could be no future for the two of them—no matter how badly she wanted one.