43. CHAPTER 43
D espite the late hour, light poured from every window of his house. Harrison came out before the carriage had fully stopped.
"Thank God," he said. "You got her."
"Paul." Vivienne tried to sit up, and gasped, curling in on herself. "You are all right."
"He is the one who brought the ransom note," Dalton said, getting down. "I will tell you everything after we set your shoulder."
"Her shoulder?"
"Dislocated," Dalton said as he lifted her out of the carriage.
"I can walk," she protested.
He ignored her. She was pale with pain. Could barely move. There was no chance he was going to let her collapse on his front steps. He carried her through the door, and Mrs. Hewitt held the drawing room open for them without being asked.
He sat down on the sofa with her in his lap and did not let go.
"Your Grace," Paul said. He was already at her arm, assessing the injury with a practiced eye, his hands gentle and professional. "I'm going to need to set this. The longer we wait, the more the muscles will fight us."
"How bad will it be?" she asked in a small voice.
"Briefly, very bad. Then much better."
She turned her face into Dalton's shoulder.
"Lie to me," she whispered. "Tell me it will not hurt."
"It will not hurt," Dalton said .
She huffed something that was almost a laugh.
With Dalton's help, Harrison undid her bodice and carefully peeled it off her. Then he loosened her corset and positioned her arm. Dalton's hand found the back of her head and stayed there.
"Look at me," he said.
She did.
"I have you," he said.
"Hold her tightly, Your Grace."
Dalton's arm tightened instinctively across her ribs. Paul's hands moved with the smooth precision of a man who had done this many times. There was a pull, a rotation, and a sickening, audible pop.
The cry that came out of her tore something in him. Her body jerked once, hard, and then went limp against him, breath breaking in small, shocked sobs against his collarbone.
"There," Paul said. He was already exhaling. "It is back."
Dalton did not loosen his hold. He could not. He pressed his face to the top of her head and breathed in the smell of soot and rain and whatever was underneath it that was hers.
Harrison began to wrap the sling.
"It must remain immobile for several weeks. No strain. No sudden movement. Rest."
"I will see to it."
"I will need to teach your maid how to wrap the bandage."
"You will teach me."
The doctor looked at him.
"I will see to it personally," Dalton said.
Harrison didn't argue.
Dalton watched every motion, committing it to memory. He was already rehearsing the wrapping in his hands, learning the angles.
"She will need to be careful with this shoulder in the future. This is the second time she has dislocated it."
"The second?" she asked .
"When you were first brought to me, you had a dislocated shoulder. Of course, you were unconscious when I set it the first time, which is probably why you don't remember it."
The doctor worked in silence after that, fashioning the sling, securing her arm against her body, his fingers careful and impersonal.
She had pulled herself out of joint trying to get free of the rope.
And he had bound her wrists a dozen times for pleasure. Each binding had been an act of trust. Each time, he had inquired if she was comfortable. He had checked the knots. He had never once let the silk cut.
But he could have hurt her all the same. And neither of them had known it.
He could not look at the bandage. He could not look away from it either.
"How do you feel, Vivi?" His voice came out lower than he meant.
"Better." Her good hand rested against his chest. He could feel where her fingers found the small dark hole in his shirt, and the place beneath it where the steel had stopped Alfred's bullet. "It still aches. But not the way it did."
"I will give you laudanum for the pain," Paul said. "Take it only if the pain worsens. Five drops on a teaspoon. No more."
"I don't think I will need it."
"Take it if you need it," Dalton said, unable to bear the thought of her in even the slightest pain.
She did not argue, but her head nestled against his shoulder.
She was safe and secure in his arms. And they were alive.
It was enough.
P aul finished the last loop of the bandage. His fingers lingered for a heartbeat too long. She felt him take a breath and brace himself for something, and then he spoke .
"You should know," he said quietly. "I lied to you. I knew who you were. Almost from the beginning."
She had been bracing for him to say goodbye. She had not been bracing for this.
"Oh," she said.
"I did not do it out of malice. I believed I was protecting you. That is not an excuse. Your husband can tell you the rest of the story when you are stronger." He met her eyes. "I only wanted to ask your forgiveness before I left."
She looked at him. She looked at the hands that had set her shoulder. The hands that had pulled her through fevers and nightmares for seven years. She didn't yet know the whole of what he had done. But she knew he was a decent man and that he cared for her.
She reached out with her good hand and took his.
"You saved my life when I came to Guernsey half drowned. You cared for me for seven years when I had nothing and no one." Her voice steadied. "Of course I forgive you."
He bowed his head. When he lifted it, there was a small, sad smile on his mouth.
"Thank you, Vivienne."
Her real name. It said everything.
"I will leave for Guernsey in the morning. If you ever need anything, you have only to send word."
"Likewise," Dalton said.
Paul nodded. He looked at Dalton across the width of the sofa. Whatever passed between them, she could not quite read, but it was not adversarial. It was almost like an accord.
"She should rest," Paul said.
"I know."
He picked up his bag. At the door, he paused.
"I'm sorry," he said. "For all of it."
"I know that, too."
The door closed. The fire crackled in the grate .
They were alone.
D alton sat with his wife on his lap and listened to the sound of her breathing change as the worst of the pain receded, and he did not move.
He had spent five days in an empty house pretending he was not breaking, and then Alfred had kidnapped her, and the terror he had not allowed himself to feel until now was crashing down on him.
He could not bear to be separated from her by so much as the breadth of a coat.
Eventually, he shifted her in his arms and stood.
"Come," he said. "Let me carry you to bed."
Not to her room. Not to his. Just to bed.
Their bed.