Chapter Twenty #2
He pried his eyes open, found hard wood digging into his back, a dawn-lit sky above him, and the scent of salt and sulfur. He gripped the wooden hull, pulled himself up, and bent over the side of the boat to relieve the contents of his stomach.
A hand gently rubbed his back. “Ian?”
“I’m all right,” he rasped. He wiped his mouth and kept his eyes screwed shut. “Need to work out whatever they gave me.”
Diana pressed a cool hand to his forehead, and he couldn’t resist sighing.
“They must have given you laudanum. Laced with something fast-acting,” she murmured.
A sickly sweet taste lingered on his tongue. “I can’t open my eyes or things will get ugly again. Please tell me they didn’t harm you. My memory’s too hazy.”
“They didn’t hurt me.”
“No, they merely terrorized you and left you to die on open water.”
“The only thing that frightened me was not knowing if you’d wake up.”
Her voice was low, but there was still a scrape to it, and it made him wish he was well enough to hit something. Or preferably, someone.
His hand searched and found hers. “I’ll be all right in an hour or two.”
“We’ll be back onshore by then. No, don’t open your eyes.” Diana brushed her soft hand against his brow. “A trawler took pity on us and he’s towing us back to Menton.”
“That’s hardly a few miles from where we cast off.”
“The tide was in our favor. And we would have drifted further if Titus’s men weren’t a complete gaggle of ninnyhammers. Turns out this little dinghy has an anchor. As soon as the tug pulled out of sight, I dropped it.”
Ian contemplated risking the blow to his head and stomach to open his eyes and assure himself that she was well.
And once he knew she was sound in mind and body, he would not spare her feelings.
Or her pride—or his, for that matter—when he confronted her with the dangerous reality her lack of trust in him had landed them.
“That bungle was a rare mistake,” he said. “Titus carries the walking stick of a capo. He’s a high-ranking soldier with the Manu Rosso.”
“And now he has the necklace.” She huffed. “This is all my fault.”
“We don’t have to talk about it now.” His head would shatter.
“They caught us because of the call I made to keep Birdie’s tails on you,” she insisted. “If I had trusted you—”
“It wouldn’t have stopped them from following me.”
“No, but we could have confided in each other and made a plan.”
The regret in her voice took the sting out of his anger.
He propped himself on his elbow and wrenched an eye open to a squint.
Diana’s pale face hovered over him; violet shadows clung beneath her eyes.
But the tight brackets around her mouth released, and the way her mouth curved made it worth the effort it took to reach his thumb beneath her chin and stroke it.
“We are going to have to come to an agreement, not just on what we do next, but how. I expect you to hear me out, and I will do the same. But one thing is certain; things cannot go on like this.”
“You’re right.”
“Can you repeat that? I must be delusional from the hypnotic.”
“I said you’re right, you salty devil. Now lie down before I throw you over.” She urged him back with a gentle hand. “We’ll settle this when we’re both well enough to argue.”
At the Menton port, Ian disembarked without passing out.
Diana found them a shabby but clean boarding house, where they secured a room using one of his silver cufflinks for payment.
The amount was generous enough to include breakfast. Ian refused it—he couldn’t think of food without his stomach rolling—and ordered hot water and a hip bath sent up to the room.
The combination of his aching head and the awkward stance needed to use the hip bath made him feel less than alluring, so he insisted on managing it without Diana’s help.
As he stepped out from the screen with a towel wrapped around his waist, the way her gaze lingered on his bare skin warmed his bones more than the bath.
“There’s still hot water left for you,” he said hoarsely.
She pulled the cover back from the bed. “Get in or you’ll catch a chill.”
He hesitated. “I can sleep on the floor.”
“Why?”
The sharp pitch of her voice made him fight off a smile, and the relief that she had no qualms about sharing a bed again made his knees weak. “I’d never allow you to sleep on the floor. And if we share a bed, I won’t rest.”
Her cheeks flushed in that way he loved as she crept closer. “Whatever you have in mind will be even better after a few hours of sleep.”
His arm wrapped around her waist. “I’m suddenly feeling extremely alert.”
She laughed against his chest and wound an arm around his neck. “Liar. You can barely stand. Get into bed. Don’t make me raise my voice. Your head can’t take it.”
With a gentle shove, she slipped his hold and ducked around the screen for her own bath.
Ian fought to keep his eyes open as he double-checked the lock and the chair they’d placed beneath the door. Thankfully, the tiny room had no windows.
He missed his pistol sorely.
“Did you keep any cutlery from breakfast, or did the maid take it?” he asked as he staggered to the bed. “We could do with a weapon.”
Her bare arm curled around the screen and hurled a knife onto the beaten wooden dresser.
Ian laughed out loud.
“There’s a sound I haven’t heard in ages.”
“It’s a rare moment when I get exactly what I ask for. Especially with you.”
She hummed in agreement, and a comfortable silence fell between them, punctuated by the soft splash of water as she bathed. With the weapon by his side and the warmth of the quilt, tension seeped out of his body.
“I’m sorry I didn’t stop them from taking your other knife,” he said groggily. “I’ll get it back for you.”
“Thank you. I’ll enjoy watching that.”
The husky quality in her voice made his cock stiff, and he willed himself to hang onto consciousness.
He turned his mind to the mire of things they needed to untangle, and half wondered why Diana didn’t press him for more information on Titus.
But thinking about the famiglie meant thinking about the decisions they needed to make, and he admitted he didn’t have the strength to do what his strong sense of self-preservation dictated.
The shuffle of Diana’s footsteps preceded the stroke of her warm hand on his forehead. “Get some rest, Ian. We’re safe here for the moment.”
He relented to sleep; he needed it to recover his strength for their protection. And so he could eventually cherish Diana’s body again.
When the midday bells of the cathedral woke him several hours later, the ache and heaviness in his joints and limbs persisted, although his head had stopped throbbing. Carefully, he turned and found Diana lying next to him, her lush lips parted as she curled on her side, facing the wall.
He ached to draw her warm body against his and bury his face in her hair. While he wanted to taste and touch every inch of her, the act of sleeping entwined with each other was as irresistible as pleasuring her.
She said she trusted him. Enough to slumber a breath away.
But would it ever go beyond that? It wasn’t fair to demand something of her he couldn’t give himself, and he could never give her his whole heart.
Over the years, he’d learned to harden it to become the Devil of the Docklands.
All to protect the precarious legacy his father had left him.
It had been a convenient way to rationalize why he hadn’t fought for Diana. He’d convinced himself that he was following her lead, maintaining his distance so his past couldn’t taint her. Because he’d believed she wanted a life he couldn’t give her: marriage and a family.
How wrong he’d been. Since the day of her aborted wedding, she’d shown him example after example of why any woman of her position and fortune would never marry.
Ian had never entertained the idea of matrimony for himself. He’d known Il Gioco was waiting for him.
And Diana was the only person he could ever pledge his life to.
He couldn’t allow what was unfolding between them to deepen. The only way for him to win Il Gioco and manage the aftermath was with a hardened heart.
If he had to tear his own out to save her, it would be worth the sacrifice.