The Duke with the Dragon Tattoo (Victorian Rebels, #6)(15)
And then perhaps a little more.
“That would put three years between us.” He said this as if it were significant.
“Is that a good number of years? Or bad?” she couldn’t help but ask.
“I couldn’t say.” He took a distracted bite, then asked, “What is the date? I’d like to know, should I live to see my next birthday.”
She grinned. “It’s August second, for future reference.”
That noise again. Like the disinterested groan of a wolfhound. A thinking sound, perhaps?
“Do you … like your birthday?” she fretted. “We could always change it.”
His eyes melted from hard sable to soft pitch. “It’s my favorite day so far.”
Pleased and discomfited by the gravity in his words, she groped for something to occupy her racing thoughts.
“I brought presents. Well, sort of presents. You won’t be able to keep them, but since you haven’t been able to meet my friends…” Reaching for the covers to the pens she’d had conducted to his bedside, she pulled them away, like a magician unveiling his grand reveal. “I thought I’d bring them to you.”
He surveyed her “friends” with the appropriate expression of curiosity and enjoyment. Enough to delight her into congratulating herself on such a capital idea.
From their respective pens peered three sleepy foxes, two turtles, a bunny, a ferret, and a snake.
“You … saved them all?” he murmured.
“I did, yes,” she said, grimacing at the excess pride in her voice. She couldn’t say why, exactly, but she very much wanted him to be pleased with her. Impressed, perhaps. “Oh! And the best one I brought just for you.” Bustling to the wooden box at the foot of the bed, covered to protect a nest, she hoisted it next to him and lifted the lid. “Happy birth—”
He said words she’d never known to be curses until that moment, as he retreated across the vast bed.
Shocked, utterly stymied, she stared down into the disinterested eye of the young roosting rook with a broken wing in complete amazement. “You … you don’t like it?” She knew it to be an obviously senseless question the moment it escaped on a quivering gasp, but astonishment had apparently stolen her wits.
“Like it?” he panted from several spans away. “Why the fuck would I—” Disgust had pilfered what little color resided in his cheeks, but once he looked into her swimming eyes, he clamped his jaw against whatever else he’d been about to say.
A hot tear slid down her cheek. She wished she could drown herself in it, somehow, so powerful was her mortification.
His panic seemed to intensify as he held out a hand. “Don’t … don’t cry.”
“I’m not.” She sucked in a shaky gasp, petrified into place by indecision and self-contempt as her breaths turned into hiccups.
“Please.” He groaned. “I—can’t bear it if you—” Decisive determination hardened his features, and he only spared the nest three sideways glances of unease as he inched back toward her.
“I—gave you a birthday—and—and then I—ruined it!” she sobbed.
“Lorelai.” Big hands dragged her off her feet and onto the bed, until she was cradled against his chest. A warm body with not one soft place to be found, folded around her like a shelter from the storm of her sorrow.
She collapsed into his strength, abandoning her own. Never had she been held like this. Never had anyone taken the burden of her weight, nor the weight of her pain, and acted as a bulwark against it. If only she could stop crying long enough to marvel at the miracle.
Callused fingers snagged at her cheeks as tears disappeared the moment they fell.
“Lorelai. Please. Do not weep. I’m sorry.” The desperation in his voice quelled her sadness, enough to give her the strength to fight the next wave of sobs. His breath was a sweet-scented breeze across her face as he pulled her closer. His voice broke often with uncharacteristic youth as he scrambled to explain. “When I woke in that grave … Ravens … they were picking at the bodies of the dead. Tearing things off them. Out of them. You understand? One came after me…”
Holy God. Lorelai hid her face against his chest as a fresh wave of tears crashed against her. She’d gifted him a nightmare. How could she be so thoughtless?
“Lorelai.” The backs of his knuckles lifted her chin, forcing her to look at him. “Sweetest Lorelai.” It was as though he could not stop saying her name. His own eyes melted. Misted. His rigid features impossibly tender. “I know you. You had a reason, didn’t you? For bringing me this…” His dimpled chin gestured to the crate teetering dangerously next to them.
“It’s so inane.”
“Tell me,” he soothed, his fingers brushing at damp curls trying to stick to the tears on her cheeks.
Snuffling her embarrassment, she peered over to the crate. “I thought the raven’s feathers look like your eyes. Black upon first glance, but when you inspect them more closely, there are a great many colors, indeed.” She leaned up a little. Not enough to leave his embrace, but to show him what she meant. “Sort of—sort of iridescent, aren’t they? Extraordinary, really. Every time I looked at him, I thought of you. I thought—they were lovely.”