The Duke with the Dragon Tattoo (Victorian Rebels, #6)(6)

He lived in England, but knew not where.

He’d broken five parts of himself: a left ankle, two ribs, a collarbone, and his nose.

Something in his eye had ruptured, turning it red and swollen.

He’d sat up yesterday, and could lift his previously dislocated shoulder a little higher than before, though it remained secured to his chest by a sling.

His burns had stopped oozing, then scabbed, and were beginning to scar.

Though he could not see, his ears worked just fine.

Thus concluded the sum total of what he knew about himself.

For weeks now, he’d slept among strangers.

An attentive doctor: Dr. Holcomb. A man more concerned about efficiency than kindness, with a rough voice and a gentle touch. Holcomb had supplied most of the information on his list whether the good doctor had meant to or not.

A doddering old fool: Lord Robert Weatherstoke, the Earl of Southbourne. Anxious. Dejected. Weak. Constantly shifting and fiddling with something that made hollow, tiny clicks. A watch? His footsteps shuffled like sandpaper against the floor, and his voice often shook when he spoke in whispers.

A man he wanted to kill: Lord Mortimer Weatherstoke, the Viscount Munthorpe. Someone who communicated in jibes and sarcasm. Every observation curious and morbid. Every reply an insult. His footsteps fell like hammers, and jangled nerves already taut with pain. A furious temperature rose on the rare occasions Mortimer visited. And the heart pumped with hatred, lips twisting into a snarl.

Then … there was her.

The girl he kept waking up for.

Dr. Holcomb called her my lady. The other two called her Duck.

When he could do something about it … they wouldn’t call her that anymore.

Lips parting on a constricted breath summoned at the thought of her, he rested the hand unencumbered by a sling against his heart.

He desired to know her name more desperately than he desired his own.

A flushing sensation conjured a troubling heat into his cheeks.

Her beatific voice had brought him back from the beckoning abyss above which he’d floated those first feverish days.

Don’t go, she’d murmured. Stay here. With me.

And so he had.

He’d lived only because she bade him to.

Whenever death seduced him with an end to the agony, he waited to hear the soft timbre of her admonishments just one more time. And once more after that. The slide of her fingers against his palm somehow banked the terror of an empty past. It suddenly didn’t matter who he’d been. Or what would become of him.

He measured time in the increments between her visits.

When he’d been reassembled, bathed, stitched, or simply had a bandage changed, she’d been there. Touching him. Crooning reassurances and praising his progress. Promising recovery.

She sang to him sometimes, her voice high and sweet and … unencumbered by talent or pitch of any kind. Christ, she really was terrible. But every time she finished, he promised the devil his soul for one more song.

What did heaven and earth even mean if not for her?

Not a single thing.

She was his prayer in the night. His song in the dark. His past and present.

His future.

And he hadn’t even laid eyes on her yet.

It wouldn’t matter what she looked like. His heart had already decided to beat for her.

Ears pricking as he heard the sound of her uneven gait coming down the hall, he fought to control his breath against a belt of eagerness tightening across his ribs.

He gulped as the door whispered open on well-oiled hinges. Her footsteps mirrored the thumps of his heart. Ka-thunk. Ka-thunk. Ka-thunk.

She set something on the stand to his right, then the slight depression of the mattress told him she’d perched on his bedside. It took everything within him not to roll into her. To wrap himself around her.

His hand on his chest curled into a fist. He quivered, knowing she would touch him, but not knowing when.

Those moments between her appearance and her caress were the most agonizing of all.

He’d never spoken to her. Never reached for her. Not only because his wounded body wouldn’t allow it, but because he was fair certain his hands would sully her perfection, somehow. He imagined they were filthy. Tainted by the kind of shame one couldn’t wash off. Whenever he opened his mouth to speak, a dread of her repulsion, of her retreat, wrapped their icy fingers around his throat. Choking him into silence.

If he stayed very still … she wouldn’t leave. If he said nothing, he’d not offend her.

If he didn’t breathe, maybe she’d touch him.

To his everlasting astonishment … it worked.

Like an answered prayer, her fingers closed over his wrist and lifted his good hand to clasp between her two smaller ones.

“Exciting news,” she sang in the enthusiastic whisper of someone with an incredible secret. “Dr. Holcomb is taking the bandages off your head today.”

It took a full minute for her words to permeate his slack-jawed amazement. Not because of the chance that he might see again. Or breathe through his nose. But because she’d hugged his hand to her chest.

Just below her throat.

Lace rasped against his knuckles, and a row of tiny buttons indented the meat below his thumb.

She dropped her cheek against his fingers and he felt her smile.

Lord love a goat, he could die a happy man. He’d caused one of her smiles.