Page 48 of Darkest at Dusk (Revenant Roses)

Then he lifted her despite her protests and carried her to the bath.

The steam curled around them, fragrant with rosemary and lavender.

He eased her down into the water, his big hands steady beneath her arms until she was settled.

The heat lapped at her skin, pulling the ache from her bones, the soot from her pores.

Rhys dipped a cloth, wrung it slow, and passed it across her throat, down her arms, over her hands. Soot melted away. Isabella let her head fall back against the rim of the tub as he soaped her skin, her hair, then rinsed her clean.

“Rhys,” she whispered, her throat raw.

He paused, the cloth dripping into the water. His jaw flexed. “I almost lost you.”

Her heart twisted at the vulnerability in his voice. “But you didn’t.”

He exhaled, ragged, and returned to his task. Each stroke was steady, deliberate.

When her skin shone clean, he set the cloth aside.

He stared at her as if she were both miracle and torment.

Then, with no word, he stripped off his coat, his waistcoat, his shirt.

The rest followed—boots, trousers—until he stood bare in the firelight, unflinching beneath her gaze.

Scars ridged his leg, pale seams carved by fire. He did not hide them. He let her see.

Then he stepped into the tub, the water rising as his body sank.

She shifted, making space. He gathered her into his lap, her back against his chest, the crown of her head beneath his chin and she knew pure joy in this moment, the two of them, flesh to flesh, breath to breath, their hearts beating in the same rhythm.

Isabella let her head fall to his shoulder. The strong line of his arm curled around her waist, the heat of him steady against her spine. The water lapped soft and warm, sluicing away the last remnants of ash.

She thought of Papa, who had shielded her with rules and silence. She thought of Rhys, who had trusted her enough to stand at his side, who had seen her without her mask and not asked her to hide. This man was her world.

The words rose in her chest, impossible to contain. “I love you.”

He went still at her back, no breath, no sound.

Then his mouth pressed to her wet hair, his voice breaking open against her crown. “I love you, my Isabella,” he said. Fierce. Certain. Unashamed. “God help me, I love you.”

She closed her eyes, the words sinking into her like light into stone. “Say it again.”

He turned her in his arms, water sloshing over the rim of the tub. His too-pretty gray eyes shone raw in the firelight, his mouth claiming hers.

And then he whispered it again, “I love you, my brave, beautiful, brilliant girl. My Isabella.”

She answered with her lips on his, sealing truth with truth.

They clung in the warm water, steam rising around them. The house was quiet. For the first time, truly quiet. No whispers. No shadows leaning to overhear.

Only them.

Later, when the water had cooled and their limbs were heavy, he lifted her from the bath and wrapped her in blankets, his own body damp and bare against hers.

They lay tangled in his bed, skin to skin, and though sleep tugged at her, she stayed awake long enough to feel his heart steady beneath her palm.

Later still, when Rhys slept, Isabella rose.

She donned his shirt and wrapped the blanket around her shoulders, then padded barefoot through the hush of the corridors, the two halves of the grimoire cradled in her arms. The house did not whisper, did not stir.

Its silence pressed gentle as a hand on her back.

In the library, she set the grimoire on the desk, brass seam glimmering. Once it had been weight and threat, inked with grief and fear. She laid her fingers on the cover, braced for a tremor, a tap, the bite of some unseen hook.

Nothing.

Only stillness.

She gathered the volume and carried it to a shelf. The leather was cool against her palms, the brass no hotter than any hinge. She slid it between two sober treatises and stepped back. There, it looked almost ordinary.

She sighed, not in sadness or despair, but relief. All her life, she had feared that she was nothing but a vessel for other people’s rules, condemned to wear a mask, to let no one know her true soul.

But she had tossed her mask aside, and Rhys loved her for who she was.

The blanket shifted on her shoulders. She turned and found Rhys leaning against the doorframe, hair damp and rumpled, eyes heavy with sleep. He said nothing, only watched her with a look that made her heart beat a little faster.

He crossed to her and took her hand, rough palm warm against her fingers as he twined them with his own. She leaned into him, their joined hands resting against her breast, the steady thud of her heart beneath.

She opened his fingers and pressed his palm to her heart. He bent and kissed the inside of her wrist, a vow spoken without words.

And when they left the library, it was not as haunted souls clinging to survival. It was as equals, two who had walked through fire, chosen each other in the dark, and stepped together into what lay beyond. Together.