Page 69 of Road Trip With a Rogue
“Ohhhh, that’s nice. Thank you.”
He’d removed his gloves. His fingers circled the tense muscles of the neck and she arched up like a cat in silent appreciation.
“I wish Ellie and Tess were here.” She sounded pitiful, but she didn’t care. She was beyond mortification. Lucien had seen her at her absolute lowest ebb. There was no point in trying to be brave or sophisticated now.
“I’m sorry they’re not.” He sounded genuinely regretful. “But is there anything else I can get for you?”
The laudanum was beginning to work. The sweet lassitude was creeping over her, the pain starting to dull just a fraction. It was like floating on a pitch-black tide. Her body felt as if it was made of lead; it was a struggle to lift her arm, but she managed to reach up and encircle his wrist.
“Stay.”
The tendons in his hand flexed. “Here? With you?”
She managed to nod, fighting the urge to slip under the beckoning wave of darkness.
“Please,” she whispered.
The mattress shifted as he lifted his legs onto the bed and propped himself up against the headboard, his hip next to her head. He twisted his hand so she released her grip on his wrist, and she felt the brush of his fingers smoothing over her hair.
“I’ll stay, if you want me to. Sleep now.”
With a deep sigh, Daisy allowed herself to drift off, her lips curving wryly despite the lingering pain. Who’d have imagined she’d ever find Vaughan’s presencerelaxing?
Well, maybe “relaxing” wasn’t the right word. He was not a relaxing person. But there was no denying that the thought of him there, watching over her while she slept, brought her a great deal of comfort. He was like a fierce and loyal watchdog, lethal to everyone but her.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Lucien stared down at Daisy and something tightened in his chest. She was alarmingly pale; all the color had left her face and her freckles stood out in stark relief against her milky skin. Her curls were a dark puddle on the navy bedding, almost invisible in the gloom, and he smoothed a wayward tendril with his finger, straightening it out against the velvet and watching as it snapped back into a lazy helix when released.
He’d seen men mortally wounded, bodies writhing in pain, but watching her suffer tonight had been a torment all of its own. He hated feeling so powerless, hated that there was so little he could do to make her feel better. There was nobody to punish, as there had been for Elaine. No way he could take the pain on her behalf. All he could do was sit in the dark with her, and wait.
This was his room. His bed. And the sight of her on his deep velvet coverlet made his stomach twist in primal satisfaction.
Logically, it was the best place for her. The midnight blue hangings were infinitely darker than the pastel guest room she’d been taken to first. With the door closed andthe curtains drawn, it was like the underworld. He’d always liked it that way.
She was curled on her side, burrowing into the fabric. Her slim shoulders rose and fell with every breath, and he was fiercely glad that she’d found relief in sleep. Glad that she’d found it here, in his personal space.
He’d never had a woman here, in this bed, before.
Daisy looked as if she belonged.
She didn’t move when he pulled the sheets up and around her body. In the faint light from the hallway, he could see a purplish bruise developing on her jaw, and his blood heated again at the knowledge that she’d been mistreated. He should have killed all three of those kidnapping bastards and left them to rot. He lacked her benevolent streak.
Unable to help himself, he reached out and gently traced the slope of her nose, the silky softness of her lips. She didn’t stir. She was beautiful, even battered and bruised, and his heart swelled with an odd kind of pride, the kind he’d felt for his scrappy young recruits when they’d come through some testing skirmish.
She was a fighter, brave and merciful in equal measure, and he found he was properly in awe of her. Her dogged persistence was infuriating at times, but the thought of a world without her in it was utterly bleak.
He could have lost her tonight. So easily.
Lucien frowned. Claiming her as his fiancée at Gretna had been a spur-of-the-moment decision, the only way he could think of to limit the damage to her reputation. Being thought to have eloped with him would cause a minor scandal, but at least if they wed, she’d be a duchess. The position would afford her an extraordinary amount of protection.
If they didn’t marry, society would treat the two ofthem very differently. If they said that she’d jilted him, he’d get little more than mockery for “losing his touch,” but she’d suffer a far worse fate. Since they’d been seen together, unchaperoned, everyone would assume that they’d been intimate. She’d be considered a lightskirt. Men who might previously have offered for her would move on to other, “purer” candidates, and she’d be fair game for the lecherous cads who prowled the dance floors and drawing rooms of Mayfair.
Daisy was more than capable of putting such idiots in their place, of course, but the thought of her being shunned and gossiped about by the bitchy women of thetonmade him want to crush something. What was the point in being a duke, with all the power the position commanded, if he couldn’t force people to accept her, be kind to her?
It was infuriating.
Marrying him was her best option, however much she might resent it. True, she’d be tied to him, but he was probably the one man in society who’d let her continue her work for King & Co. He’d never deny her the satisfaction of doing something she loved, and at which she clearly excelled.