Page 76 of The Duke With the Dragon Tattoo

Her lids began to flutter. If she were lucky, she could just leave. Sleep. And wake when the carnage was over.

Escape. Like the coward she’d always been.

Farah Blackwell’s abidingly soft voice whispered through the atmosphere thick and hot with suspicion and challenge as she rested a hand on Lorelai’s shoulder. “Lorelai, dear. Are you…” She paused. “Do you consider yourself married to the Rook?”

His gaze burned a hole into the crown of her head. She didn’t have to look up to fathom the possession and demand in his eyes. “I—I don’t know. I couldn’t say that our ceremony was exactly legitimate.”

“It was by the rules of maritime law,” the Rook insisted.

“It’s true that I’ve been more of a captive than a wife,” she confessed, her cheeks burning with mortification. “And… the marriage hasn’t been consummated.”

“Thank God.” Veronica sighed with more relief than Lorelai, herself, felt.

“Do youwantthe Rook for your husband?” Farah urged.

“That is inconsequential.” Her would-be husband pushed the table between them aside with one swipe, advancing until his knee boots were planted before her. “She belongs to me, and where I go, she goes. End of fucking discussion.”

Fearing the chaos he might have stirred by removing the physical barrier, Lorelai made to stand, but Farah beat her to it.

Lorelai was once again stunned speechless when she reached up to save Farah. Instead of fear, or aggression,or even caution, both the Blackheart of Ben More and his pretty wife shared an odd, secret smile.

“The discussion ends when you answer one question, Captain.” Farah stood between her and the Rook, and Lorelai thought her braver even than Joan of Arc.

“What’s that?” he asked in the voice of a wolf at the end of his tether.

“Do you love her?”

CHAPTERSIXTEEN

It was one of a million questions the Rook didn’t know the answer to. The one word he hadn’t a definition for.

Love.

He only understood possession. There were laws about it. Wars fought over it. Countless souls martyred in its name.

But love? How did a man feel what he did not understand?

How did he convey what he’d never been shown?

Was he expected to love when Lorelai didn’t? She wouldn’t even look at him. He’d not allowed her to answer Lady Northwalk’s question because her rejection might have deflated the tiny bloom of humanity he’d begun to sense within himself since he’d claimed her.

And even he couldn’t predict his reaction if she’d denied him now.

Blackwell threw him a lifeline. “What is she to you?”

It was as if he knew. As if he understood that love was a fragmented hypothetical to men like them.

A tranquility shimmered inside of him. Were she not there, an arm’s length away, he’d have done monstrous things already. She kept his beast at bay. It was for her that he spoke instead of struck. And because of it, he’d discovered a piece of the puzzle from his past. Before her, he’d have taken the offensive. He’d have destroyed any possible enemies, before he’d the chance to find an ally.

WhatwasLorelai to him? What had she been since the first time she’d bade him to live? “She is my wife. She… is my… peace.”

Gasping, she struggled to her feet. He reached out to help her, but she slapped his hands away with shockingly uncharacteristic temper.

“I amnotyour piece, you—you… mercenary… scalawag!”

He tried not to find it endearing that she had to search her infinitely gentle mind for an insult, and had possibly come up with the most benign one in existence.

“I’ve begged you again and again to let poor Veronica go!” Her eyes sparked with an azure flame he’d never before witnessed, and it roused something inside of him that didn’t even resemble ire. “Hasn’t she been through enough? You murdered her husband!”