Page 67 of The Rogue’s Embrace

Pleasantries with the Earl of Bayton satisfied for the evening, Toren sipped from a thick cut glass, watching the fire in the guest quarters.

The brandy slid down his throat slowly, fighting past the clenched muscles along his neck. That his hands were not shaking at this point was a miracle.

He had almost lost her.

He leaned forward, his hand gripping the heavy oak mantel above the hearth to steady himself.

Even now, even though his wife was physically safe, he quite possibly had lost her for his actions the day before. For the months of lies.

But she had needed him above everything else after being strung up in the undercroft of that abandoned castle.

She needed him.

He clung to that wisp of hope. Adalia had been overwhelmed, he knew that. The entire wagon ride, she had needed him to hold her because of it. Her fingers clutching her brother's hand, she watched Theodore like a hawk, ignoring how her own body shook, the reality of what had happened to her manifesting in her uncontrolled tremors.

And he had held her. Happily. Gratefully. For there had been moments in the last twenty-four hours when he had thought he would never get the chance to again.

Those moments had nearly destroyed his soul.

Mr. Benson had driven the wagon to the nearest haven Toren could think of, Lord Bayton's Berkshire estate. Theodore needed a surgeon, and he needed it sooner rather than later. In residence, Lord Bayton was happy to welcome them under the circumstances.

Toren knew Adalia would have been more comfortable getting as quickly as possible to Dellon Castle, and they would travel onward to there once they could properly move Theodore.

He guessed he would have a fight on his hands with Theodore to get him to remain at Dellon Castle for the immediate future, but Toren wasn't about to chance someone else coming after him or Adalia or the twins. So there they would remain until this bloody war was over.

The door opened, and his wife walked into the questionably appointed room. Decorated in cherubs and soft pastels, it was the furthest thing from his taste—but he wasn't about to complain. Lord Bayton was one of the few men in parliament that actually had the ability to practice discretion, and Toren didn't want a soul to know of their whereabouts. Not to mention the man knew his horseflesh.

"How is your brother?"

He set the glass of brandy onto the mantel and walked across the room to her. Her left hand had been rewrapped after the scabs from the glass had reopened, and she had changed into a simple, yellow muslin dress a maid had procured. Touches of pink had also returned to her ashen face since he had left her with Theodore a half hour before.

Progress.

"Sleeping, mercifully."

She sighed, exhaustion lacing her breath. "I thought he would lose consciousness when they set all those bones. I needed him to, but he didn't. I don't know how he suffered it."

"Theodore has always been strong."

She nodded, rubbing the back of her neck, rolling her head to stretch her muscles. He had seen how stretched out she had been tied up, and imagined the aches in her own muscles and limbs were screaming. He stepped around her, brushing her hair to the side and slipping the pads of his thumbs up and down the muscles of her neck and shoulders.

Her eyes closed and her body leaned into him, near purring within seconds.

More progress.

Her face dipped downward to stretch the lines of her neck as his fingers kneaded through the tightness. "Will the girls be safe, Toren? I am worried."

"Josalyn and Mary are no longer valuable as a device to make your brother talk, so yes, they are even safer than they were a day ago. And the war will end eventually, sooner if all goes well with Wellington's plans. After that, hiding them away will not be necessary. But you know I will take every precaution until that time."

"I do."

She took a deep breath. "I want to be back with them."

"We will leave tomorrow if we can find a suitable, well-sprung enclosed wagon to carry your brother laid out. Even at that, I feel we should not move him until he heals more, but that could take weeks, and I prefer the safety of Dellon Castle."

"As do I."

She nodded. "So we are safe?"

"Yes."

She stepped away, turning to face him. "Good. Then I can currently be irate with you."

"Irate?"

Toren blinked hard. His wife was purring a moment ago, and now she was irate? He deviously grinned—purely manipulative. He would use whatever means necessary to veer her off whatever irate course she was determined to follow. "I do not think irate is allowed. Not now."

"Yes, now."

Her hands went onto her hips. "Your lies. Potatoes."

"Pota—what?"

"Potatoes. You tossed me over your shoulder like a sack of potatoes, Toren."

She thwapped his shoulder. "Your blasted shoulder. Like I was nothing. Like I was a…a…thing. A sack of potatoes you bought at the market."

"Ah…"

Her head shook, her lips pursing as her green eyes skewered him. "Overbearing tyrant."

"At least you dropped the ‘fiend.'"

His head cocked to the side with a wry smile.

She was not amused. "Fiend"

would be added back to the insult if he did not step carefully around his next words.

He sighed, his hand rubbing against his forehead. "I have no defense, Adalia. I did toss you about like a sack of potatoes. In that moment in the garden, all I could think of was keeping you safe—safe from yourself. I had no idea where you were going—what you were about to do. The need exploded so brutally in me that I was blinded to everything except getting you out of there—getting you out of London before you did something stupid."

He shrugged. "So, yes, I was tyrannical. I apologize for that. But at the same time I cannot profess that I would have done anything differently. Anything to keep you safe means anything, Adalia. Even throwing you over my shoulder if that is what is necessary. Even if it means I have to face down the look you are currently giving me."

Her hands slipped from her hips, her arms crossing over her ribcage. "And the lies? The lies were not a sudden uncontrollable urge, Toren. They were premeditated. You lied to me for months—months—about Theo."

Her voice had gone soft, near to cracking.

Toss her about, and she was mad—but this, this had caused real hurt. A wound that she attempted to cover with a veil of anger, but it was there, plain as day.

The lies were trickier, for he had no defense. He had hauled her away from London to protect her from her own idiocy. But the lies. The lies about Theodore's death were all of his own making.

Mercy. The only thing he had left was to ask for mercy. Beg if necessary. "I cannot defend the lie, for when I did so, it was entirely for my own benefit, and I thought nothing of it. But you are well aware of that, aren't you, Adalia?"

She nodded, her lips drawing back into a tight line.

"There were moments after…after we married, when I wanted to tell you. But I could not do so, Adalia. Some lies just need to remain lies—for the hurt they would cause if revealed. Hurt for no reason. Hurt I could not inflict upon you."

"Hurt is not a reason to hide truth, Toren."

"No. Yet I still could not do it. Could not watch you crumble as you did. It was selfish of me and I can only beg your forgiveness on the matter."

Her mouth opened, ready to retort, ready to unleash a maelstrom of condemnation upon him.

He deserved all of it.

But then her lips suddenly clamped shut, her head shaking, her green eyes pinning him.

Toren pounced on the slight hedge. "I only have one question for you, Adalia."

"What is it?"

Her words seeped out through gritted teeth.

"Do you trust me?"

She stared at him. Wavering. Wavering enough that Toren could not discern to which side she would end—forgiveness or damnation.

"I always have."

She exhaled, defeated, her eyes not leaving his face, her voice weary. "I cannot deny that truth, as much as I want to in this moment."

His held breath seeped from his lungs, an inordinate amount of pride filling his chest. "I know how much that just cost you."

"You do? How?"

"You said the words, yet you are still staring at me like that."

Her eyebrows cocked in question.

"Like you would like to see me roasting on a spit over a fire. It would curdle my toes if I didn't know you possessed the exact opposite of that look, and on occasion, you grace me with it."

Curiosity sparked in the center of the raging storm brewing in her green eyes. "What look is that, exactly?"

"Like you want me naked in the middle of the bed, suffering your fingers slipping into nooks to torture me. Like lust. Like wanton devilry. Like I am the only man you will ever want. Like wonderment."

He took a step toward her. Any means necessary.

She fought it, but the slightest crack slipped into her ire, her lips softening.

He set his hands upon her shoulders, gentle, pressing just slight enough to draw goose bumps up along her neck. "I am never going to let harm come upon you, Adalia. I swore it when we married. And I swear it every day, every minute, every second. Everything I have done was to keep you safe—from both man and harm to your soul."

Raw vehemence shook his words and slowly—far too achingly slow—he watched the last of her ire dissolve, her green eyes turning to resigned adoration. She lifted her right hand to his face, her palm flattening along the line of his jaw.

That one touch from her was the moment—the one moment in his life that would stay with him until the end of days—the moment his life truly began. And he knew it, recognized it fully, and accepted it with every fiber of his being.

His mouth opened, his words near to cracking. "Will you listen to one other thing I need to tell you?"

She drew a deep breath, her chest rising, brushing against his. "If you are about to tell me I was an idiot for how I acted, I do not think I will remain soothed, Toren."

"I wanted to tell you what I saw two nights ago, Adalia."

Her brow creased. "At the Revelry's Tempest?"

"Yes. I did not comprehend it at first—it had to sit in my mind for a while."

Searching her face, he found and concentrated on the darkest shards of emerald green in her eyes, letting it bolster him. "Something I never understood until now. Something that made more sense to me than anything else ever has."

Curiosity sparked into her eyes. "What?"

"Lady Whilynn and Captain Trebont. I want them."

"What?"

She chuckled. "You want the captain and Lady Whilynn? I do not think they are available to keep as pets, if that is what you are dreaming."

Her hand started to drop from his face, and he caught the back of it, holding it in place along his cheek, refusing to give up the one part of her that was touching him.

"No. I want what I saw. I want—no I need—to be the man that will unfailingly fight for your honor, Adalia. I need to be that man no matter what life brings us—when we are old and you are deep into madness and I am still mad beyond measure for you."

Her jaw dropped, her intake of breath shaking her entire body. "Toren, you…you love me."

His fingers on the back of her hand tightened to near crushing. "If this is it, that I need to be your champion.

That I need you by my side. That I need you in my bed. That I need you to be happy, because without your happiness, I cannot recognize my own.

That I stand taller when you are near me. That I want you to be the first thing I see when I awake.

That I want my face buried in your hair, the last scent I smell before sleep. That this last month without you left me with a gaping hole in my chest, a torture that would not yield, every breath a struggle.

That I suffered unimaginable pain when you were stolen from me—that I did not know how I would move onward if I could not find you."

He stopped, a last breath fortifying his lungs. "Then yes, if all of that is love, then I do, Adalia. I not only need you, I love you."

Her green eyes glistening, she smiled so wide, so heartfelt, it split his chest in two. Her bandaged hand came up, clasping his face. "I thought so."

He laughed. "And just like the captain and Lady Whilynn, I need this love to last forever, for I cannot imagine my life without it. Those two love each other. No matter what has happened to them. They love each other above everything else. As ugly as life can become, as much as reality has slipped for them, they still love each other—through anything. Seeing that…"

His head shook. "Love like that makes unequivocal sense to me, Adalia. We make sense."

She jumped to her toes, her lips meeting his hard with passion—love—that had been bridled for far too long.

He broke then.

His arms wrapped around her and he dragged her body into his. He had said what he needed to. What he should have told her weeks ago if he hadn't been too stubborn to stay away.

And his glorious, smart, beautiful, kind, forgiving wife had accepted him as she had left him. With love in her eyes.

Only this time her love had a place. A home in him. Treasured beyond compare.

Her lips moved against his, her smile stealing her from the kiss. "Give me a few years and I do believe I can go mad for you, Toren."

"And I do believe I will always defend your honor, Adalia."

He drew his head back slightly, searching for her eyes. "It took me a lifetime to understand this thing—love—Adalia. Do not think I have come upon this lightly. Do not dare to think it will ever leave my heart. Ever leave my soul."

"You come upon nothing in life lightly, my love."

Her right hand ran up along his face, moving back through his hair until she had him captured by the neck. "So do not dare to think I would ever doubt you."

He buried himself into her.

Heaven. Love.

This was it.

Who knew they were the same thing?