I close my eyes. For the rest of my damnable life. I have to relive the agony of possibly losing you. Of losing both of you.”
“Oh…” she breathed, her heart giving a few extra thumps.
“It’ll drive me mad,” he ranted. “This unholy, unhealthy need I have to bask in your presence. This possession—no—this obsession. How am I supposed to run London’s entire police force when I’m so consumed by you?”
“I—”
He wasn’t finished by half. “I’m tempted to haul you to work with me and throw you in the cell, just so I can be certain of your safety. What sort of lunatic does that make me? Do you think that I could have survived this had it turned out differently?” He gestured to himself with sharp, wild arms. “And all of this right after last night. Right when I have everything I want in my grasp, everything. If he’d have—” His voice broke and he covered it with a rough sort of growl. “I swear, I’ve never felt fear like that before, Prudence. I’ve had you for a blink of time in my life, and yet, I’d have eaten a bullet before facing the rest of my years without you.” He turned to her, his face mottled and the tips of his ears red as he nigh trembled with unspent emotion. “Now,” he demanded. “What do you have to say for yourself?”
Prudence wondered if he could see the radiance in her heart shining through her eyes. If he knew how every word of his dressing-down had fallen like a Byronic poem on her ears. She wondered if she could ever have anything to say that could mean so much, because all she could come up with was, “I—I love you, too.”
He blinked, his features gone perfectly blank.
Then, he seized her in a lightning fast motion, buried his hands in her dark hair, and slanted his mouth over hers, kissing her with a desperate ferocity.
Prudence surrendered to the kiss instantly. She understood now, what his coldness out on the docks had meant. The reason he wouldn’t look at her.
He had to make sure everything was taken care of before the fissures in his composure cracked, and then shattered. He’d just killed five men with five bullets. He’d climbed a three-story warehouse and, stealthily as a cat, he’d put his deadeye to use.
When the warmth between them kindled into heat, he tore his mouth away, apparently aware of their surroundings.
He put his forehead on hers and they shared desperate breaths as he smoothed his hands down her arms to her waist, splaying his palms on her middle. “I shouldn’t have admonished you,” he admitted in a voice laced with regret. “Especially not after the trauma you’ve had. Christ, all I want is to wipe this day from your memory. To erase the bruise forming on your cheek. To coddle and cosset you. It’s damned unsettling.” His brow wrinkled with chagrin.
She nudged him with her nose. “I want to remember this day forever. I will look back on this as the day you saved my life and freed my sister from the clutches of an evil man.” She smiled, winding her arms around his neck as she clutched him close. “I’ll remember this as the day you said you loved me.”
His arms stole around her, bringing her fully against him, as if he couldn’t hold her close enough for his liking. “I promise you, Prudence, I’ll say it every day for the rest of our lives together.”
Though she was still weak-limbed from the panic and strain of her ordeal, she thrilled with a sense of fulfillment and belonging. As if his love strengthened her, lacing threads of steel in the silken feminine fabric of her being. Nothing would tear them apart. Not lies nor doubt. Not villains nor adversaries nor their own wounded hearts.
Drawing back, she looked up into his dear, dear face, and thought she might have seen something of the same sentiment lurking in the silver-blue brilliance of his gaze.
“Did you hear?” she asked, hope and pain catching in her throat. “Did you hear William confess to George’s murder? And to the Stags of St. James?”
“I did, sweetheart.” He flicked his gaze to the side, shadows reclaiming some of his brilliance. “I could grovel at your feet for a decade and it wouldn’t assuage my guilt.”
She reached up and traced the fine divot in his chin with a fingertip. “I would say it’s not necessary,” she shrugged. “But if groveling is