How do you think I am?”
“Sated?”
“Emphatically. Twice, in fact.”
Lips twitching, he grazed her bruised lower lip with his thumb, and then looked up at her ugly tweed cap. He pulled it off, watching as her long golden curls spilled free like a waterfall of silken wheat. Winter wound his fist into one long tress and frowned. If that hat had come off at any time during her foray into Seven Dials, she would have been exposed. He didn’t want to contemplate what could have happened in a place full of cutthroat criminals.
His amusement faded.
“Don’t ever risk your safety like that again,” he ground through his teeth. “You could have died.”
She stared up at him, eyes glittering like a cerulean sea. “So could you.”
“I’m a man.”
“And does being male make your life worth any less than mine?” she shot back. “You were in danger, too, Winter. I couldn’t let you be alone, not when you were out here because of me in the first place.”
“You should have stayed at home.”
“Like an obedient, spineless, dutiful wife?”
Her reply was soft, dangerous, but Winter was too far gone to pay any heed. Anger and fear for her rolled into one. Things could have been so much nastier. Couldn’t she see that? She could have been killed. Or much worse.
“Yes, devil take it!” His throat worked as he reached for words. “I couldn’t countenance it if something happened to you.”
Like Prue.
He didn’t have to say the words; he knew his shattered expression made that all too clear. And Isobel was not one to miss anything. He adored that about her—that sharp perceptiveness tempered by compassion.
“I’m not her, Winter,” she whispered.
He knew that, of course. Isobel was like Prudence in many ways—in her empathy and desire to see the best in people, even him—but she was much stronger than Prue had ever been. The problem wasn’t either woman…it was in Winter’s inability to protect either of them. He’d been too late to save Prue, here in this very hellhole, and when he thought of what could have happened to Isobel, everything inside of him hollowed out with dread.
“I know, but—”
Her hand slid up to cup his jaw, her index finger sliding across the swollen seam of his lips and halting his protest. “But nothing, Winter. My choices brought me here to you. For you. I would make them again without hesitation.”
“Why?”
“Because I love you, damn it!” Her cheeks went scarlet at the admission, but she wasn’t finished. “And if you weren’t so blinded by your own pigheadedness, you would know that.”
Stunned, Winter gawked at her. His heart grew wings, beating wildly within his chest as though offered the gift of flight after being caged for so long. The faintest glimmer of hope hummed through his veins…daring him to fly. Fuck. Fuck. She loved him.
She. Loved. Him.
Winter’s mind spun with unmitigated joy, but then slowed as he rejected the admission in the same breath. She shouldn’t love him. No, she was simply overcome by emotion, just as he’d been earlier. It happened to the best of men.
“That doesn’t excuse the risks you’ve taken, Isobel. I won’t allow you to put yourself in harm’s way. I forbid you—”
Her eyes flashed with injury, but she ducked her head swiftly. “To what? Leave my bedchamber? Cross the street? Ride in a carriage? Being female does not make me weak. I made the decision to follow you with my own capable brain. I took measures against possible harm, in my disguise and my weapons.”
“A man should protect his wife.”
Her chin lifted in defiance. “And should a wife not do the same for her husband?”
He gave a reluctant chuckle. She was the sort of woman who wouldn’t need any man to fight a duel for her—she’d do that on her own. Or defend him, as the situation warranted. He’d never seen anything more magnificent as the proud, fierce look on her face when she’d punched Vittorina.
I’m not spineless, she’d said.
No, his brilliant, reckless, headstrong, stubborn wife certainly was not.
Their heated stand-off was interrupted by the arrival of several coaches in the adjacent square. Isobel bolted from the alley just as Clarissa descended one of the carriages. Oliver was close behind her, wearing the most aggravated look on his face. A slew of Runners followed on horseback, as men led by Matteo and Westmore from the other carriages rushed forward to round up the fallen footpads and take them into custody.
“Oh, good God, Izzy,” Clarissa cried, seeing her. “You’re covered in blood! Are