Taken by the Wicked Rake

Author:Christine Merrill [Merrill, Christine]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: ISBN9781426879555
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2011-05-18T21:00:00+00:00

Chapter Ten

Stephano awoke with a start. He had not meant to doze at all. But he could tell by the light coming through the windows in the vardo that much time had passed. Shadows were growing, and he could see Verity moving around in the dim light of the cabin.

“How long?” His voice scratched, and he cleared his throat.

She turned to him, as though surprised. “How long did you sleep? About a day and a half. You were very ill.”

He wanted to argue that it had been moments. But there was a fresh bandage upon his wound and a clean basin of water on a chair beside his bed. Leaves floated in it, and there was a white cloth resting on the side. Vague memories surfaced of small white hands holding the cloth to his temples, squeezing drips of water between his parched lips, and bathing him as though he was the infant she had accused him of being. His body felt suspiciously cool and clean, and the faint scent of herbs clung to his skin.

“You had a fever. But it has passed.”

He grew conscious of his nakedness beneath the blanket, and glanced at the knife resting on the table on the other side of the room. She had stayed with him, when it would have been a perfect opportunity to run. “You should have left me when I was weak. No one would have stopped you. And yet, you did not.”

She turned her head and reached to straighten the cloth beside the basin, as though she wished to look anywhere but at him. “You were trying to release me when you fell ill.”

“And you did not act on it?” He wished she would look at him. For if she did, he was sure he could read the truth in the depths of those fascinating eyes.

“I thought, if you had not already let me go, then perhaps there was still some hope that our families might reconcile peacefully. You are not foolish, nor is my father. He will not speak until he has me back. And if you had been fully satisfied with the results of your trip to London, I would have been gone already. If I am still here, then there is time.”

She raised her face to look at him, and in that moment, he knew he had lost his heart to her. She looked sad and yet hopeful, and totally trusting that he would do the right thing by her, if only she asked. How could he deny her? He was weak from the fever, but the ache in his hand had been reduced to the itching and prickling of a healing scratch. And his head was clearer than it had been for years.

So he propped himself up on his elbows and looked into her hazel eyes for what he feared would be the last time. And he said, “I relinquish all claim against your family. If your father took a life, then you have given one back to me.

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