Romancing the Duke (Castles Ever After #1)

A glimpse of something pale and writhing.

And moaning.

Her heart made an impulsive attempt to escape her body by way of her throat. But she didn’t run away. She inched closer, holding the candle tight.

Slowly, the ghostly apparition came into focus.

Izzy blinked. “Your Grace?”

Chapter Ten

Damn, damn, damn.

Ransom winced as her familiar voice sliced through his throbbing skull.

She would have to find him here, see him like this. Down on the ground, his knees cut out from under him. Crippled by searing pain.

Why had he ever agreed to a duel with swords? He should have insisted on pistols. He’d be dead now, of course. But in times like this, dying seemed preferable to one more minute of this burning, shooting pain.

“What is it?” she asked. “Are you unwell?”

She padded across the floor and crouched at his side.

“Go away. Leave me.” He rolled onto his side, curling his knees to his stomach and pressing his skull against the cool, smooth stone.

“Are you having some sort of attack?”

“Just . . .” He flinched as a fresh burst of pain ripped from his eye socket to the back of his skull. “Just a headache.”

It wasn’t just a headache. It was a headagony. The pain ripped from the back of his skull, curving around one side of his scalp to stab him just behind the eye.

Again and again and again.

“How can I help?” she asked.

“By leaving.”

“I won’t do that. You didn’t leave me when I swooned.”

“Different,” he muttered. “Wasn’t—”

“It wasn’t kindness. I know, I know. Something about vermin. If you don’t want me, shall I fetch Duncan?”

“No.” He managed to pronounce the word with gunshot force, but it had a wicked recoil. White streaks of pain flared behind his eyelids.

She didn’t leave him. “Do you need water? Whisky? Some sort of powder?”

He gritted his teeth and gave a tight shake of his head. “Nothing works. Have to wait it out.”

“How long?”

“An hour, perhaps.”

An hour that would feel like a lifetime. A lifetime of being stabbed through the base of his skull with a spike. Repeatedly.

“I’ll stay with you,” she said.

Her hand settled on his shoulder, and the touch sent a shiver through him.

Ransom was accustomed to dealing with pain on his own. In his early life, he hadn’t been given a choice. His mother had died less than an hour after his birth. His father had showed no patience with tears he might shed over stubbed toes and scraped knees. If he hurt himself or fell ill, the old duke thought he should overcome the pain on his own. The nursemaids and house staff were forbidden to give him so much as a hug. No coddling. No small mercies. His father had insisted on it.

And his father had been right. By learning to recover on his own, Ransom had grown into a strong, independent man. Untouchable. Invincible.

Right up until the moment a short sword caught him across the face.

Her fingers brushed over his ruined brow.

“I don’t need you here,” he said.

“Of course you don’t. You’re a big, strong, manly duke, and you don’t need anyone, I know. I’m not here for you. I’m here for me. Because I need to stay.”

With a sigh, he gave in. He hadn’t the strength to argue it further.

She settled beside him and drew his head into her lap. “There, now. Be easy. Be calm.”

Her fingers drifted through his hair, tracing delicious furrows on his scalp. Each caress seemed to stroke away a bit of the pain.

Her touch was like magic—or the closest thing to a miracle a man like him could ever credit. She found the sharp edge of his pain and dulled it with gentle sweeps of her fingertips.

And her voice. That deep, sweet river of her voice, carrying him away from the pain.

It was so foreign to him, this unsolicited tenderness. Incomprehensible. And much as he craved it, it scared him like hell. With every caress he permitted, he was piling up debts he could never repay.

You don’t deserve it, came that dark, unforgiving echo. He’d heard the words so many times, they were part of him now. They lived in his blood, resounding with each hollow beat of his heart. You don’t deserve this. You never could.

Her thumb found a knot at the base of his skull and pressed. He moaned.

She immediately stilled. “Am I distressing you?”

“No. Yes.” He turned so that his head lay in the cradle of her lap, and he stretched one arm about her waist, shameless. “Just . . .”

“Yes?”

“Don’t stop.” He sucked in his breath as a fresh wave of pain nearly knocked him cold. “Don’t stop.”

“I won’t stop,” she promised.

Izzy’s heart twisted. There was something so moving about seeing a man so big, so powerful, curled up like a puppy on the floor, damp with perspiration and writhing in evident pain.

His arms laced tight about her waist.

She’d been alone for a long time. In some ways, since well before her father died. And she was well-enough acquainted with loneliness to understand that the worst part wasn’t having nobody caring for you—it was having nobody to care for.

Izzy didn’t know if these gentle sweeps of her fingertips could erase his pain—but they were dismantling the safeguards around her heart.

She soothed her touch over his brow and scalp, making shushing noises and whispering what she hoped were comforting words.

What happened? she longed to ask. What happened tonight? What happened all those months ago?

“Speak,” he said.

“What shall I speak of?”

“Anything.”

How strange. Izzy found herself on the receiving end of questions daily, but she was never asked to talk about . . . anything on her mind. Now that he’d requested it, she didn’t even know what to say.

She stroked his hair again.

“Talk of anything,” he said. “Tell me a story, if you must. One from Mudpuddlia.”

She smiled. “I’d rather not. My life’s work was helping my father. But that doesn’t mean I’m a little girl living in his tales. To be sure, I enjoy a romantic story, but I also like newspapers and sporting magazines.”

She dropped her touch to his neck and began to work loose the knots of muscle there, working in gentle circles.

He groaned.

She stilled her fingers. “Shall I stop?”

“No. Just keep talking. Which sport?”

“When I was a girl, I followed all of it. My father was just a tutor then, and I was a girl who read anything she could lay hands on. One of his pupils passed along stacks of magazines. Boxing, wrestling. Horseracing was my favorite. I would read every article, study every race. I’d pick horses, and my father would place the bets. We could always use the extra money.”

She reclined her weight on one outstretched arm and settled in to tell him all about the year she picked the winners in both the Ascot and Derby, sparing no detail of her bloodline research and odds calculations. He just wanted her to keep talking, and so she did.

“Anyhow,” she finished, minutes later, “we did well with it.”

“It sounds as though you did well with it.” He released a long, heavy sigh and turned onto his back, so that he faced her.

“Is the pain any better, Your Gr—” She cut herself short, unable to complete the proper form of address. She held his head in her lap, and she’d just babbled on about her boring life. This was the least ducal or graceful moment imaginable. What point was there in formality?

She thought of all those letters she’d pored over that morning. How they all began with “Your Grace” or “May it please the duke” or something similarly cold.

He needed someone to treat him like a person. Not an untouchable duke but a man worth caring for. And as she could imagine Duncan would prefer to swallow bootblack before breaking with his traditional role, Izzy decided that person would have to be her.

“Ransom,” she whispered.

He didn’t object, so she tried it again.

“Ransom, are you better?”

He nodded, putting one hand over his eyes and massaging his temples. “Better. Somewhat.”

“Do you have these headaches often?” she asked.

“Not so often anymore. They’re just . . . sudden. And vengeful. This one cut my legs out from under me. At least when it’s over, the pain leaves as swiftly as it arrived.”

He began struggling to a sitting position. “Don’t tell Duncan,” he said. “He’ll insist on sending for a doctor.”

“Maybe a doctor would be a good idea,” Izzy replied.

Ransom shook his head, wincing as he did. “No. There’s nothing they can do.”

He pushed to a standing position. Izzy stood, too. And then watched, cringing, as the six-foot-tall column of duke slowly pitched to the right.

“Oh, dear.” She lunged into action, using both hands and all her body weight to prop him back up. “You should rest, Your Grace.”

“So should you.” His hand stroked up and down her arm. “What are you doing out of bed anyhow?”

“I . . . er . . .” She hesitated, not knowing how to explain the “ghost hunt,” and not wanting to tell him her weasel had nearly bitten off his poor dog’s tail.

But he didn’t appear ready to comprehend the story anyhow. “Are you certain you’re well?”

“It’s always this way.” He steadied himself with one hand on her shoulder. “Even after the pain is gone, my mind doesn’t work properly for an hour or two. It’s like being drunk.”

She smiled at the heavy weight of his hand on her shoulder. At last, he was accepting a small measure of assistance from her, unforced and unprompted.

“Well, at least you’re a friendly drunk,” she said. “There’s that. In fact, I think I might like you much better this way.”

“I like you too much.” His slurred, mumbled words were almost too low to hear.

They were too ludicrous to be trusted.

I like you too much.

Izzy flushed with heat. He couldn’t really mean that. He wasn’t himself right now. That was all.

“You really should rest,” she said. “Let me take you down to the great hall so you can sleep.” She started to drape his arm over her shoulders like a yoke.

He turned to face her. Instead of draping over her shoulders, his arm slid around her back. “At least kiss me good night.”

Heavens. He truly was behaving as if he were drunk. He probably wouldn’t even remember this encounter in the morning.

In which case . . . Why not?

Stretching up on her toes, she kissed his unshaven cheek. “Good night, Ransom.”

“No, no.” He drew her close, and together they wobbled back and forth. “Not what I meant. Isolde Ophelia Goodnight, kiss me. With every ounce of passion in your soul.”

“I . . .” Flustered, she swallowed hard. “I’m not sure I even know how.”

The quirk of his lips was shameless. “Use your imagination.”

Now that was an invitation she’d been waiting a lifetime to hear.

She pressed her lips to his, softly. He remained still, letting her do the kissing. She laced her arms around his neck, leaning close. She brushed lingering kisses over his upper lip, then the bottom. Just lightly, tenderly. Again and again.

These kisses . . . they were confessions. Tastes of everything she had stored inside her. Everything she could give a man if he was brave enough to accept. Kiss by kiss, she was baring herself to the soul.

Here is my soft caress.

Here is my patience.

Here is my understanding.

Here is my tender, beating heart.