Chapter Twenty-Four
Beatrice screamed as the villain rose and backed away from Graham’s bloodied body. Her eyes were drawn to the dark red stain that had spread over the front of his waistcoat. Higher thought was impossible. Panic in its most pure and unadulterated form flooded her body. Her heart raced, blood rushed in her veins and her lungs felt as if they simply would not expand and no air could enter. She couldn’t lose him, she realized. It would destroy her. In a short time, he’d become everything to her and the very idea of living in a world without him was an anathema to her.
Jerking away from Warner, Beatrice ran to where Graham had fallen. Her tears flowed unchecked.
“Graham!” she cried breathlessly as she dropped to her knees in front of him.
“I’m fine, Beatrice.” His voice was strained and breathless.
“You will be,” she said as she turned back to the doctor. “Don’t just stand there! Come help him!”
“It isn’t my blood,” Graham said softly. “I’m not hurt, Beatrice.”
She looked back at him as he pulled himself up to a sitting position. His face was bloodied, his lips split and a bruise was already forming around his eye. Glancing over her shoulder, she saw Alain leaning against the wall. He clutched his abdomen and blood seeped between his fingers, his skin pale and clammy. Before her eyes, he slowly slipped to the floor.
“Should we help him?”
“It’s too late for that,” Graham said. “A wound like that… well, you saw Edmund.”
Alain opened his eyes then. With his last breath he uttered, “Bastard.” His eyes closed then and his breathing stilled.
Warner stepped forward, pressed his hand against the man’s neck to check for any sign of life. Finding none, he rose and shook his head. “I’ll have his body removed to the cellars and send for the magistrate. At least with him here, we can clear Christopher of any role in Edmund’s death. Miss Marlowe, can you help Lord Blakemore to his chamber? I’ll attend you both there as soon as I’ve dealt with this.”
Beatrice nodded. It was really all she could do. Speech was beyond her. After the fear of what Alain would do to her and literally fighting for her life, seeing Graham lying there seemingly lifeless, she simply could not process anything else. She felt numb, but also impossibly fragile, as if at any moment she might shatter into so many pieces it would be impossible to put her back together again.
Lady Agatha’s chamber door opened and Crenshaw poked her head out. “Is it all over, Miss?”
“Yes, Crenshaw,” Graham said, his worried gaze fixed on Beatrice. “Is Lady Agatha all right?”
“She’s bursting to find out what happened. I had to all but sit on her to keep her in bed and not wander out here in the thick of it… but she’s fine, my lord, and I’ll be certain to let her know that you all are fine as well!”
“Thank you, Crenshaw,” Graham said as he levered himself up from the floor. He’d taken quite a few punches to the ribs. Between that and the recoil of the pistol against those same ribs when it had gone off, he would be lucky if they were not broken. Turning his attention back to Beatrice, he spoke gently to her. “You must get up, Beatrice. I can’t lift you at the moment.”
She did so, but continued to stare blankly ahead. Taking her hand, he led her away toward the solitude of his room. Settling her in a chair before the hearth, he poured a heavy snifter of brandy and placed it in her hand. “Drink that. Every damned drop of it.”
Again, she simply did as she was told, without question. That alone was cause for concern. Beatrice was many things, but he’d certainly never counted docile among them. “Dammit, Beatrice! Stop this right now!”
“Stop what?”
“Retreating to wherever it is you’ve gone in your head! Come back to me in the here and now… scream, cry, throw something!”
The glass that was in her hand suddenly sailed through the air, shattering against the wall. “Is that better?” she asked. While her normal fire was still dimmed, he could see a hint of it in her challenging gaze.
“Yes,” he replied. “It is. I’d rather you break every glass in this house than retreat into yourself that way.” Graham paused to collect his thoughts and then approached her. Though it pained him to do so, he squatted down next to her chair. “We’re fine. We are both fine. And he cannot harm us again.”
After a moment, she looked at him and tears swam in her eyes. “I thought you were dead. I thought—” she broke off on a sob.
Graham pulled her to him. “What did you think?”
“That it was too late. That I was too late. All I’d done was tell you over and over how impossible it would be to have anything between us—I’d just wasted our time together.”
Graham held her, as much for his own comfort as hers. She wasn’t the only one who’d been terrified. As he’d raced up the stairs, he’d envisioned a dozen horrible scenarios awaiting him and all of them had involved the loss of her. “So now we know and we will not waste any more time. To be clear, I mean to marry you, Beatrice, and I don’t much care whether or not you object. I’ll drag you to Scotland and find some unscrupulous vicar who can be paid to sign the register and keep his mouth shut.”
A watery laugh escaped her. “I promise not to be so difficult about every major decision in our lives.”
It was his turn to laugh. “Don’t make promises you can’t possibly keep. I wouldn’t know what to do with myself if you weren’t being difficult… and to be entirely honest, I’m not exactly the soul of amiability. We’re a matched pair, you and I.”
“So we are,” she agreed. “And there’s no one else I’d rather be matched with.”
“No more arguments about the estates and about heiresses and whether or not you’re a suitable bride?”
She leaned back. “All of those things are still true. I am an imprudent choice for you and in agreeing to marry you, I am being supremely selfish… but the last hour has prompted significant reprioritization. That all seems far less important than being with the man—”
“The man?” he prompted.
She sighed heavily. “You’re going to make me say it, aren’t you?”
“Yes,” he said with a slight nod. “But if it makes it better, I’ll say it first. I love you. I love you and I want to spend the rest of my life here with you… whether I remember my past or not, I want to be focused solely on our future.”
She leaned into him, pressing her face against his shoulder and holding him tightly. “I love you. I think maybe I always have… no other man would ever do because I was waiting for you to return.”
“Even though I was a horrid little beast as a child?”
“Even though,” she agreed.