CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
CLAREMONT HOUSE, LONDON – EARLY JUNE, 1814
How his head pounded. It throbbed in rhythm with the beat of his heart, which, for some reason, was extra strong. He wiggled his fingers. Ah. They were resting on his chest. No wonder every heartbeat was palpable. But why did his head hurt so?
Frenzied images rushed at him. Fillmore. A gun. Grace. Grace. He remembered her crashing into him, the report of the pistol, then falling. Good God. Had Fillmore killed him? Had Fillmore killed Grace?
His eyes flew open. Everything blurred at first, but came into focus after a moment and he found himself gazing into the most delicious chocolate eyes he’d ever seen. Even if they were currently rimmed with red.
“Damon?” Her voice croaked.
He said nothing, drinking in the beauty of her face. The finely arched brows, the long lashes, pert nose, and the most tempting mouth. Perhaps he was dead. It would make sense, with this divine angel floating near him.
A smile split the angel’s face. “Oh, thank God,” she whispered.
He felt the same way. Thank God for the perfection before him.
Her fingers stroked his brow. She leaned in and kissed his forehead, then turned to the side table. She picked something up. A cup. Thank goodness. He was so very thirsty.
He took a few sips as she held the cup to his lips.
“What happened?” His gravelly voice echoed in his ears, increasing the pounding at his temples.
“Your uncle shot you.” She swallowed, tears welling in her eyes. “I pushed you and the bullet grazed your head.”
He raised his fingers to the left side of his head, testing the bandage there. He grinned ruefully. “I don’t suppose this adds to my devilishly good looks.”
Grace half laughed, half sobbed. “I was worried you would never wake up. The doctor didn’t know why you were out for so long.”
“How long was I out?”
“Nearly a day.”
A day? Yet she was still in her ball gown? He frowned.
A knock came at the door. Grace looked to him and he nodded. She rose and crossed the room to answer it.
“How is he?”
Claremont.
“Oh, Dev, he’s woken up! Come see. He has returned to me!”
Deveric strode into the room. “About time, Malford,” he chided. “I was beginning to think I was going to have to beat you back into consciousness.”
Damon arched an eyebrow, wincing when it pulled at his bandage.
“Grace has been so worried, she hasn’t left your side.”
Damon reached out a hand for Grace’s, and she caught it immediately, intertwining her fingers with his.
“My uncle?”
Deveric grimaced. “He is dead, Damon. Emerlin found him in the garden. Lord Fillmore had put the gun to his head and taken his own life.”
“I can’t say I’m sorry,” Damon said after a moment. “Given what he did to Grace. To my family.”
Grace squeezed his hand.
“How is Daphne?” he asked.
Deveric and Grace exchanged a glance. “Overset, certainly. But I think she will be fine. She and her aunt have returned to Bath.”
Not surprising. Daphne would want to escape the gossip and the scandal as much as she could. The poor girl. Fillmore had likely irretrievably damaged her prospects. He and Grace would support the young woman in whatever way they could.
“My mother? Sisters?”
“In the hall. Anxious to see you when you are ready.”
He nodded in acknowledgment, then moaned at the pain the motion wrought.
“The bullet wound itself is not deep,” Deveric assured him. “Though if Grace had not knocked you off balance, it’s likely you would be dead. As it is, you’ll have a scar. Probably make you that much more irresistible to the ladies.”
“There’s only one I care about.” Damon looked over at Grace. “Grace Mattersley, as soon as I’m up and out of this bed—which will be immediately, if I have anything to say about it—I’m marrying you. After enduring your kidnapping and my being shot, I don’t want to risk anything else happening before I can make you my wife.”
She laughed, and the delightful sound warmed him to the core. “As you wish, my love. As you wish.”
Deveric cleared his throat. “Sorry to interrupt, but shall I let in the other women now? Before my sister decides to join you in that bed?”
Grace’s cheeks burst into delicious color. Damon merely grinned.
The door had barely been opened when the three Blackbourne women swarmed through it. Grace stepped away so the women could approach Damon.
Felicity, her hair mussed and likewise still clad in her now-wrinkled ball gown, dropped to her knees at his side. “Oh, Damon. My son. Thank heavens you are all right. Thank God!”
Tears streamed down her face. “I knew,” she went on. “I knew he was dangerous. It’s why your father never told him we’d sent you away; we both feared for your safety, even then. And to know now he was the cause—” A sob caught in her throat, cutting off her words.
How odd that in the end, his banishment had likely saved his very life. And cost Silas and Adam theirs, as Fillmore had seen the dukedom within his grasp.
Sorrow flooded over him—not so much for himself; having been estranged from his kin for so many years, his father’s and brother’s deaths had hardly affected him. He’d grieved for their loss long ago. No, this sorrow was for the fierce agony evident in every line on his mother’s grave face.
“Mother,” he said, taking her hand. “It is over. Finished. Fillmore bears the blame, not you. And he cannot hurt us—any of us—any longer.” At those words, he reached out to Grace, who stepped closer and clasped his hand in hers again. He rubbed her palm tenderly.
Felicity swallowed, her eyes radiating love.
“Now, if you don’t mind,” he said with a grimace. “I believe doctor’s orders were to rest. For today, at least.”
“Of course,” his sisters said, as his mother rose to her feet. With one last caress of her fingertips against his cheek, Felicity and the other occupants of the room exited, one by one, until only Grace remained.
“Shall I go, too, my love?”
He scoffed, despite the pain it brought to his temples. “You are the only medicine I need, love. I do believe your brother had the right idea.” He patted the bed to his side.
She crawled in carefully next to him. “Are you sure I won’t hurt you?”
When her breasts pressed against his arm, he groaned. She immediately withdrew a few inches.
“No, no,” he protested. “That was not from pain, but from wanting more … medicine … than I can handle at the moment.”
She moved closer, pressing a kiss to his cheek. “I do believe you are right. We are the cure for what has ailed each other.”
With a sigh, she nestled into his shoulder and was lightly snoring within minutes, her arm draped possessively across his chest.
Yes, he thought as slumber overtook him, as well. You, my dearest Grace, my saving Grace, are the only one who could exorcise my demons.
WITHIN A DAY DAMON WAS, indeed, up and around, although Grace and the rest of the Mattersley women clucked over him so incessantly he was almost glad to escape to his own town house the day after—which he’d insisted on, so as not to inconvenience the Mattersleys further.
“But, Damon, it is not inconvenient. And I need you here,” Grace had protested.
“And I need to be in my own home, dearest. For every time I see you, I want to pull you into my arms and do the things I oughtn’t do, as much because we’re not yet married as because of my injury, my love.”
Begrudgingly, she’d let him go.
Yes, he was almost glad. Hobbes fussed over him nearly as much as his mother and sisters, and Cerberus had affixed himself to Damon’s side, jumping on him whenever Damon happened to sit down. Like now, in his library.
He rubbed the cat’s head absentmindedly. Cerberus purred and nudged him for more attention. Damon chuckled.
“Yes,” he said to the cat. “That’s how I feel about my Grace. No matter how much I have, I want more.”
He had relived that night at Clarehaven a thousand times, reveling in the beauty of the emotional as well as physical connection with Grace. His few meager experiences with Yorkshire lasses hadn’t been nearly as fulfilling. His loins tightened at the thought of being with her again, of kissing her luscious mouth, of wending a path down her front to her breasts, to her stomach, and lower.
The cat growled, disgruntled by the change in the state of Damon’s breeches. He shifted his legs and the cat jumped down. It was just as well; these kinds of thoughts only led to greater frustration. Thank goodness the wedding was a mere few days away.
With Deveric’s help, Damon had managed to procure a special license, and he and Grace were to be married three days hence at St. George’s of Hanover Square, just as Deveric and Eliza had been.
“St. George’s is a Mattersley tradition,” Deveric had said with a wink. “A good omen, I should say.”
Damon itched to see Grace. Instead, he threw himself into estate matters, the paperwork bringing back the headache that had gratefully dissipated. But the work occupied him, and busy was what he wanted until he could hold Grace in his arms again.