Page 147 of Immortal Rose

The man’s form had gone completely limp, breath wheezing through his broken teeth and nose. I stood in front of Foxcourt, blocking the man. I clasped Foxcourt’s face between my bare hands, feeling the rasping beginnings of his night beard. His face was splattered with blood, his eyes brighter than I’d ever seen them as I forced them to look into mine.

“Hugh,” I said softly. “It’s over. It’s done now.”

Breath raged in and out of him, his lungs working like bellows. That blistering ice in his eyes began to thaw, as if one by one his senses were returning to him.

“It’s done,” I told him. “You stopped him. I’m all right.”

Hugh sagged against Reddy, his jaw working furiously.

“There we are,” Reddy said lightly, releasing Foxcourt into my steadying arms. “I’ll see to the pathetic lump of humanity.”

I put my arm around Hugh’s waist, both to support his sagging weight and to steer him away from the approaching men and their shocked gazes. A fierce protectiveness welled in me as I walked us behind the coach, seeking the shelter of one of the sprawling, ancient oaks.

Behind the curve of a tree’s dramatic form, Hugh drew up short, his hand clawing at my bonnet’s ribbons and pulling it free from my head. His eyes flashed, his breath quickening, as he angled the right side of my face toward him, searching it for injury.

“I’m all right,” I told him, but still, he didn’t release me, didn’t pull away.

I reached into the pocket Felicity had sewn into my skirt for the handkerchief there. He didn’t fight me at all as I pulled his right hand up from his side, gently dabbing at the broken skin of his knuckles, cleaning the blood away.

Hugh shuddered, his fingers curling reflexively as if to hide the evidence of what he’d done. His eyes were haunted as I brought his hand to my lips, kissing his battered knuckles.

“I’m all right,” I told him, calm in the face of his fear—as calm as he had always been in the face of mine. “I’m safe.” I reached up, stroking the big hand that cupped my cheek as delicately as if it were porcelain. “I’m safe.”

His hand slid along my jaw until his fingers curled in the mass of hair pinned at the nape of my neck. The shadow of the tree tucked us into its protective depths. The handkerchief fluttered to the ground as I gripped the fabric of his bloodstained jacket. There would be no retreat for either of us. There was no escaping this now; we both knew it.

With a soft groan he bent his head and kissed me.

It was a hard, desperate thing. The force of it drove my lips apart on a gasp, allowing him to deepen the kiss. Dizzying waves of heat unfurled through me at the silken feel of his mouth, the way it sought to possess mine.

His other hand slipped behind the curve of my head, tipping my face up as his tongue delicately, expertly, stroked mine, drawing the kiss deeper still. I found a hint of his intoxicating essence in his taste and sighed, relishing it, and him, him, him—

The hard muscle of his chest shivered beneath my trailing fingertips and a new feeling of power broke open in me. Clumsy with inexperience, I drew my tongue along his. His hands tightened in my hair in response, silently urging on the exploration.

Emboldened, I drew his top lip between mine the way I had imagined in the pub, and his soft noise of pleasure made the world spin wildly around us.

If we could stay here in the shadows, where no one could see us, where the world wouldn’t dare intrude . . .

The thought drifted from me as his lips slowed, softening like a fading dream, and he eased away.

“No . . .” I was mortified by the plea that escaped me, the way my hands could not seem to release him.

“I’m sorry,” he said hoarsely as he pulled back. “I’m so sorry . . .”

I should have been. I knew that. But spangles of heat still glimmered in my blood, and my lips felt swollen. Tender. As he turned away, my hand rose to brush a featherlight touch against them.

I could not tell one shock from another. Desperation tangled with fear and terrifying longing and horror and determination as I made my way back around the coach to the others.

“My God,” Felicity said, materializing out of nowhere to seize my arms. “Are you all right?”

The Longmount brothers spoke quietly to Hugh, both looking stricken with guilt and shame. As if sensing my gaze, Hugh looked back to me. I willed the words to my throat, to tell him. It wasn’t their fault. None of this was.

Tell him, an inner voice urged. You must.

Every word from my mouth left me more nauseated than the last. “I’m all right. Just . . .”

“In shock,” Felicity finished. She glared at the assembled police, all of whom seemed utterly uncertain about what to do. “How did this happen?”

“I . . .” The words were ash on my tongue.