Page 65 of Isabel and the Rogue

Her voice was gentle. Curious. Sirius didn’t want to discuss it, not with his dream—his nightmare—so vivid in his mind, but it was impossible to deny her.

“I took an artillery shot to the side. The surgeons said it was a miracle that it missed my internal organs.” He swallowed, memories of the pain returning to him during inconvenient moments. “I was lucky enough to be carted from the field not long after the injury, and field doctors tended to me immediately. They saved my life.”

“And I’m grateful to them.” Isabel ran her knuckles across his cheekbone. “You don’t appear particularly happy about your good fortune.”

Sirius barked a hoarse laugh. “It doesn’t feel like good fortune when so many of my fellow soldiers were not as lucky.”

Isabel dropped her head to rest over his heart. “Lo siento. I—I can’t imagine how devastating that was.” She pressed a kiss to his skin. “How devastating it still is.”

He’d thought the burden of his grief, of his guilt, would become easier to bear the more time passed, and yet they were his constant companions. Sirius’s nightmare had been inconvenient after so many weeks without one, but perhaps Providence sought to remind him that he was undeserving of the small doses of happiness he managed to steal from a life devoted to penance.

“It’s why you have so many former soldiers working for you. Why so many of your men make their homes at Dancourt Abbey.” Isabel lifted her head, her eyes darting between his. “Why you try so hard to take care of them all.”

They weren’t questions. Isabel may not have understood the guilt that motivated so many of his actions—and he was not ready to tell her—but she grasped his intentions. That he didn’t have to explain it to her was a relief…but Sirius still wanted to try.

“This country doesn’t do enough to care for the men who serve it. Who fight for it.” It abruptly felt like he’d swallowed nails, but he pushed down the sensation. “So many of them return injured and scarred, most with internal wounds that will never heal. And they grapple with slipping back into a mold that no longer fits the jagged edges of the men that war shaped them to be.”

Although Sirius did not say it, Isabel’s hold on him tightened, and he knew that she understood he was speaking from experience.

“And so you do what the Crown does not.” She pressed a kiss to his cheek. “Is that why you also work for the Home Office?”

Closing his eyes, Sirius let his silence answer.

They lay quietly next to each other for a time, the steady rise and fall of his chest almost syncing with hers. Isabel ran her fingers through his hair, her touch soothing his frayed sensibilities. But after a time, she sighed.

“I need to leave. The sun will rise in an hour or two.”

Sirius wished she didn’t have to go. He longed to spend the day with her, preferably on the expansive bed in his chamber, tangled in the bedsheets. But just like his nightmare, their dreamlike stasis could only hold back reality for so long.

“I’ll walk you back,” he murmured, kissing her cheek.

Dressing silently, Sirius helped her with the laces of her corset and refastened her dress, and Isabel adjusted his cravat tie until it lay respectably against his white shirt. He watched her fix her hair, tucking the sweet-smelling black curls into a sensible bun, the suffocating feeling of despair, of loss, twisting tight around his chest. Could they possibly go back to their lives as if their night together had never happened? As if she had not just reordered the structure, the composition of his chemistry, with the taste of her lips?

When her person was put to rights, Sirius helped drape her black cloak over her shoulders, before he spun her about and cinched it closed under her chin. Holding her eyes, he pulled the hood up over her head, shrouding her in shadows.

“Are you ready?” she asked, reaching out to grasp his hand.

Was he? Was he ready for matters between them to return to how they’d been before? Was Sirius prepared to watch Viscount Westhope continue his courtship when he now knew the bliss to be found in the tight, wet heat of her body? Could he meet her gaze from across a crowded ballroom and not want to immediately go to her and pull her into his arms? Was it possible to watch her laugh and converse with another man when he knew the narcotic rush of being the sole focus of her attention?

“I am,” he said instead, for he didn’t deserve the rest.

If Stanley, his butler, was still awake at this obscene hour, he had enough sense and discretion not to alert Sirius to his presence. He was grateful, because the fewer people who saw him smuggle Isabel Luna from his home the better. As much as he wished to keep her reputation intact, Sirius also had a great deal to lose if they were discovered. Surely his work for the Home Office would suffer, and his older brother, Harcourt, would be livid if Sirius were to bring scandal to his doorstep. It was enough that he’d returned to England injured but alive. When Harcourt had visited Sirius as he convalesced, he said it would have been better if Sirius had perished as a hero rather than returning to British shores as a shattered man.

His older brother’s callousness, especially when Sirius was already so low, was a blow he doubted he would ever recover from.

Yet Harcourt’s condemning voice whispered in his ear the entire walk back to Lady Yardley’s townhome. Although pink was beginning to streak through the early morning sky, Sirius kept a wary eye on every shadow they passed. His vigilance reminded him that Isabel had come to him without an escort, and the possibilities of how she could have been maimed turned Sirius’s grip on her hand into steel.

Although Isabel held her silence, Sirius sensed her agitation. Her hand on his arm trembled slightly, and her steps on the walk became wooden and awkward. Sirius knew he was the reason for Isabel’s uncharacteristic moroseness, and a dozen reasons clanged about in his head. Was she embarrassed by what he revealed of his injury? Did she regret losing her virginity to a man whose polished veneer hid so much brokenness?

Instead of asking, he said nothing at all. Everything seemed to have changed during their hours spent together, and for once, he didn’t know how to proceed. His confusion and uneasiness poisoned the air around them, and Sirius could feel Isabel’s eyes return to his face again and again as they walked. When they finally reached their destination, Isabel abruptly grabbed him by the bicep and thrust him into the shadows that lurked near the servants’ entrance. Sirius frowned down at her, frustrated he could not see her face.

“We can’t linger here, but I have to know what’s wrong,” she whispered.

Sirius was shaking his head before Isabel was done speaking. “Nothing is wrong. I was just focused on the walk.”

Her scoff echoed in the small garden. “Querido, your expression was frustrated, not focused. A-are you irritated you had to walk me home?”

“Of course not,” he snapped.