Page 61 of Hooked

“My horse is right here,” he reassured me. “We can leave right now. But I’d like to get you some clothes. Perhaps back at the house—”

“No!” I held on even more fiercely. “I won’t go back there. I won’t go back.”

“All right,” he shushed. “We’ll just go. I’ll get you away from here.”

I held my breath, trying to keep the panic at bay, shoving away all the feelings that roiled just below the surface.

“Here. Up you go.” He lifted me up onto his horse, having to pry my hands from around his neck to do so, then climbed up swiftly behind me. He wrapped one arm securely around my waist and took control of the reins with the other, heeling the horse into motion.

The hard ride and the constant wind blowing over my face did nothing to make the shaking stop. If anything, the loud silence of wind and hoofbeats gave me too much space to remember everything and the trembling only worsened.

Falstone’s arm tightened around my waist. “Cecily?” he said, his voice tinged with panic as he pulled the horse to a stop, then leaned forward, trying to look at my face.

“Yes?” Even that small word shook.

“Are you all right?”

My eyes darted to his and all I could do was shake my head.

Falstone abruptly dismounted then pulled me from the horse, setting me carefully on my feet, where my knees threatened to collapse beneath me.

He bent so that we were eye to eye. “Are you cold?”

I shook my head. “Not really.”

“We need to keep moving,” he said, moving his head to catch my eye again when my gaze drifted away. “We need to get you someplace warm. You need better clothing. We need to get you home, but I’m worried about you.”

My knees gave out.

Falstone had already been half supporting me, so he tightened his grip and sank with me to the ground so that I was cradled in his arms.

“It’s all right,” he insisted, but his voice did not sound confident. “This is normal. I’ve seen it before, after battle. Sometimes there’s euphoria after victory, and when that wears off, the shaking starts. Just focus on me.”

I curled into him, desperate for him to hold me together when I felt like I was going to fly apart. I didn’t want to think of all that had happened. I didn’t want to wade through the fear and damage that still clung to me like a second skin.

Instead it all seemed to well up, making me tremble even more, my mouth opening in pain and terror, and then finally letting out a keening cry.

“I know,” Falstone murmured in my ear. “I know, love. It was awful. It was terrifying.”

I cried a long time. Sometimes wailing, sometimes weeping in silence. But by the end of it, I was so wrung out that the trembling was gone entirely, leaving me limp and numb and wanting nothing but sleep.

I’d soaked the handkerchief he’d stuffed into my hand somewhere along the way. Now I just lay against him, sniffling, the salty stain of tears covering my face and neck.

He rocked back and forth with me in his arms for another minute or two before pulling back to look in my eyes as he pushed the hair from my face. “Shall we go?”

I blinked up at him with wide eyes and managed to nod.

He helped me stand, continuing to look me over as if checking to be sure I didn’t dissolve into tears again. “I suppose crying was the answer then?” he asked with the smallest smile.

I chuckled a bit even as my heart swelled. He was so very kind and his concern was so obvious that my heart seemed to reach out and latch on to him.

And then my arms reached out and latched on to him. I slid a hand behind his head, raised up on my toes and brought his lips to press against mine, letting myself sink into the sensation. He didn’t kiss me back immediately—I had probably shocked him—but then he responded hungrily.

His hands fell to my waist and then paused for just a moment—seeming to remember that the short coat of a soldier was hardly a substitute for proper clothing—before wrapping his hands fully around my back and pulling me in, as if he’d decided he didn’t care. Just like I didn’t care. Because this man had just delivered me from a hellish existence as the wife of Captain Huckley, and the only thing I wanted to do was kiss him.

He kissed me in return for several long moments before trying to pull back. “Cecily, love. We should go.”

“But I think you should kiss me now.”