Page 95 of How to Tempt a Duke

“Charles...” She opened her eyes fully and pushed against the bedcovers, as if trying to sit further upright.

“Please stay where you are.” He rushed to her side and stopped short.

Her skin almost perfectly matched the white sheets of the bed, but the sharp brilliance in her eyes remained. Even tired and battered, she was the loveliest sight he’d ever seen.

An ache returned in the back of Charles’s throat. “Eleanor.”

Her gaze went glossy. “Charles. I thought he’d killed you.” A tear slid down her cheek. “I thought I’d lost you.”

“I thought I’d lost you, too, Eleanor.” He knelt at her bedside and took the hand of her uninjured arm. “My God, woman, I love you.”

She drew in a sharp breath and squeezed his hand.

“I do.” He kissed her knuckles. “For your bravery and your warmth and your incredible passion.”

“I love you, too,” she whispered. “I thought I’d lost you, that I’d never see you again or have you in my life.”

“You have me.” Charles eased up onto the bed. “It is why I’ve made the decision I have.”

He took a deep breath and said the words he knew had to be said. For the sake of keeping her, of loving her.

“I will not be going after the Coeur de Feu. Never again will I do anything that means I might lose you.”

Eleanor jerked as though she’d been struck. For surely she had. After everything Charles had done to get the journals—everything he’d sacrificed in the pursuit of his father’s dying wish—no, he could not give it up. Not for her.

“Charles, no.”

He shook his head, his face lined with concern. “I cannot risk losing you again. I do not want to be separated from you for months, sometimes years at a time, any more than I want to abandon you the way our fathers did us.”

“Perhaps there is a way you can fulfill your promise and have me at your side.” She smiled coyly up at him.

His brow furrowed and then smoothed as understanding dawned on him. “Surely you don’t mean—”

“That I join you?” Her heart raced a little faster at her own bold decision. “Of course I do.”

He frowned and opened his mouth, but she began speaking again before he could protest.

“I have read the journals, Charles. And in them I found a taste of a life I’ve never known. Excitement and adventure unlike anything London can provide. I confess I loathed the idea of being here by myself while you traveled, but I realized that was because I envied you the opportunity to see the world.”

Charles leaned closer and the bed creaked beneath them. “It isn’t always safe, Eleanor, nor clean or hospitable.”

“I’m a Murray who has married a Pemberton.” She lifted her head with pride. “Adventure surely runs in my veins.”

“You certainly can hold your own. You never told me you were an accomplished bruiser.”

He smiled and his eyes crinkled at the corners in that way she loved.

His gaze flicked toward her bandaged arm. “Will you agree to wait until your arm is healed?”

“Of course.”

She kept her voice even, but her pulse thrummed wildly in her veins at the prospect. Imagine! Witnessing the world herself, sampling its cuisines, meeting its people. And, though she knew she shouldn’t care, she couldn’t help but wonder if her father would have been proud.

“Though I will demand a higher moral integrity than our fathers had,” she said resolutely.

Charles nodded. “I would never do anything to compromise us the way our fathers did. Even for the stone.” He searched her face with his beautiful blue gaze. “I’ve learned there is so much more to life than treasure.”

Tears tingled in Eleanor’s eyes. He truly did love her. She blinked her emotion away. “We cannot go anywhere if we do not know where we’re going.” She grinned up at him.