“My fault?”
“That’s right. You won’t let me leave the house, so I had no choice but to bring everyone here.”
“Everyone?”
She nodded. “The veterans.”
Jack paused, glanced at the remaining men. “You’re veterans?”
“Sergeant Timms, my lord,” one of the veterans said, doffing his ragged cap. “If you’ll excuse me, there’s a bear . . . ”
Jack sighed, moving out of the doorway so the remaining soldiers could escape. He wished he could do the same. “Who is that?” he asked, pointing to the woman cowering under the table.
Maddie bent down and peered under the table. “Oh, Miss Millingham! Lord Blackthorne, this is Miss Millingham, president of His Royal Highness’s Society for Invalid Veterans of Overseas Conflicts.”
“Of course it is. And I suppose she brought the, ah”—pirates—“veterans.”
“I asked her to,” Maddie said, instantly on the defensive. “I wanted to consult with the men on the decor and refreshments for the fund-raiser.”
Grizzled veterans decorating a society fundraiser. Jack wanted to laugh.
But Maddie didn’t look like she was laughing. In fact, her eyes looked decidedly watery.
Oh, bloody hell. He closed the remaining distance between them and pulled her into his arms. “Don’t start crying.”
“I can’t help it,” she blubbered. “I’m working so hard on this fund-raiser, and nothing is going right.”
From the corner of his eye Jack saw Maddie’s cousins and Miss Millingham slip away. Blackjack lumbered after them. Jack held his wife tighter. “It will all work out, Maddie.”
“But we still haven’t made any decisions. Should I serve coffee or punch? And what about red and blue for the color scheme? And we don’t even have a location. Josie is supposed to make some inquiries, but she’ll probably forget.”
“We can have the fund-raiser here. In the ballroom,” Jack said.
Maddie arched her back and stared at him.
“I know it’s a bit small,” he conceded, “but—”
“No! Jack, I—” She sniffed. “Jack, do you really mean it?”
No, he didn’t. He would rather shove a knife in his gut than allow a bunch of hoity-toity females and bedraggled pirates in his house to whisper and sip tea. But at least if the event was here, he’d have some control over his wife.
Some was the operative word because, obviously, he had no control over her. All morning he’d been sitting in his library, imagining her upstairs, innocently sipping tea with her two cousins. In reality . . . well, he didn’t want to think about the reality. But if the fund-raiser were here, he could arrange extra security to keep Maddie safe.
“I really mean it,” he forced himself to say.
She beamed and threw her arms around him. “Oh, Jack! Thank you.” She kissed him. “I love you.”
His arms suddenly felt heavy. His whole body felt overburdened, so weighted down that he could barely stand. He couldn’t have heard her correctly. Had Maddie just said she loved him?
His head was ringing, and the words seemed to reverberate through his entire body. I love you. I love you. I love—
No one loved him. No one since . . .
Losing his mother had almost killed him. The guilt, like a parasite, still ate at him. He couldn’t face that kind of anguish again. Even all the vaunted glories of love weren’t worth the pain.
Jack pulled back, quickly extricating himself from his wife. “Look, Maddie. That’s a nice . . . sentiment, but it’s not necessary.”
She was staring at him, her eyes wide. He swore she looked as surprised as he. “But, I think—I mean, I really do love you. I—I don’t know when it happened, Jack, but I—”
