“Duchess.”
I can’t see anything either now, but I feel hands on my face.
Hands on my face, but not in a slap or a harsh, tight grip.
“Duchess.”
Gentle hands, sweeping across my forehead and cheeks.
I can’t see anything, and I can’t hear much, but just before everything shuts down, I hear him call me something he hasn’t in eleven years.
“Isla.”
TWELVE
MALACHI
Present
FEAR.
Fear, the likes of which I haven’t felt sincethat dayeleven years ago, electrifies every cell in my body, and instinct renders me to my former twenty-year-old self.
“Isla.”
Her typically warm, tawny skin is blanched to an unnatural pallid shade, and she’s trembling so violently that she looks like she’s having a seizure.
“Isla, look at me.”
She can’t because she’s out cold, because there is suddenlyblood.
And I know exactly what’s happening because it happened before.
“Mrs. Maisely!”I call into the cavernous center of the palace from where Isla collapsed on the stairs. “Call the midwife!”
“Your Grace?” Mrs. Maisely’s panicked voice carries from somewhere I can’t identify.
I pick up Isla’s limp wrist and drape her arm over my neck as I scoop her up and ascend the other side of the split staircase as quickly as my legs will carry me. “Call the midwife!”
At the landing, I take off in a sprint, carrying her back to her room, instinct overriding everything.
Her betrayal.
Her obstinance.
The dull, gutting pain of knowing I lost everything I loved more than anything because of her sheer, unadulterated selfishness.
None of it registers, and it all takes a backseat to pure, guttural instinct.
I lay her on the bed and dart to the en suite to retrieve towels and her robe, andthis is my fault.
No, it isnot, and it doesn’t matter because I’m still flying on instinct as I gently strip off her clothes and slip the robe over her arms and shoulders, securing it around her to maintain a scant amount of her dignity. I slide a towel underneath her, and then retrieve a damp cloth to drape across her forehead.
“Isla… sweetheart… baby girl,” I say, all of my former names for her coming to life on my tongue as I suddenly can’t tell the difference between now andthen. “Look at me. Can you look at me?”
Of course she can’t, andthis is my fault, butno, it’s not.
This wouldn’t be happening again if she hadn’t betrayed me. Because if she hadn’t betrayed me, I never would have yelled at her, or dragged her down the hall and down the stairs, or done any of the things I’ve done since I had to bring her back into my life after such a betrayal. I wouldn’t have turned into the person I am now if she hadn’t destroyedeverything.
