“Gerald, my love, please stop…” Selena’s faint voice reached his ears. Slowly reason returned and he slammed Vern against the wall.
He turned and rushed to Selena who was sobbing on the bed. Gathering her into his arms, he hugged her fiercely. He pulled away and regarded her face. “My God, what did that bastard do to you?” he rasped. Her face and throat were black and blue, and blood was pouring down her face. Gerald pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and gently cleaned the blood, looking for the source of the wound.”
“I think it’s from a cut above my eye,” she whispered.
Gerald carefully dabbed at the cut, trying to stop the flow of blood. He knew from experience that cuts above the eye bled profusely.
“You make a habit of coming to my rescue,” she murmured.
Gerald chuckled softly as he continued to tend her wounds. “My love, I will gladly spend the rest of my life coming to your rescue,” he said tenderly.
“I hope you won’t have to. I hope this is finally over,” she said, her eyes filling with tears again.
“It’s finally over, my love, I promise. I promise. I promise.” Gerald said, his voice catching as he kept saying it over and over again pulling Selena into a tight embrace and rocking her as she wept into his shoulder.
~*~
Chapter Twenty-one
Bellwood Estate
Derbyshire, England
After what had occurred two days earlier, Gerald was almost unwilling to leave Selena’s side. By the grace of God, they had found her, and he wanted nothing more than to spend every minute with her. If they had arrived any later, Stiles would have … a tremor shook him. He couldn’t even finish the thought. It had all been too close.
But with both his parents and her mother in residence, Gerald reasoned he would have to be content with checking on her. When he stopped by her room on his way to breakfast, he was told by Anna, who he passed in the hallway, that she was still sleeping—exhausted from the last two days’ horrible ordeal. He nodded and waited until Anna had left then he opened the door to Selena’s room and walked in.
Spying what used to be his dog at the foot of her bed, he couldn’t help but envy Dutch. Dutch lifted his head and regarded him silently. The dog’s eyes reflected an almost human-like ability to convey a promise that he would guard Selena with his life. Gerald patted the dog’s head and sat in the chair next to Selena’s bed.
Leaning over, he smoothed his hand over her soft silky hair.
When did you become so important to me? When did my life become so inextricably linked to yours?
From the moment he’d picked her up after she tumbled off Azure’s back the night she’d arrived in that rainstorm, and those incredible blue eyes of hers gazed at him before she fell unconscious, he knew that his life would never be the same again.
As each day passed, he found himself bemused, enchanted, and charmed by the essence that was Selena Bowles.
But if he had to truly admit to himself, his connection to Selena had begun long before that night of the storm. It had begun at the Adamson’s ball five years past. When he’d met Selena for the first time. She was barely 16 years old. And he was a very foolish, headstrong 22-year-old. He remembered how slender and frail she’d seemed, how innocent, how delicate. At the time he thought she resembled a lost little bird. Foolish that he was, he failed to see the beauty she would become. But even back then, her remarkable eyes had held him captive. He wondered if the past five years of rebuilding Bellwood, launching his racehorse enterprise, was only about proving himself to his father or was it also about Selena? Maybe deep down, he knew that his connection to Selena went beyond a betrothal document. Maybe he’d been driven by the beauty and the whisper of who she would become—the courage and strength that had always been there inside her.
And maybe he had to prove it to himself. That he was a worthy man.
Selena stirred and breathed a deep sigh in her sleep.
“Sleep, my love. We’ll talk later,” he whispered as he stood and placed a soft kiss on her brow. Lifting the covers up over her shoulders, he turned and made his way downstairs to the breakfast room.
“How is Selena, darling?” Lady Bellecote said, setting down her cup of tea.
“She’s still asleep,” he said. “It could be the combination of fear at having to fight for her life and the laudanum that was so liberally administered by that demon. Honestly, I can only be thankful she was still able to fight him. Mayhap she experienced some sort of rush of blood or heightened sense of energy in the moment she needed to fight him. I’m no man of science, but I’mhappy for whatever it was that sustained her. Once she realized I had her and she was safe, she could barely keep her eyes open.” If Wright hadn’t stopped him, Gerald might have killed Vern Stiles. But his friends were right. He needed to let justice take its course. Killing him would have furthered that demon’s control over their lives.
“And you. How do you fare this morning, son?” his mother asked. “We’ve all been concerned about Selena, but we are worried about you, as well.”
“In this moment, just knowing she is safe and back home is enough for me, Mother. I appreciate everyone’s concern, though.” He nodded for the footman to fill his cup with coffee.
“Son, no one would have anticipated Stiles coming here and kidnapping Selena. Do not blame yourself.”
“I know, Father, but it was my duty to keep her safe, and I didn’t.” He clenched his jaw, and his fury flared anew as he remembered breaking into the room and witnessing Selena at the mercy of that bastard. “I’m just relieved it’s over and she’s back home.” Now he had other worries. What if Selena was emotionally scarred by the kidnapping and being attacked by Stiles yet again. What if she never forgave Gerald for not being able to protect her? He prayed that she would forgive him for failing her. And he would do everything in his power to help her heal.
Following a brief knock Wells stepped into the room. “My lords and ladies, Lord Wright has returned with Lord Percival Bowles and Baron Alfred Jones, our local magistrate.”
