The darkness swathed them. The door shut with finality, footsteps scuffed at the floor, then silence.
Her limbs shook as she pulled herself to her feet. His presence wrapped around her, soothed everything that hurt, even though she could distinguish little more than his silhouette in the blackness.
Then he moved forward. His hands cupped her face with gentleness that nearly undid her.
William.Her eyes closed against her will.William.She was dying, she was destroyed, she was depleted of any strength she had left—but none of it mattered. Everything was better. For one second, for one minute, everything could be good and certain and endurable again.
“Are you hurt?” His arms pulled her into him.
She breathed in the scent of his damp shirt, the familiar earthy smell. Yes, she was hurt—irrevocably hurt—but she was already healing. How could he do that to her? How did he make the terrors subside so quickly?
“Your dress is ripped.” Husky, raw. “Has he—”
“He has but kissed me.” She shuddered. “Father?”
“Camped below the mountain with a regiment. If I do not return, he shall gather more men and come for you.”
How many men would it take? How many could overcome a man like Lord Livingstone?
“We have not much time. He has told you of the match?”
Her comfort fled, like cold water splashing into her face and dripping to her feet. “You should not have come.” She pushed away from his hold.
“You should have known it would be this way. You should have waited and arrived with Father—”
“You must agree.” When she sank to the corner of the room, he knelt next to her. “We have no choice. At least in this, we have a chance.”
“It is not right.”
“Isabella—”
“You shall be slain for me, and it is unfair.” She turned her face into the cold wall, coaxing air past the swelling fist in her throat. “If you had never come, I would have had hope. No matter what he did to me, I could have imagined one day it would end—that I could see you again and that you would be well—but now I shall have nothing.”
“Listen to me.” He leaned into her face, hands capturing her cheeks, his breath warm and fast. “I have but one chance to kill that man for what he has done to you. Do not think that I could die so easily.”
“I hope they kill me too.”
“Isabella—”
“When they kill you, I want to die next to you. I cannot go on in this room. I cannot bear it. I cannot bear to live without you—”
His mouth silenced her. He pressed vigor and strength and assurance into her being, then he trailed his lips to her nose, her cheeks, her closed eyelids. “You speak as a fool, Isabella Gresham.”
Tears flooded her eyes as the door creaked open.
Two men entered. With grunts, they seized William by each of his arms and dragged him away from her. Blackness again.
With soundless sobs racking through her, she scrambled to the edge of the door and pressed her ear to the crack.
“Has our darling Miss Gresham agreed to our terms, Kensley?”
She buried her face in her hands as he answered, “Yes.”
Daylight streaked the sky in orange and crimson shades, and dark silhouettes of birds fluttered high above them. The burning sun glinted off the blade of the colichemarde smallsword Lochlan handed William.
“Keep it flat to yer leg, gent, unless ye wants the likes o’ me to end this duel ’fore it begins.”
William nodded, gripped the cold silver hilt, and walked toward the center of the circle. Men gathered on every side, hats shadowing their eyes, many of their arms crossed about their chests in waiting.
