Page 57 of Tamed By her Duke

“Where,leannan?” he asked.

She swayed almost dreamily.

“There,” she said, though she wasn’t pointing, just staring. “I don’t want to go back.”

He looked out and then saw it—the place she’d been so keen to discuss with the garrulous villager, the place she’d asked his housekeeper about.

The place she would have been able to see, he realized, from the carriage window the night they’d returned from the banquet.

The mill. The mill with the sordid past and the mysterious owner.

Why on earth would his privileged, London-born wife care about some run-down old mill in Northumberland, he wondered. He thought back to the murmurs of Grace’s ruination, back to the villager’s speculation that some sort of lovers’ spat was at the heart of the trouble at the mill.

Could the mysterious seller be his wife’s lover, the one who had ruined her? If so, the man had best not show his ugly face anywhere near Caleb’s holdings.

Except then what was the part about the bedlamite? And the kidnapped girl?

None of it made any damned sense, but Caleb had little time to think on it, because just at that moment, his wife collapsed to the ground in an ungainly heap.

And then, an instant later, she started to scream.

Grace woke up cold. Not just chilled, like she’d kicked off the blankets in her sleep, or like the fire had been banked too carelessly and had gone out.

Cold, like it had sunk into her bones. Cold, like it was a part of her. Cold, like she’d never be warm again.

And she knew—just knew—that she was back there.

Being back was, in fact, the primary reason why she should have kept her mouth clamped shut, should have choked any sound before it could get free. But the scream tore itself out of her, nevertheless, shredding her throat before she clamped her hands over her mouth to prevent another one from coming out.

No.Her breaths were coming too fast, rasping in and out of her nose above her hands, her mind only conjuring one thought in a frantic repetition.No, no, no.

“Hush,leannan, you’re safe, you’re fine.”

Another voice, quiet and low, reached her over the pounding of her own blood in her ears. Warm arms encircled her, banishing just a little bit of that awful cold. She was tugged to her feet with gentle, inexorable pressure.

“I’ve got ye, I’ve got ye.”

Caleb. It was Caleb.

Caleb was here, which meant Caleb was real—which meant the rest of it was, too. Her escape, her return to London, her marriage.

It was real, and she was free.

Relief almost choked her. She dropped her hands from her mouth and threw them around her husband’s neck and sobbed.

He just held her, murmuring into her hair, sometimes in English, sometimes in Gaelic, once perhaps even in French. But always, he came back to the same reassurance.

“Hush,leannan,you’re safe. I’ve got ye.”

Grace was certain she’d never felt more reassuring words in her life.

Gradually, the hysterical tide of her relief faded, and her circumstances crept in. She was cold because she was outside without any shoes and only wearing her nightgown. Caleb was somewhat better equipped—he had on trousers and boots, at least—but his shirt was only half-fastened, like he’d leapt out of bed and followed her.

The idea was oddly warming, though not quite so much as his arms were around her.

He’d followed. He’d come for her.

It was a terrible liberty, shockingly inappropriate of her, but she pressed her nose against that open spot on his collar, breathing in a hint of soap and the slight crispness of his aftershave, before pressing her cheek against the warmth.

---