Page 93 of The Princess and the Rogue

Still, it was a damn fine coat.

“Wait.”

He let go of Benedict, stripped off his jacket, and folded it over the banister. Then he turned back, caught Benedict’s wrist in one hand, ducked, and shouldered him in the stomach so he folded forward over his shoulder. He braced his thighs and picked him up with a low grunt of exertion.

“Damn it, Wylde,” he wheezed. “You never weighed this much when I dragged your scrawny arse out of that ditch near Badajoz.”

A flash of recollection hit him, and for a moment, Seb wasn’t on the dowager’s landing in Mayfair, but chocking on the hot, swirling dust of a Spanish plain. He’d carried his friend in exactly this way when Ben had been wounded during the storming of the citadel. Seb had pulled him out from under a shattered cart and carried him back to the safety of the British lines, with French musket fire shredding the air all around them.

Thank God they’d both survived.

“Don’t break anything!” Dorothea’s panicked voice echoed up the stairs, interrupting his reverie. “Mind the china!”

Seb staggered a few paces to the side, narrowly avoiding a side table perilously cluttered with Meissen figurines, and deposited Benedict back on his feet with a grateful gasp.

He hoped he hadn’t strained anything. He intended to be in full working order for his wedding night. The thought brought an invigorating rush of blood to his head. And lower down.

He straightened and used the wall mirror to smooth his hair back into some semblance of order, then shrugged back into his jacket. “Right, what next?”

“Up here,” Alex called, and Seb mounted the stairs to the second floor. Emmy, Alex’s wife, was waiting for him with a mischievous smile on her elfin face.

“Stand and deliver,” she said, with mock fierceness. “You must pay a ransom for your bride. A contribution to my favorite charity.”

“The one she set up with her brother,” Alex added helpfully. “The Danvers Benevolent Fund. It helps wounded veterans find meaningful employment instead of being reduced to begging in the streets.”

“A worthy cause,” Seb murmured. “So what do you want, my lady?”

Emmy’s twinkling gaze dropped to the stick pin adorning his cravat. “Well, I dolovediamonds.” She smiled. “And that is a particularly fine solitaire, Lord Mowbray. I will accept it as payment for your passage.”

With an inward groan, Seb lifted his hand to surrender the pin, but Emmy stopped him.

“Oh, you can give it to me after the ceremony. I wouldn’t dream of ruining your cravat.”

“Decent of you,” Seb growled sarcastically.

“All right. Last challenge,” Alex said. “Everything ready, Mellors?”

“Indeed it is, sir,” Mellors replied calmly.

The butler ascended the staircase, as stately as ever, and offered forward a porcelain bowl. Seb peered inside. It held what appeared to be a fist-sized lump of ice. A dark shape, like a tiny fish, was suspended in the center.

“What’s that?”

“The key to my sister’s rooms.” Dmitri chuckled, indicating the closed door behind them. “You have to open the door and claim your bride.”

Seb scowled, wondering if it was supposed to be symbolic, a chipping away of the ice to reach the vital heart. He knew what it was like to shield himself by cloaking his heart in a protective layer. His mother had died of smallpox when he was a child, and he’d lost numerous friends and colleagues during the war. He’d found it easier to keep an emotional distance to lessen the potential hurt. He’d given a little less of himself away each time.

Until Anya.

“Maybe you can lick it?” Alex’s cheerful suggestion cut through his introspection. “You’ve got to melt it somehow.”

“Or bash it with a hammer,” Benedict added.

“That’s Anya’s preferred method,” Elizaveta said slyly.

Seb picked up the slippery, icy lump. Pain shot along his fingers and throbbed in his palm as his skin reacted to the cold. He held his hands out in front of him so the water didn’t ruin his boots as it began to drip.

“Hurry up!” Alex chuckled. “You’re making a puddle on the carpet!”

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