Page 121 of The Duke's Forbidden Bride
“Is that so?” Spencer growled. “You might have another broken rib in a moment, Theodore Jacobs.”
“Oh, come now,” Theodore scoffed. “We are good friends. I think we ought to focus on the matter at hand.”
“The matter at hand is that I caught you embracing my sister,” Spencer hissed.
“And should that not be a celebration?”
“I know you.”
“And I know you! It makes the match even more perfect, no? We get to skip… skip the pleasantries.”
Eleanor let out a quiet laugh when she realized nothing was working to lighten the mood, and she pushed against Spencer’s chest.
“Come,” she said. “Everybody ought to rest.”
Spencer took a deep breath before looking down at her and then at Charlotte. “I will escort you to your room. Andyou,” he growled, “if you attempt to approach my sister before I have an explanation for what I walked in on, you will find yourself removed from my house and you will never, ever see her again. Am I clear?”
“Crystal,” Theodore muttered.
Eleanor finally pulled Spencer out of the room. Together, they took Charlotte to her chamber and then finally retreated to his chambers.
There was so much to discuss, yet a suffocating weight had settled on her shoulders. In her heart, her mind, her whole body. She ached, but she ached more without Spencer near her.
Once in her chamber, she sat down on the bed, and Spencer followed suit. A maid entered moments later, leaving dry clothes on the vanity before she ducked out.
Silence filled the room, and Eleanor did not know how to broach what they needed to discuss, but she was startled by the brush of Spencer’s fingers on her cheek.
His eyes held hers as he pushed a lock of her hair—damp from the storm—from her face. In turn, she studied him.
His jaw was clenched, littered with faint bruises. Another bruise was forming beneath his eye, and his coat was torn from his fight with Lord Belgrave.
Her heart ached terribly.
She didn’t know when she decided to knock down the last of her walls. All she knew was that reaching for him felt too natural to deny. Her hand slipped into his.
“You came for me,” she murmured, still unable to believe it. Not after how they had left things.
“Of course I did,” he answered, his voice tight.
He said it like it was inevitable, something as easy as breathing.
His eyes searched her face. “I meant what I said, Eleanor. I will always come for you. I was a fool to ever think I could keep a distance between us. I was selfish, and I was fearful.
“I have lived my life in so much fear and avoidance, only to find you and be brought into the light. You have always been patient with me, Eleanor. You have pressed when you wanted to, but you knew when to step back, even if not at first.” He gave a smile, small and strained. “I have watched you transform not only my life but Charlotte’s. You have filled Everdawn with your light, and I truly thought it was gone from these halls. You are fearless, more so than you think, and I could never turn you away. Youare a distraction, indeed—a most beautiful, stunning one—and I cannot bear to be without you for even a moment.
“When I was gone today, all I could think about was how I needed to be at your side, to save you, and the thought of not being able to do that was unbearable. I could not stand it. Eleanor, you have opened up chambers in my heart I did not know were there. You have transformed me from a man who outran everything into a man who finally learned to stop, to look at the things that hurt, to know that they can be thought of without rage or unbearable sadness.
“As soon as I saw you that day in my library, bearing the most ridiculous of names, I think I knew it was not the last I would see of you. You came into my life with a demand. All I wish is that you keep demanding anything of me for the rest of our lives.”
His hands held hers tightly, protectively.
“I have never said these words because I do not think I knew their true meaning until now,” he continued. “But I love you, Eleanor. I love you so much that there is no wall thick enough that can keep me from you. I have torn down my walls, and I do not deserve for you to reach through that space to meet me halfway, but I beg it of you. In fact…”
He rose from the bed suddenly, groaning as his body likely ached from the fighting.
“Spencer, what are you?—”
He kneeled before her, pressing his lips to one knee and then the other. “I will kneel before you a thousand times, beg you for a thousand nights, and hope that what I say is enough. I love you, Eleanor. My beautiful Duchess, who cares more for her garden of rebirth than her image. My beautiful Duchess, who has saved my life over and over.”
