Page 49 of The Duke's Forbidden Bride
He froze in horror for a moment as the rain poured into the greenhouse through the broken window and door.
Her foot slipped on the step, and her arms flailed. She let out a cry as she scrambled for balance, catching her hand on the broken glass.
Spencer growled and darted toward her right as a gust of wind battered through the doorway, knocking her off her perch. He caught her right as she tumbled off the ladder, a scream tearing from her throat. Blood smeared the glass and his sleeves as she fought off his hold while—ironically—grabbing onto him.
“Stop fighting me, or you will send us both—” He broke off as another gust of wind threw them off balance.
They careened to the floor, but Spencer righted himself immediately, finding his wife muddy and wet, her hand bleeding.
Those fierce, brown eyes glared up at him. “I was perfectly fine until you interfered!”
“You were on a step ladder in the direct path of a storm,” he snapped, yanking off his coat, feeling the familiarity of it from the day he had rescued her. Judging by the flicker in her eyes, she thought the same.
“I do not need?—”
“Simply accept the help,” he cut her off, helping her to her feet. “If you insist on working in this old, crumbling thing, then you will accept my help when things go wrong.”
“Why is it so neglected anyway?” Eleanor shouted over the howling wind.
Spencer glowered at her, silently asking if that was truly what she wanted to discuss at that moment. But before she could answer, he led her out of the greenhouse and back toward the house, into the drawing room.
“Wait here,” he instructed, making sure she sat down, and then he left the room to fetch some bandages for her injured hand. He also called for some tea to warm her up.
When he returned, he crouched before her, noticing that she had pulled his coat tighter around herself. She kept scowling at him even as her teeth chattered.
“You do not have to do that,” she muttered. “I can take care of myself.”
“I know you can,” he said.
“I do not think you do.” She sighed, tucking a wet strand of hair behind her ear. “When we were in the inn, you said that you would stop catching me.”
Spencer was quiet for a moment, long enough until tea was served and Eleanor picked up her cup with her uninjured hand. “It seems you still need catching, Duchess.”
“I think it is more your ego, liking being the hero.” Her eyebrows knitted together as he took her hand and gently cleaned it of mud. She bit back every wince, but he felt her tense up. “I am not the delicate flower you think I am.”
He fell quiet.
He did not know how to say that he knew, that he had seen the state of her knees the day he had rescued her from the nuns. That he knew she had tended to them herself, painstakingly and secretively.
When he didn’t answer, only focusing on tending to her hand, she spoke up again.
“Another question, then,” she whispered. “Why do you never call me by my name?”
“Because that’s the proper thing to do,” he told her, unable to take the hard edge out of his voice quick enough. “Because we should remain formal.”
Because calling you by your name so casually would make me feel like I am taking advantage of you. I cannot afford to take liberties with you.
“Is it?” she asked softly.
“Yes.”
Silence enveloped them for another few minutes as he wrapped the bandage around the cut on her palm.
When he looked at her, he found her gaze already on him, searching his face. He realized she was looking at him openly—at his scar and everything else about him, every feature he could not bear to look at since he was seven-and-ten.
“Why are you always angry with me?” she asked.
His jaw clenched. This time, he did not keep the answer to himself, a confession slipping free, unbidden. “Because I do not know how else to want you.”
