Page 26 of The Heir's Fortune
“Fine,” she said, but the word was garbled, and around it, he heard the chattering of her teeth against one another.
“You are not fine,” he said, tentatively reaching out a hand and placing it on her back, surprised by how much she was moving beneath it. “Are you cold?”
“Yes,” she said, inhaling a breath swiftly. “Cold.”
Gideon paused for a moment, uncertain of just what he should do. He knew what seemed to be therightcourse of action, and he was more than aware of what his body wanted to do – he just wasn’t sure if he should.
But there was one person he knew who never seemed to hesitate, who was as self-assured as anyone he had ever met.
“Madeline?”
“Yes?”
“Would you like me to lie with you? F-for warmth?”
He sounded like a nervous schoolboy. Hopefully she would think he was just cold himself.
“Would you mind?” she said as she lay the blanket back out beside her.
Would he mind? Not at all.
He slowly eased himself onto the blanket, shimmying so that her back was to his front. He had barely made any contact with her when she sank back against him, burying herself into him. He was a tall man, standing a good head above her, and she fit perfectly within the circle of his body as he tucked his knees beneath hers and lay first his cloak and then his blanket over top of her.
He wasn't entirely sure what to do with his arm, but then she grabbed it and wrapped it tightly around her waist with no seeming intent to release it, so he succumbed and relaxed it against her.
“Better?” he asked, and she nodded against him, still shivering but perhaps not quite so forcefully.
“B-better,” she said.
She was soft in his arms, and Gideon wondered whether she had ever made herself so vulnerable to another before. He liked to think that he was special, in this if nothing else.
Her soft hair tickled his chin, and he tipped his head so that he could bury his nose in the spicy scent of the strands, which had lost any pins that had been in place earlier in the day.
“Gideon?”
“Yes?” he replied, grateful that her teeth were no longer chattering as they had been.
“I am sorry that you didn’t find your treasure today.”
With all that had happened, he had nearly forgotten that today was the day he had thought he would find the treasure, putting an end to this hunt that had captivated them all for over a year now.
He found, however, that he was not nearly as chagrined as he thought he’d be.
“You are safe,” he said. “That is what matters most.”
“I was only ever in danger due to my own stubborn stupidity,” she said bitterly.
“You would have been safer had you stayed in the house, yes,” he agreed. “But I am sure they would have found some way to capture you – or Cassandra.”
“If I must be grateful for anything, it is that they didn’t take Cassandra,” she said softly. “She has the baby – and she has been through enough already.”
Gideon stiffened at her words.
“What do you know about what Cassandra has been through?” he forced himself to ask.
Madeline snorted. “Being sent away to an institution to change her scandalous ways when she had done nothing but find love and begin to explore her passions?”
Gideon was lost for words as a crushing weight seemed to fall upon him. So Cassandra had told Madeline. He had wondered but had always hoped no one else knew of his greatest mistake.
