Page 79 of Duke of Myste
“That was manipulative,” he chided softly.
“I prefer to think of it as… effective,” Jane corrected, picking up her spoon again. “Now, are you going to sit there looking wounded while I eat, or are you going to tell me why you look as though you’ve aged five years in the span of a day?”
Richard was quiet for a long moment, his gaze fixed on her face as though he were memorizing every detail. When he finally spoke, his voice was rough with emotion that he was clearly struggling to contain.
“I thought I had lost you,” he said simply. “When I found you unconscious beneath that tree… when Dr. Whitmore couldn’tsay with certainty when you might wake up… Jane, I have never been so terrified in my life.”
The raw honesty in his admission made Jane’s chest tighten. She had known that Richard cared for her, that their marriage had evolved into something deeper than they could have ever dreamed of. But seeing the evidence of his love written so clearly in his exhaustion, his vigil by her bedside, his refusal to leave her side for even basic necessities—it was overwhelming in the most wonderful way.
“I’m here,” she reassured softly, reaching out to take his hand. “I’m all right, my love. Battered and headachy, but very much alive and determined to stay that way.”
His fingers closed around hers with desperate intensity, as though he were afraid she might disappear if he loosened his grip. “When Harriet told me you had gone to Lydia’s because you were upset about the gossip columns, I knew immediately something was wrong. You would never have ridden out in such a state if you hadn’t been distressed.”
The memory of her morning panic came flooding back—the gossip columns, her fear about Richard’s reaction, her desperate need for Lydia’s counsel. It all seemed rather foolish now, lying in her bed with Richard holding her hand as though it were his most precious possession.
“I might have been a bit dramatic,” Jane admitted with a rueful smile. “The papers made it sound as though I had corrupted the dignified Duke of Myste with my inappropriate desires foradventure, and I convinced myself that you would be furious about the damage to your reputation.”
“Jane,” Richard said, his voice carrying a note of gentle reproach, “when will you understand that nothing—not my reputation, not my social standing, not the opinion of even the King himself—matters to me more than your happiness?”
Before Jane could formulate a response to his declaration, Harriet returned bearing a second tray laden with what appeared to be enough food for a small army.
“I may have gotten carried away,” Harriet announced cheerfully, setting the tray down with a flourish. “But Cook was so delighted to hear that Jane is awake and asking for food that she insisted on preparing half the kitchen!”
Jane looked at the abundance of food—fresh bread, cold meats, cheese, fruit, and what appeared to be a large teapot—and felt her stomach growl in response.
“Perfect,” she quipped. “Now, dear husband, you are going to eat every bite, and I am going to watch to make sure that you do. Consider it my weekly demand, if necessary.”
“Jane—” Richard began, but she cut him off with a look that brooked no argument.
“No protests,” she insisted, though the effect was somewhat undermined by the way she had to pause and close her eyesagainst a wave of dizziness. “You’ve spent so much time taking care of me. I need you to be taken care of as well. Please, Richard.”
Richard studied her face for a moment, clearly recognizing the futility of arguing with a woman who had just awakened from a head injury and was still managing to be more stubborn than he was.
“Very well,” he conceded, reaching for a piece of bread with obvious reluctance. “But only if you share it with me.”
“It’s a bargain,” Jane agreed, lifting her spoon to take another sip of broth.
As they ate together in companionable silence, Jane found herself marveling at how much her world had changed since the day they got married.
The man sitting beside her, mechanically consuming food while keeping his attention focused on her every movement, was no longer the distant, formal duke she had tied her life to. He was Richard—herRichard—the man who slept in an uncomfortable chair to keep watch over her, who worried himself sick over her well-being, who looked at her as though she were the most precious thing in his carefully ordered world.
The realization that she had nearly lost this, nearly losthim, through something as random as a spooked horse and an unfortunate fall, made her appreciate just how fragile happinesscould be. She was grateful for the love of this extraordinary man, who had somehow become so essential to her very existence.
“Richard?” she murmured, waiting for him to look up from his meal.
“Yes?”
“Thank you,” she said simply, “for watching over me. For being here when I woke up.”
His expression softened into something so tender that it made her breath catch. “Jane, there is nowhere else I would rather be. That is what love means to me.”
At that moment, despite her throbbing skull and the sensation of what it must feel like being trampled by the entire royal cavalry, Jane thought she was the luckiest woman in all of London.
The soft afternoon light filtering through the curtains had shifted by the time she next awakened, suggesting several more hours had passed. This time, consciousness came more easily, the fog of pain and confusion lifting to reveal a world that felt more concrete, more real than her previous spell of wakefulness.
Richard was still beside her, though he had apparently taken her earlier advice to heart. A mostly empty dinner tray sat on the side table, and while he looked exhausted, there was less of the desperate, hollow-eyed intensity that had marked his earlier vigil.
“Richard,” she breathed.
