Page 27 of The Wayward Duke
“I would have told you,” she whispered. “What you wanted to know.”
Words that might’ve stopped his heart if he wasn’t already dying by slow degrees. If this was to be his last scrap of time with her, he would cling until his bones shattered.
“Can we go home?” Caroline asked.
“Yes. Let’s go home.” The words scraped his throat raw.
As he guided Caroline outside, his hand still tingled with the memory of her skin against his. With sense memories of her body in the studio.
This time, when she spoke, something fragile in her tone threatened to crack straight down the middle. “Thank you. For doing all this with me. I know you didn’t want to.”
Julian’s breath tangled in his lungs.Tell her everything,the recklessness urged.The sheer futility of trying to carve her out of your soul. Tell her so she understands a month more in her presence is the only thing tethering you to sanity.
He opened his mouth to lay himself bare beneath the knife edge of her regard. To cut out his heart and offer it up.
Ask me to stay, and I will.
But before he found the words, the explosion tore the night in two.
11
Julian reacted on instinct, throwing himself over Caroline’s slender frame. His shoulders curled protectively around her as they hit the cobblestones. Debris pelted his back, sharp and bruising even through the layers of his tailcoat. The wave of blistering heat seared across his back. His ears rang from the concussive force, deafening him until all other sounds faded to a dull roar.
And then, stillness – stripped clean in the wake of violence.
No. Not stillness. Slowly, sound filtered back in. A high-pitched whine where there should have been noise. The groan of twisted iron and splintered wood settling into unnatural shapes. Soft, ragged cries painted the silence in shades of pain.
Julian’s focus narrowed on the woman beneath him. “Are you hurt?” His voice scraped raw and foreign to his own ears.
He scanned her for any sign of injury, every protective instinct roaring to life. She looked so small curled there on the ground, her coat spread around her like broken wings.
“I’m fine,” Caroline managed, though her face had gone bone-white beneath the layer of grit.
Julian grasped her shoulders to help her stand, keeping hold of her when she swayed on her feet. Blood slicked his palms, rubbed open by their impact with the street. He hardly felt it.
All around them lay utter devastation. Plumes of acrid smoke clawed at the night sky, searing Julian’s throat. Through the haze, he glimpsed the mangled wrecks of carriages and coaches strewn across the ravaged street. Wood splintered, ironwork twisted into jagged spikes, debris scattered into shrapnel.
Their footman came pelting up, his livery almost unrecognisable beneath the layer of soot. “Your Graces!” he gasped out. “Thank God you’re alive. What should I do?”
Caroline straightened up, the picture of poise even when coated in dust and blood. “Go summon the constables,” she said. “Fetch anyone available and tell them to bring doctors. Direct them here.”
The footman nodded and raced off into the night.
Julian began stripping off his ruined tailcoat, the fine fabric shredded beyond saving now. “You won’t go anywhere near that,” he said, gesturing at the devastation. “I’ll dig out the wounded. Stay back where it’s safe. There might be another blast.”
But Caroline had that stubborn set to her jaw, the one he knew all too well. “Don’t be absurd. We’ll work much faster together.”
Before he could protest, she gathered her silken skirts and picked her way into the wreckage. Glass crunched beneath the thin soles of her slippers.
“Damn it,” Julian growled. Cursing under his breath, he had no choice but to follow her.
The world was reduced to a blur of smoke and agony. Together with the gathering crowds, they shifted heavy planks by inches. Ragged edges scraped Julian’s knees and palms raw. Grit coated his tongue, acrid and bitter.
He swallowed back bile as shattered bones and mangled limbs were jostled. Screams filled the night. As he moved debris and stones aside, Julian kept an eye on his wife. Caroline tore strips of fabric from her ruined gown, wrapping the silk around wrists, arms, legs – any injury she could bind up and staunch the bleeding. Her makeshift bandages shone like gossamer against torn flesh.
All the while, she kept up a constant soothing stream of encouragement. “There’s a good lad. Just lie still, the pain will pass.”
And to another, “It’s not so very bad, miss. You’ll have a dashing scar to impress the gentlemen.”
