Page 21 of The Duke With the Dragon Tattoo
After a pensive moment he said, “You named him Atilla?”
“Oh yes.” She brightened, “And the snake is Hannibal. The turtles over there are Genghis and Kublai. The foxes are Vlad the Impaler, Ivan the Terrible, and Catherine the Great—it was Alexander the Great at first, but then for obvious reasons I had to change the name, and naturally I found a supplemental ‘Great.’”
“Naturally.”
She allowed her head to rest against his shoulder, lulledby the rhythm of his inhalations. She didn’t allow herself to consider what would happen should she be caught in such a posture, in such proximity to a man in his state of undress. It seemed that through nursing him, a sense of intimacy and familiarity she’d not considered until now had bloomed between them.
She wanted him close. Craved it with a ferocity her young mind didn’t understand. She wanted his skin next to hers. Reveled in the scent and sight and warmth of him.
For warmth wasn’t something she experienced enough of.
Furthermore, no one much cared about her pets. She had to protect them from Mortimer just as attentively as she did from each other and the elements. Her father’s apathy toward her beasts was legendary, to say the least. And though she suspected they were too kind to say so, she had the idea that the servants found them more of a nuisance than a pleasure.
“What did you name the weasel?” he queried.
“It’s a ferret, and his name is Brutus. Oh, and the little rabbit over there is Napoleon Bonaparte. We… We ate Josephine, Lucien, and Pauline. Now he’s all alone.” She swallowed grief that should not be so fresh.
He cradled her gently, but she didn’t miss that his hand curled into a fist.
“Such fierce names you’ve given them.” She glowed because it sounded like he approved. “Do you have particularly violent turtles?”
Lorelai had the sense they were both wondering how he could remember all these historical figures when he could not recall his own past.
“I’ve given them epic legacies to live up to. To be fierce, to be a conqueror or a warrior, one must first recover one’s strength. I feel it might help them get better. A name isimportant, you know. It has power. A turtle named after a great Kahn would just feel silly if he died without a fight.”
“Let’s give me a name,” he suggested. “William after the Conqueror? Julius, after the Caesar. Or Antony? Not Octavian or Augustus, I’ll not have it. David, maybe? The one who defeated Goliath. David sounds close to something…”
“Oh, I named you ages ago,” she informed him merrily. The veins in his arm she’d been mentally tracing momentarily distracted her from remembering that she’d planned to keep that fact from him.
He stilled. “What… did you name me?”
“Ash.”
He snorted. “Because I’m more cinder than flesh?”
“BecauseI found you under an ancient, enormous ash tree, obviously.”
“Ash,” he repeated. “Not exactly a king’s name, nor a warrior’s.”
“It’s better than all that,” she rushed to explain, distressed by the disenchantment in his voice. “Our housekeeper, Maeve, says her family is descended from Druids. According to her, the Tree of Life is an ash tree, and it holds the whole of the earth and the sky together. It heals the sick, protects the innocent, and endows immortality to the worthy. So… as legacies go, I’d say I granted you a right whopper.”
“That you did.” The look he slanted down at her brimmed with something so tender, her throat ached in response. “Ash it is, then. Until I recover my family name.”
“You could be Ash Weatherstoke,” she offered, knowing it was terrible of her to hope he never belonged to any family but hers. “Father doesn’t mind. He says it looks good to society when a genteel family takes in a poor relation. A distant cousin, perhaps?”
The tenderness evaporated, his lips pressing into a tight crease. “I don’t like the idea of being a poor relation. Someone not good enough for…” He broke off, glancing away from her. “Not if I’m to someday…”
She certainly wished he’d finish those sentences. She’d never wished anything so mightily.
“I did not mean to offend you.”Again,she amended silently. Lud, but it was a blessing animals couldn’t understand her. Or she’d probably drive them all off with her constant meddling. “I suggested we make you part of the family. It was Father who came up with the poor-relation bit.”
“I do not want anyone to mock me. To think me less…”
“No one would dare.” Of this she was certain. A man with such strength and height, such unusual musculature, wouldn’t be ready fodder for the jackanapes. “Besides, it’s not so bad really.”
At his look, she hurried to explain.
“The thing about being mocked or laughed at is… you forget to fear it after a while. It’s just something that happens.”
