Page 45 of Her Heart's Rightful Earl
Arabella straightened the shawl that covered her trembling frame, and Alexander flexed his jaw muscles, betraying the tension he was experiencing.
“You see how dangerous this has become?”
Arabella nodded frantically, barely trusting herself to speak.
“We should leave now in case they return,” Alexander asserted.
“I need to know how I can help!” Arabella pleaded in a whispered voice.
“Do you still insist upon participation?”
“I certainly do!”
“Then meet with me again tomorrow night?”
Arabella blinked up at him, wondering if he willed the hours away until they were together again, in the way she knew she did. She could not ask him that, so she simply nodded that she would meet him, throwing him a sad smile, before lifting the hood back over her head and turning to leave.
As she went to go, Alexander suddenly reached out and clutched her wrist, turning her to him. The contact sent a shock of buzzing adrenaline through her body.
“Please—I’d like you to take this …” Alexander reached into his pocket and pulled out a silver chain, which glinted in the moonlight. Arabella held out her hand, intrigued as to what it might be, and Alexander delicately trailed it down into her palm. As the locket fell into her hand, she recognized it.
“Oh! But this is the locket I gave you as an engagement gift!”
Alexander smiled slightly and nodded, looking down at the locket and then back into her eyes.
“Why don’t you open it up?”
Swallowing hard, Arabella fiddled with the intricate latch on the side of the locket, and it gave easily beneath her fingers, opening up to reveal a lock of dark hair on one side, which was the perfect match for Alexander’s, and on the other side, a miniature painting of him.
It must have been curated before his years in exile, for his face in the painting was paler and slightly fuller. His work on the land had left him with a chiselled jaw and tan complexion. But she knew that beautiful face anywhere.
Arabella was struck completely still as she processed what this meant—he had ensured the locket travelled with him when he escaped Wellwood on that fateful night, even though he had not even taken a spare change of clothes.
He had kept it all these years, through exile, through danger, and through unimaginable loneliness. He had carried that gift from Arabella as though he were carrying a part of her with him.
Arabella looked up into his hopeful face, and before she could consider what she was doing, she stood on her tiptoes and raised her lips to his cheek. She delivered the softest, most gentle, briefest kiss on his tan skin and turned to go before her resolve crumbled entirely. But as she turned to leave, she saw that he had closed his eyes in a moment of pure elation.
Chapter 14
Alexander watched Arabella go; her black shawl spread behind her like some dark angel as she sprinted out of the graveyard. He wished more than anything to go with her; she could be followed and attacked, and he would not know.
But going with her posed an increased vulnerability to her. How he hated all that he represented; he wished to be back to the man he once was, who would escort her home safely and have the luxury of protecting her.
He encircled the old chapel—they had trusted that the footsteps had moved on, but in truth, they may have belonged to an adversary hiding out.
A full circuit of the building revealed no threat, and as he passed an area of shrubbery, he noticed a dark vaulted area beneath it. Moving the vegetation to one side, Alexander peered into what appeared to be a crypt.
He stepped down inside the stone chamber underneath the chapel. The cobwebs, dust, and dank smell suggested nobody had visited here in a very long time, which made it a fortuitous candidate for Alexander’s nighttime location.
Cautiously creeping deeper into the crypt, which echoed with the disturbance of his steps in a chasm of eternal silence, Alexander took his tinder box from his deepest coat pocket. He set about sparking a flame from the flint on the steel and setting light to the small piece of char cloth.
Once it ignited, casting a warm glow in the eerie darkness, he held a sulphur-tipped spill to the flame. He was primed to simply explore the space with this light and then sit in darkness, but the light afforded him a view of several candelabra set against the far wall. He went to it and lit just one candle—not enough to attract any attention from outside, but a small comfort.
Settling down onto the cold stone floor, Alexander retrieved an apple from his pocket that he had plucked from a tree earlier that day and bit into it ravenously. His cheek hummed with the warm memory of Arabella’s lips. That brief, beautiful moment of her impossibly soft cheek against his. So smooth, her skin, and so light and fresh the scent of her hair as she brushed past him.
He closed his eyes and held his hand delicately to the spot where she had kissed him. Finally, despite the cold, Alexander fell asleep, dreaming of the woman he loved in mortal danger purely due to his presence around her.
***
