Page 115 of The Duke and the Lady in Red
And there was Avendale. She wanted to chastise him, yell at him, tell him to go away, even as she wanted to run to him, fling her arms around him, and beg him to take her away from this. But she just stood there as though she had turned to stone, was a statue that he could place in a fountain in his garden.
He looked as though he’d lost weight. Lines in his face were deeper. She hated that she might be responsible for his weariness.
Self-consciously, she patted her hair, wishing it was pinned up instead of braided. That absurd thought almost made her laugh hysterically. She hadn’t had a proper bath since she arrived. Her dress was filthy. She was filthy.
In long, confident strides, he marched over to her, slid his arm around her, and began propelling her forward.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
“Getting you out of here.”
“My trial—”
“There’s not going to be one.”
Planting her feet, she managed to stop them both just shy of the front door that would lead them out of here, that would take her away from this madness. “What have you done?”
He faced her. “What I told you I was going to do. I paid them all off.”
“All?”
“All. Merrick, Joseph, and Sally helped me to find them. Took longer than I’d hoped but it’s done now. We had struck a bargain, you and I. How the devil did you think you were going to keep your part of it from within prison walls?”
She studied his beloved face, the seriousness in his eyes, perhaps even a spark of anger. “I told you the bargain was a lie.”
“I told you that I didn’t believe you.”
And he had declared that he loved her. “Avendale—”
“We’ll discuss everything later, Rose. Right now, let’s get the bloody hell out of here.”
She sighed. “Yes, please.”
Chapter 23
The first thing she did was strip out of her clothes to luxuriate in a steaming hot bath. The water could not be too hot for her. If Avendale hadn’t cautioned her that anything hotter would peel the skin from her bones, she would have gone hotter still.
“Burn them,” she told him now as he sat on a stool beside the tub. “The clothes. Have them burned.”
He rang for Edith, who took them away. When he returned, in one hand he held a glass of dark red wine, and in the other a plate with an assortment of cheeses and fruits arranged on it.
Taking the goblet, she held it aloft. “To freedom and to you for giving it to me.”
“Was it so awful in there?” he asked.
“Lonely. Cold, harsh. Unpleasant. But I deserved all of it.” She took a sip of the wine, moaned low. “We should let Merrick know I’m here.”
“He knows. You’ll see all of them tomorrow.” He tapped a red, ripe strawberry against her lips. She took a bite of the succulent fruit, moaned again.
“Everything tastes so marvelous, so much richer than it ever did before. I shall never take anything for granted again.”
“I don’t think you did before.”
“Not often, but now I shall never takeanythingfor granted.” Especially not him.
Pineapple was next, then cheese, more wine.
“As grateful as I am for what you did,” she began, “I never meant for you to pay for my misdeeds.”
