India thanked him and hurried back to Thorn’s bedside. Something deep inside her believed that by talking she was mooring him to Earth, and that if she gave up and left him to silence, he might just drift away.
Late that night, exhausted, she began to slur her words and finally broke into tears.
She hated to cry. She had learned as a child that crying did nothing. You could cry for hours, but the house would still be dark and echoing when you stopped. Crying didn’t make you warmer, or less hungry.
But now the emotion welled up in her throat and she couldn’t stop. When she got enough control to speak again, the words that came were no longer soft and soothing.
“Why—why did you go into the river?” she demanded, her voice cracking. “You should never have risked your life when your father and Eleanor love you, when Rose loves you . . . when I love you!”
She choked again, appalled to find that she was almost shouting at him, when she should be coaxing him back to consciousness with loving kindness. But she’d used up all of the tender words she had.
“I love you,” she said again, her voice breaking on a sob, “but I hate you too, because this is the first time I told you so, and you aren’t even listening. I hate you for making me fall in love with you. I hate you for wanting to marry someone sweet and fluffy as a duckling instead of me.”
The worst of it was her own role in the drama: she had thrown away the only beautiful thing in her life. Even if Thorn wasn’t dying, he was finished with her. And he did deserve better than she.
She had lied to him in their most intimate moments. She had never truly trusted him with her most valuable truths: not with the fact she had never been with a man, nor with the fact that she, of all people, would never desert a child.
Loving him was an anguish that she felt in her entire body, as if two of her bones were grating against each other.
“You broke my heart,” she cried. “You broke—you broke my heart!”
To her utter horror, she realized that she was emphasizing her points by pounding on his chest. Not hard enough to hurt, but still, it was a sign of what an awful person she was.
“I know I’m not sw-sweet,” she cried, tears splashing on the sheet. “I suppose I lost all my sweetness when I was a child. But that doesn’t mean that love doesn’t hurt just as much. It doesn’t mean that I don’t need taking care of, as Lala does. Just because I am able to take care of myself doesn’t mean that I want to!” And with that, she sank down, her face on his chest, her body shaking with sobs.
She was weeping so hard that she scarcely heard a voice whisper, “India.”
But she did hear it.
She reared up, saw Thorn’s eyes were open, and screamed. “I love you,” she cried, her voice rough with tears. “Oh Thorn, I’ve been so frightened. But you came back!”
“I could hear you yelling, and after a while it seemed easier to open my eyes.” His voice was hoarse, but the corners of his lips curled up.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean to lose my temper.”
“That’s you,” he said, his fingers curling around hers, eyes drifting shut again. “Love you.” His eyelashes lay on his cheeks again, but this time she knew he had been caught by sleep, and not something darker and nearer to death.
Chapter Forty
The next day India left Thorn’s side only to bathe and dress, and to see Rose just long enough to reassure her that her guardian was on the mend. Adelaide brought over clothing and wisely said nothing about the fact that even if Lady Rainsford kept her mouth shut about what happened at Starberry, India had now indisputably ruined her reputation, at least among the members of Thorn’s household.
After tea, Adelaide poked her head in the door and announced that she was taking Rose on a trip to Hyde Park, and that Thorn’s former mudlarks were a good group of men. Apparently they had saved his life by pounding on his chest until he threw up all the water he’d swallowed.
India scarcely listened. She was worried. Thorn hadn’t woken again. She could rouse him enough to drink water, but he seemed dazed and said nothing.
By now she had given up all pretense that she wasn’t acting precisely as a wife would. She spent the day hanging over Thorn’s bed, talking to him, coaxing him, haranguing him, bathing him.
As evening fell, she stripped to her chemise, lay down beside him, and put her head on his shoulder. Fear that he would never truly come back to life was growing in her heart.
She lay beside him for hours, fear steeling her limbs as if a stranger had taken over her body. Finally she fell asleep with her arm tight around his middle, as if she could hold him to this earth by touch alone.
When a warm mouth brushed hers, sliding off to caress her cheek, she just curled up, thinking she was dreaming.
But sometime later her eyes popped open and she found Thorn beside her, propped on his side. He had lost weight, which had only chiseled the dangerous male beauty that moved her as had no other man’s. There was nothing dangerous about the look in his eyes.
“I love you,” he said, the simple words dropping in the silence. “God in heaven, India. You saved my life.”
“Your mudlarks did that,” she said, her eyes filling. After a lifetime of suppressing tears, she had turned into a watering can. “Thorn,” she whispered, unable to say anything else.
He rolled partly on top of her. “India,” he whispered back.
She brought a hand up to touch his face. “Your hair is damp!”
“I know you tried to wake me by yelling,” he told her, eyes laughing. “But in the end, very unromantically, I woke because I needed a chamber pot. You were fast asleep, so I went through to my own bedchamber, where my man was rather shocked to see me walk through the door. I just had a quick bath.”
“You must eat!” she said, wiggling to get free of his weight.
But he pushed forward one of his legs, trapping her more firmly beneath him. “Fred will bring breakfast any minute.”
“You must be starving,” India said, her breath catching at his expression. “You must regain your strength.”
“Peace, my little whirlwind,” he said, lowering his head enough to brush her lips with his again. “There’s something I want far more than an egg.”
She stilled, her heart melting.
Their kiss made up for days of fear. It was a heart-piercing kiss that seared promises into the bone.
“You are mine,” Thorn said fiercely, raising his head.
Another kiss, but India pulled back when it turned slow and erotic. “You must eat,” she repeated.
He pushed her hair back from her forehead. “Have I told you how much I love you?”
Her lips trembled. “What if you only love me because I rushed to your side, like the mother you never knew? Or because Vander claimed to marry me?”
Thorn’s hand cupped her cheek. “Oh ye of little faith,” he said, giving her lips a tiny bite. “I loved you before Vander arrived at the house; I simply didn’t realize it. I think I probably fell in love with you the moment you told me I had a shortfall.” His eyes gleamed with amusement.
India did not laugh. “But you want to marry a woman like Lala. I can understand. I truly can. I know I’m not sweet.”
Thorn’s hands gripped her shoulders. “Don’t ever say that again, India. You are sweet—but you’re much more. You’re the other half of my heart, and there’s nothing docile and childlike inside me. It’s not what I want in my wife, my partner.”
India managed a wobbly smile.
“I almost came back within five minutes of leaving you, but I wanted to bring you a gift when I next returned,” Thorn said. “It was idiotic, and you can tell me that every day of my life. I had talked myself into believing that I could not come to you again without this.” He reached over and took a purple velvet pouch from the bedside table that hadn’t been there when India had lain down to sleep beside him the night before.
Velvet pouches rarely, if ever, contained
anything other than jewelry, but like the diamond ring, she didn’t care. She wanted more than gems. She wanted him, his heart . . . his promise. She didn’t take her eyes from his. “Are you saying that you—you planned to come back to me, even after . . . even after I told you that I deserved better?”
“Always,” he said, his voice deep and true.
“You,” she said, her voice cracking, “you deserve better than me, Thorn.”
“There is no one better than you. You were made for me,” he said. The pouch fell to the side as he drew India into his arms, devouring her, convincing her without words that he had no interest in another woman.
Minutes—or hours—later India heard a noise in the corridor and flew off the bed, pulling on her wrapper to welcome Fred, who was carrying a laden tray. Then she climbed back on the bed and sank back in front of Thorn, uncovering the dishes.
“Start with this,” she said, holding out a piece of fruit. “You must start slowly. You had no nourishment for two whole days.” Thorn ate it, mock-nipping at her fingers. But she ignored him until he had put away two eggs and three toast fingers dripping with butter, and drunk a nourishing cup of broth.
Only when she was satisfied that he had eaten enough for the moment did she send the plates away and curl up beside him again.
“What shall we do now?” Thorn asked. Contrary to every expectation, he looked bright-eyed and energetic.
“You are not leaving this bed,” she said severely. “You must rest.”
“I will stay in bed if you stay with me,” he said, giving her a devilish grin.
“None of that! Your body has endured a terrible shock.”
His smile deepened and he picked up her hand, placing it below his waist. “Does it seem to you that my body is tired?”
Her fingers curled instinctively around that vital, male part of him. “You should be tired,” she told him.
“I’ve been sleeping for two days. There are things I need more than sleep.”
India felt color rising in her cheeks. “This is—we shouldn’t.” She pulled her hand away, rather reluctantly.
“Whether we should or shouldn’t is irrelevant,” Thorn stated. “You are mine, India, and you are going to be my wife, just as soon as I can get another special license.”
Joy filled her heart, but she laughed. “Is this your third proposal?”
“I suppose I should be on my knees,” Thorn said, his fingers weaving through her hair. “But that would mean I’d have to move. And I don’t want to leave this bed.”
She looped her arms around his neck. “I’ll pretend you’re on your knees.”
“In that case, Lady Xenobia India St. Clair, may I have the honor of your hand in marriage?”
Tears fell down her cheeks. Xenobia India St. Clair was rarely speechless, but emotion caught her throat and she couldn’t answer.
“You needn’t answer, because you’ve already said yes,” he said, his lips brushing hers tenderly.
“When?”
“Every time you smiled at me, it was a yes. And when you arrived here determined to save my life, that was another yes. And when you shouted at me, and forced me to wake up, that was a third yes.”
The love deep in his eyes threatened to overwhelm her, and their lips met in a kiss that was irrational in its passion, sinful in its sensuality, raw in its pleasure.
Sometime later, India’s robe fell off the bed to the floor and her chemise tore down the middle, the remnants tossed aside. When Thorn’s scarred body met hers, she felt as if her heart danced in her rib cage, pounding to a tempo that only the two of them knew.
No one would have believed that mere hours before, Thorn had lain caught in dreamless sleep. He was all tongue and bites and strokes of his hand that drove India from pleasure to pleasure until they were both shuddering, and broken pleas tumbled from her lips. His touch made her head fall back and her mind whirl into a shameless, sensual storm of feeling.
Finally, finally, Thorn poised himself above her. “I think I would like you to say yes just one more time,” he whispered, lips just above hers. “Will you be mine, India? Will you keep me, in sickness and in health, forsaking all others, as long as we both shall live?”
One tear ran down India’s cheek from the pure beauty of it. “In sickness and in health,” she repeated, her voice husky, “forsaking all others, as long as we both shall live.”
Then he claimed her with a single thrust.
Chapter Forty-one
Quite some time later, Thorn returned the velvet bag to India’s lap, insisting that she humor him and open it.
Her mother’s necklace and earrings fell into her lap. The settings were tarnished, but there was a flash of diamond, the gleam of old gold. . . .
India’s hands flew to her mouth, and a little scream broke from her lips.
“Where did you—” She turned to him, horrified. “You risked your life to salvage my mother’s jewels for me?”
He nodded.
“But you hate the river, Thorn. And look what happened: it nearly killed you.” Her hand brushed back his hair, caressing the wound that would remain on his brow, a permanent gift of the river. “No jewelry is worth your life!”
“Your parents loved you, just as I love you,” Thorn told her. “They weren’t leaving you, just as I will never leave you. I shall prove it to you this very afternoon.”
India was completely confused. “How could you possibly prove that?”
“You believe yourself to be unlovable,” Thorn said, ignoring her question, “but I was in love with you after five minutes in your company, and Vander was only ten minutes behind me. All those men who asked to marry you—the ones you say wanted to marry you for your title—they were in love with you too. Not to mention the stonemasons, and painters, and the rest of the men whose hearts you stripped bare.”
“Oh,” she whispered.
“I did the same thing as you,” he continued.
“What do you mean?”
“I tried to keep you in your place, even to drive you away, because I could not believe that you would love a mudlark and a bastard.” His voice was raw with emotion.
A hot flush washed over India, a wave of feeling so deep that she could hardly put it in words. “You humble me,” she said, stumbling into speech. “You make me—”
The stones tumbled off the bed. No one noticed.
Later that day, a polite man by the name of Mr. Farthingale appeared in Thorn’s library and explained to India and Adelaide that he was a jeweler who had met, years ago, with the Marquess of Renwick.
“Oh,” India said, clasping Thorn’s hand very tightly.
“I know your shop quite well,” Adelaide said brightly. “Just off Blackfriars, isn’t it?”
“Yes, it is, my lady,” Mr. Farthingale said, inclining his head. Then he gave India a kindly look and said, “Lady Xenobia, I understand that you wish to know more of my encounter with your father.”
“Yes, I would,” she managed, her heart thumping.
“His lordship was in possession of a diamond demi-parure, which had descended through his wife’s family. He asked me to value the pieces, as he was considering sale.”
India didn’t know what to think, so she nodded.
“The marquess and the marchioness were considering the sale in order to fund their daughter’s debut and dowry.” Mr. Farthingale paused delicately.
“For me?” India whispered.
“There was a reason your parents didn’t immediately sell the jewelry to Mr. Farthingale,” Thorn said, smiling at her.
Mr. Farthingale inclined his head, his eyes compassionate. “I believe they would have eventually consigned the pieces to me, but they wished to consult with their daughter, that is, with you, Lady Xenobia, before doing so.”
A few minutes later, India rose to say goodbye, feeling lightheaded, as if her head were filled with air. Her parents hadn’t been running away from her. They had loved her. They had been thinking of her future.
“Your news was very welcome,” she told Mr. Farthingale.
“If you ever wish to sell the pieces . . .” he murmured, bowing.
“Never,” Thorn intervened before India could say the same.
The pieces were her only tangible tie to her mother and father, and they represented all that Thorn had given her . . . and that which he had almost lost for her.
After they made love that night, India curled against Thorn’s side, staring into the darkness, allowing herself to remember her parents.
Her mother used to throw back her hair and laugh in a deep-throated, joyful way. Her father wasn’t much good at being a gentleman, or managing an estate, but she recalled how he’d sat with her for hours, helping her arrange glass tiles in just the right order. He taught her the skills that allowed her to make any room into an enchanting oasis.
She even remembered the way her mother would laugh and say, “I knew you would work it out, poppet,” when India went to find them to say that she’d succeeded in locating a chicken for supper, or had made mushroom soup.
Her mother’s cheerful confidence had pushed her to learn how to bake bread, how to apply stucco, how to polish silver.
Her parents had been the wind at her back in every house she had reorganized and refurbished, and she had never thanked them, or even realized it.
Thorn had given her parents back to her. They hadn’t been conventional, or particularly aristocratic, and certainly not protective. But they had loved her.
The following evening, Messrs. Bink, Dusso, and Geordie had the singular experience of dining at the grand home of a duke and duchess, who were deeply grateful to them for saving the life of their eldest son.
Not only were they seated across from the Duke and Duchess of Villiers, but another future duke, Lord Brody, had also joined the meal. News of Thorn’s near demise had spread through London, and Vander had turned up, as he said, “because he knew that Thorn’s head was harder than a rock but he wanted to see for himself.”