Her gaze went to Devlin, and she saw his eyes were open. But other than lifting his head to look at her, he hadn’t moved.
He caught her gaze. “We think you were struck by your dressing case, when it fell on you during the crash.”
“Oh. Yes.” Her voice was scratchy. She swallowed and managed, “The children? The staff?”
“All are well.” His hazel gaze appeared dark in the gloom. “Bar a few bruises, no one was hurt except you.” He paused, then added, “We think the loss of blood, compounded by the effort of helping and organizing everyone, was what caused you to faint and slide into unconsciousness.”
Without shifting her eyes from his, she reached out to the dragon, again stroking the line between the flaring wings with one fingertip. “And this?”
His gaze deflected to the figurine.
Her voice strengthened. “How does it come to be here?”
For a moment, he watched her stroke the dragon, then he hauled in a huge breath, sat up, and scrubbed his hands over his face. Then he lowered his hands; letting them dangle between his knees, he met her gaze. “I hope you like it. I saw you admire it at the opening of the exhibition, and”—his lips twisted wryly—“perhaps unsurprisingly, it reminded me of you, so when, last week, I saw it was still unsold, I made the jeweler an offer. He waited until yesterday, the exhibition’s last day, in case someone else was willing to pay more, then he sent me a message in the morning, and in the afternoon, after visiting the bank, I went to his lodgings to pay the sum I’d offered and fetch it.”
She stared at him. In her mind, she saw him enter the house near Covent Garden…
Her wits lurched, and her heart sank, then abruptly rose. She suddenly felt lightheaded again. “Where was the jeweler lodging?”
“He, his wife, and his assistants had rented rooms in a house in Henrietta Street.” When she blinked, he elaborated, “Just west of Covent Garden market.” As if only then remembering, he patted his coat pocket, then drew out a crumpled sheet. He glanced at it, then held it out. “Here’s his letter accepting my offer. The address is there.”
Her wits reeling, her emotions in turmoil, her thoughts in utter disarray, she stopped touching the dragon and took the note.
Ignoring the twinges from her head, she shifted and wriggled up to sit against her pillows, raised the note, and read it.
She looked at Devlin. “That’s what you were doing in Covent Garden. Buying me the dragon.” There was no question in the words.
Her gaze flicked to the dragon, but immediately returned to him in time to see him wryly wince.
“It seemed like a good idea at the time.”
Feeling helpless and hating that he had no idea how to manage this conversation, Devlin leaned back in the armchair and met her eyes. All he could do was tell her the truth, all of it. “I’d been trying to find ways to show you that I loved you. When I saw that the dragon was still unsold, it seemed…fated, somehow. I wasn’t surprised that Monsieur Faberge waited until the last day to accept my offer, but I hadn’t expected him to be leaving for the Continent so soon.” He tipped his head at the note she still held. “As you saw, they hoped to be away by dawn today. I think the cost of putting up in London was more than they’d anticipated, which was why they’d ended staying in Covent Garden.”
He paused, then his face hardening, went on, “The woman you saw greet me was Madame Faberge, and given what I’d agreed to pay for the figurine, it wasn’t surprising that she smiled on me with such delight. I gathered she was hugely relieved to have secured a decent price for the dragon, rather than have to take it home and pray they could sell it somewhere else. Faberge had made it specifically for the exhibition, hoping to sell it to the queen, only she was more interested in diamonds.”
Therese had lowered the letter. When she continued to stare at him as if she wasn’t seeing him so much as working her way through his words, he drew in a slow breath, waited until she refocused on him, and locked his gaze with hers. “I told you I loved you, and I do. Totally, unreservedly, and irrevocably, with all my heart. And I know—have always known—that you love me, and I value your love more than words can say. If you believe nothing else, accept nothing else, please understand that I would never, ever, do anything to in any way damage what we have, what we share.” He paused, then voice lowering, amended, “What I desperately hope we still share.”
She blinked, and apology—deeply felt, urgent, and transparently sincere—filled her face, her eyes. Releasing the note, she reached out to him. Instinctively, he took her proffered hand, and she clutched his fingers. “I am so very sorry that I doubted you.” She blinked again, and he realized tears were brimming in her eyes; he’d hardly ever seen her cry.
Before he could do more than tighten his grip on her fingers, she rushed on, “I should have known better—known you better.” She squeezed his fingers even more tightly. “I should have trusted you, especially after you’d told me you loved me. I know you never lie, not to me. My rational mind knew there had to be some reasonable, acceptable explanation. Child tried to tell me so, but I wouldn’t listen—to him or to my saner self.” Her gaze slid from his, and she shook her head as if, looking back, she was amazed at herself. “I couldn’t think—not at all.”
Her eyes returned to his face, searching beseechingly, then she shifted to bring her other hand to join the first, clasping his larger hand between hers as if through her touch, she was willing him to understand. “At the time, just the thought that you were there to visit some courtesan… Something inside me broke—shattered—and feelings rushed through and overwhelmed me. I felt so much, so painfully and powerfully, that I simply couldn’t think at all.” Her eyes steadied on his. “It was the most awful, dreadful feeling. I’ve never felt out of control like that, wholly hostage to my emotions. I felt so hurt.” She pressed one hand to her chest. “So battered and bruised.”
She studied his eyes, then simply repeated, “I’m so very sorry.”
He felt her sincerity—the depth of it—and the underlying reassurance of her love washed over him. He let that sink in, then finally allowed his features to soften, his lips to faintly lift. Still holding her gaze, he quietly said, “After finding you by the side of a wrecked train and seeing you collapse”—he had to draw in a tight breath of his own—“I know all about feeling too much. About how emotions like love and fear can scramble one’s brain. I hadn’t ever felt like that, either.”
He twined his fingers with hers, more firmly linking their hands. “If I hadn’t had the children and the staff to see to—if I’d been allowed to think of only you and what you meant to me…” Reliving the moments all too vividly, he broke off, then raked his free hand through his hair, met her gaze, and admitted, “God alone knows what I would have done. I certainly wasn’t capable of thinking rationally, not about anything to do with you.”
She managed a weak, rather watery smile. “We are a pair, it seems. As Child said, we deserve each other.”
He held her gaze, studying her eyes, then he shifted forward in the chair, separated their fingers, and retook her hands, one in each of his, gripping them firmly; her fingers curled over his, tightening in response. Fixing his eyes on hers, he looked deep into the silvery blue and stated, “Never doubt this. I love you. That hasn’t changed over the past five and more years, and it’s not going to change any time in the future. You are my world. You might not have known it, but from the very first instant I set eyes on you, you held my heart in your hands.”