“Let me see,” she insisted.
“You’re not a medical doctor,” he reminded her mildly.
“It might need to be stitched.” She peeled back one side of the torn material. “I’ve stitched a wound bef—”
He caught both of her trembling hands in his, engulfing them in familiar, rough-skinned warmth. “Leave it, wife,” he crooned gently. “You needn’t upset yourself over me. Take a few deep breaths to calm yourself.”
At that, she surged to her feet, wrenching her hands away from his as she fought to fill her lungs fast enough. “I am calm,” she declared. “I’m the very essence of calm. If I were any calmer, I’d be asleep!”
Even though he was sitting, he didn’t have to reach up very far to place his palms on either side of her face. “I understand, Alexandra. Being spared a terrible death can set anyone’s nerves on edge—”
She made a sound of immense frustration at his condescending tone. “That isn’t it. I’ve been nearly missed by death before.”
“Then…” He frowned, the puzzled lines in his forehead creating cracks in the mud drying there. “I was able to save the bones, you needn’t worry that you lost—”
“I thought I’d lost you, you enormous Neanderthal!” She knew she sounded shrill, but at this point, she was beyond caring. “Hang the bones! Must you insist on hefting the largest box? Upon turning everything into a competition? You could have left it for … for tomorrow … You could have escorted me out. You … You … You could have died!”
Dammit, sobs crawled up from her chest and crowded her throat, demanding every part of self-control she had left to grapple them back down again.
“Come now,” he soothed with a crooked smirk, rubbing a thumb over her cheek. “Would that really have been so bad? You’d be a wealthy widow. Your problems would have been solved.”
Alexandra’s hand lashed out and connected with his cheek before she’d realized what she’d done.
In the stunned silence that followed, she seized his face and kissed him brutally. Crushing her mouth to his with enough force to feel his teeth. Hard enough for him to feel her rage and taste her terror.
That done, she slapped him again.
Never in the recorded history of mankind had twenty men been so utterly quiet and still for so long.
Redmayne stared at her, stone-faced and eyes glinting. With what, she couldn’t tell.
For once in her life, she didn’t care.
Then, her husband did something she’d never seen him do before.
He grinned.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
It occurred to Piers that he should stay at the dig site. That he should investigate. Especially since no one seemed to be that suspicious. Old caves collapsed all the time; the men shrugged. Perhaps the fortifications hadn’t been as sound as everyone had thought.
What utter. Fucking. Horseshit.
He’d seen to the fortifications, himself. Thousand-year-old cathedrals had less structural integrity.
No. Something had happened. He’d heard it, right before the ceiling had caved in, a different sound had warned him to jump away just in time. Some sort of hiss, and crackle, preceded a pop before the rocks had begun to fall.
Not an explosion, but he suspected gunpowder or a similar agent.
The structural engineer wouldn’t return from Le Havre until tomorrow, and it would be folly to attempt to return inside the catacombs without him.
Besides, it would take a miracle to peel him from Alexandra’s side.
Now that she might be in danger.
Now that the dynamic had shifted between them. Their bonds strengthened.
“Your wife, she loves you.” A medic named Giuseppe had clapped him on the back after washing, stitching, and bandaging his wound. Which hadn’t been as shallow as he’d thought, nor as deep as she’d feared.
Piers hadn’t wanted to argue with the man.
His wife didn’t love him. She couldn’t. Not only after a few short days.
But she cared. She cared more than he’d expected her to.
It had taken some doing to intimidate her into submitting to an examination in the next tent over. Her hands had been abraded, but what other injuries could she have sustained?
Trying to rescue him.
“What makes you think that?” he asked of Giuseppe.
“Do you not speak of love?” The elder man’s impertinence rankled him, and he cast him a warning glare. He didn’t dare speak, as his blood ran hot. His temper high. And a thousand foul words sprang to his tongue.
The medic wisely moved on. “It’s quite apparent she is utterly besotted with you.”
“Because she tried to save my life?”
The older man had eyed him as though he’d never met a man so dense. “If she didn’t love you, she would not have slapped you twice.”
Piers had looked away then, so the observant man wouldn’t see his heart glowing through his eyes.
The medic wasn’t privy to the extraordinary circumstances of their marriage. Nor the extent of their denied passion. Nor the unfeasibility of trust between them.
However, he’d been right about one thing.
She’d slapped him twice.
Because she cared.
The sting of her palm still lingered on his cheek. And every time he marked it, an absurd smile threatened to engulf his entire face.
He’d fought it the entire way back to the hotel, unwilling to allow her to see it. She’d be unable to interpret the expression, and he wasn’t ready or willing to discuss it.
In fact, they didn’t speak much in the carriage, but her hands, more scraped than wounded and thus not warranting bandages, remained firmly tucked within his own.
When he found the culprit, the bastard would pay in five times the blood for every single scratch on her perfect skin.
They sat hip to hip, her head resting on his shoulder. It was as though some polymer or adhesive had grown between them, resisting any separation.
He barely felt a twinge in his leg as he swept her down from the carriage and mounted the steps into the grand lobby.
“Your Grace.” The desk clerk called as they passed him, holding out a slim piece of paper. “You’ve a telegram.”
“Later,” he barked, mounting the first stair.
He was alive. She was alive. That fact, so often taken for granted, scorched a fire through his veins that he meant to quench with her body.
Ten days be damned.
What mattered other than that she cared? That he yearned?
He’d spend an indecent number of hours bathing her. Bathing with her. All her creamy, sweet skin slick with soap beneath his hands. He could only imagine her slipping her lithe body against, over, and around his. He’d wash every soft and feminine crevice, conducting a thorough examination with his hands, and then his mouth.
Would she do the same? Would she discover him as she scrubbed the grit from his body? His cock reacted with such violence to the thought, he suppressed a groan and quickened his pace.
He wanted—no—needed her hands on him. Small, elegant hands. So efficient and competent, used to intricate work and detailed exertion.
He needed her spread open on the bed beneath him. Wide and bare and without restraint.
Tonight, he was going to—