Page 100 of The Duchess Curse

“Perhaps,” Bentley ventured, voice as hesitant as she’d ever heard it.

“No.” She straightened, wiping tears from her eyes. “No, I’m well. Help me move him to my bed.”

Ned picked Bran up like a babe and helped her dress him in a clean shirt and remove his boots then left. A fire had been prepared for her return, too, and Bentley stooped to rouse it, adding more fuel before he left too.

She bathed quickly, simply, with soap that used to smell like mint but now smelled like Bran, donned a shift and wrapper and crawled into her bed beside him.

On his back, arms limp at his sides, head turned toward her, he was nothing more than a shadow. She scooted closer, wrapping her hands around his arm, resting her forehead against his bicep.

“I don’t hate you,” she whispered. The despair that had crashed her to her knees earlier returned in a great, killing wave. And through her sobbing, curled against his body, afraid to touch him, needing to touch him, she managed to repeat four words over and over again, a mantra, a prayer. “I don’t hate you. I don’t hate you. I don’t hate you.”

At some point during the night, she stopped crying and watched the up and down of his chest that proved he still lived.

Dawn brought a knock on the door.

She checked Bran’s pulse at his wrist and his neck, held her cheek against his lips to feel his breath across her skin, then left the bed, cinching her wrapper tight.

Bentley was behind the door.

“Yes?” she said.

“Mr. Grant is requesting to speak to you.”

“Grant?” She blinked several times, pressing the heel of her hand into one eye. “Grant… Hesperus?”

Bentley nodded. “I’ll tell him you are in no⁠—”

“No. I’ll see him. Just… let me dress.” She did so quickly and in her simplest day dress, a pale blue affair that looked brighter than she felt.

“He’s in the conservatory,” Bentley said.

She nodded. “Would you… Could you… Would you find it outside your realm of duties to… watch my husband until I return?”

Her ribs were cinching her heart too tightly.

“Of course, Your Grace.” Said with polite coolness. But there was warmth in his eyes, in the curve of his lips.

“Thank you.”

She found Hesperus cleaning the worktable, the bucket beside him on the floor a ruby red that made Guin’s stomach turn.

“You do not have to do that,” she said.

He shrugged, continuing to clean. “It feels right. How is he?”

“Alive. Asleep. I’ll need to check the wound soon for infection. What of the attackers?”

“Taken care of.” His grin was like a jagged line carved with a knifepoint.

“Did they tell you who hired them?”

He shook his head. “But I found these in their pockets.” He stopped cleaning to pull two small, red bottles from his pockets.

“Madame Poppy’s potions.” Guin pinched the bridge of her nose. “That woman is unlikely to simply hand over a client list. But would you mind terribly trying to extricate one from her?”

He cracked his knuckles. “I wouldn’t mind at all, Your Grace.”

“I don’t think brute force will work. Are you capable of charm?”