Page 44 of The Duchess Curse

A bloody nightmare. She would never forgive him.

He held his arms out in front of him—naked for the first time in months. The glamour gone.

There was a soap on the table next to the tub that had only begun to be there after Guin had moved back home. He lifted it, sniffed it—mint. It smelled like her, and he scrubbed every inch of his body with it, scratching it deep into his hair, his scalp. A soapy film floated over the water when he was done, and the bar was nothing more than a sliver. He dunked himself under the water where he could still see the red eyes of their attackers, still hear Guin’s cry of anguish not because she’d been injured.

But because she’d seen him. The real him.

And it had ripped her fucking heart out.

He broke the water with a great gasp of air and leaned his head on the back of the tub.

What now?

What now?

Now… he must still keep her safe, and he would not negotiate on that point. It could be no other Shadow who walked alongside her. Not after tonight. The attack had been like no other—men with red eyes who barely acknowledged injury. Potion mad.

It had been eight months since she’d sold her last concoction, but the men of London still held a vendetta Guin might not survive.

She would survive.

He stepped out of the tub, rivulets of sudsy water snaking down his legs and disappearing beneath the stardust glamour clinging tight to his right shin and foot.

“Damn.” It wouldn’t yet release him fully, and he was fucking tired of it.

He dried off and pulled on a clean pair of trousers, a shirt, and padded back into the duchess’s chamber. Susan sat watch over the bed where Guin lay sleeping. Bran joined her.

“I’ll keep watch.”

“Yes, Your Grace. She woke up once to change her clothes, then took something from a small bottle. She went to sleep soundly after that. Do you need anything else?”

He felt too lost at sea for food, and his need for a clear head was too great for drink. “No, thank you. But… do you know where her grace purchases her mint soap?” She probably made it herself.

“I will find out.”

“Do, and purchase as much as you can.” For Guin when she awoke. And for him when she left.

Susan curtsied and left, and Bran dragged an armchair close to the bed. If Guin were awake, she’d tell him to go to hell. Or at least get out of her bedchamber. But he couldn’t leave. When she opened her eyes, they’d be brimming with betrayal.

And he deserved it.

He wanted to look at her a little while longer, before hatred lined every muscle of her body.

She was peaceful, lips slightly parted and hair a tangle of sunbeams across her pillow. Beneath the blankets she’d crawled under before the sleeping draught took her, she wore a snowy white shift, tugged haphazardly down and revealing one creamy shoulder with a smattering of freckles across it.

He pulled it back up close to her neck and pulled the blanket up, too, careful not to let his fingers brush against skin.

She did not sleep peacefully. Worry was grooved between her brows and pinched her lips.

He laid his head on the mattress and watched her, taking comfort in each rise and fall of her chest and knowing he would rather die than she never take another breath.

The sleeping draught had tied chains around Guin’s eyes, and she thrashed against them. In her dreams, just below a waking surface she could not reach, a shadow stalked her. Eyes that flashed green then gold peered at her from the darkness. She was never alone, never free, so long as the eyes were there—ever watching and easily lying.

Then flashing red as the silver glint of a blade arced toward her.

Finally, the chains broke.

And she awoke with a gasp, rolling over to shove her face into her pillow. Her eyelids were still heavy, and her limbs ached, and a fog rolled through her brain thicker than that which rolled often through London.