“There!” someone called. “I see him!”
The Duke didn’t wait. He squeezed through a gap far too small for comfort and disappeared into the wreckage.
“Elias!” Celine cried, but he was already swallowed by shadows.
Long, agonising minutes passed. Men widened the gap. Just as Celine prepared to go in herself, he emerged, carrying a boy of perhaps ten, both covered in dust and blood.
“Fetch the physician,” he ordered, laying the boy carefully on a blanket someone had spread. “Quickly.”
Celine knelt beside them, noting the gash on the Duke’s forehead and the tear in his shirt.
“You’re hurt.”
“It’s nothing.” He focused entirely on the boy. “Marcus? Can you hear me?”
The boy’s eyes fluttered open. “Your Grace?”
“You’re safe now. Don’t try to move.”
“The horses—”
“Are fine. You saved them by getting them out first.” The Duke’s voice was warm, reassuring. “That was very brave.”
“Not brave,” the boy whispered. “Scared.”
“The brave ones always are.”
Celine watched, heart aching. This was the man beneath the walls.
The physician arrived within the hour and pronounced the boy bruised but not gravely hurt. The Duke, he said, needed stitches.
“Later,” the Duke said dismissively.
“Now,” Celine countered. “Or I’ll hold you down while the physician does it.”
He stared, startled. “You’re ordering me?”
“I’m insisting. As your wife.”
“My wife in name only.”
“Your wife nonetheless. And wives don’t tolerate stubbornness that results in blood loss.”
The physician wisely began without waiting for further debate. When the stitches were done and the boy settled, they rode back to the Manor slowly. The Duke was silent, tension radiating from him.
“That was heroic,” Celine said quietly.
“It was necessary.”
“It was both.”
“Anyone would have done the same.”
“No,” she said firmly. “They wouldn’t. Most men of your station would have directed from a distance. You went in yourself.”
“The gap was too small for the other men.”
“It was too small for you too. But you went anyway.”
