She didn’t move. “They’d both be still alive if I hadn’t arrived. If I hadn’t ever started on this foolish, ill-fated adventure.”
He hunched down until he was eye level with her, his hands resting on his knees. “Either that or your cousins would have tried to murder someone else. I have no illusions about Fielder. We weren’t his first victims.”But we had become his last.Ian felt no remorse over seeing the man dead. Life was like that.
Outside, the skies suddenly opened and the rain came down in gray sheets, separating them from the rest of the world.
“Perhaps we should go to the magistrate,” she said, not looking at him. “We stole horses.”
Ian shook his head. “Lyssa, we’ll go to your father first. He will take care of everything from London. It will be better to explain ourselves there than here, where Davidson may have friends.”
“But you were right,” she said. “From the very beginning, you told me I was a fool for running away.”
“I—” he started but she cut him off.
“I’ve destroyed everything. I’ve opened the door for my stepmother’s hatred and almost cost you your life.”
He reached for her but she edged away, crossing her arms tight against her chest. “It’s my fault,” she said. “And I was actually happier before. Even marrying Robert couldn’t be worse than the way I am feeling now, seeing those men die—”
Ian moved in, wrapping his arms around her. He held her tight, his chin on top of her head. She felt stiff and cold. He tried to warm her with his body heat, to take the pain she was feeling upon himself.
“Don’t do this to yourself,” he begged her. “There are things that go on in this life that no one understands. Perhaps running away was a mistake or perhaps you were meant to be here and everything happened exactly as it should have. I don’t pretend to understand the world, Cailín. All I know is that you can’t go back. The past is done. It’s out of your hands now.”
“Don’t say that,” she whispered. “Please don’t say that.”
“It’s gone,” he pressed sadly.
She moved, forcing him to loosen his hold. From her belt she pulled a card. Ian had to lean back to see it properly. It was a picture of a rider on horseback swinging a sword. “What is it?” he asked without recognition.
“The Knight of Swords. It’s a tarot card, Ian. Used to tell one’s fate. I’ve carried it with me ever since Madame Linka told my fortune and I met you.”
“You don’t believe such nonsense, do you?”
“I don’t know.”
“I do. No one can tell the future.”
She raised tortured eyes to him. “Then why has it all come true?”
“Lyssa—” He wanted to reason with her but he didn’t know how. This was not his spirited Cailín but a woman who had just learned her limitations, who had discovered fear.
And then, she broke down, crumpling the card in her fingers. She would have collapsed on the ground, her body racked with heart-stopping sobs, if he hadn’t been holding her tight.
Ian was at a loss. “Please, Lyssa. It’s not your fault,” he said. But she was retreating to a place he couldn’t go…a place that frightened her.
He couldn’t stand idly by. Not without a fight to bring her back.
So, he did what he could do, what he wanted to do. He kissed her. Savagely, possessively, completely.
And to his surprise, and everlasting joy, she kissed him back.
Chapter Seventeen
TOLyssa, Ian’s kiss was a lifeline. He understood her when she didn’t understand herself.
Hewas her fate.
The crumpled tarot card fell from her fingers as she put her arms around his neck and kissed him with everything she was worth. The touch of his tongue against hers signaled that all had changed between them. There were no more walls, and she could have cried in thanksgiving.
The rest of the world faded.
