“Not in any way that matters,” he said, summoning a smile. “And I shall be perfectly well now that I have you both again.”
“But you neverdidn’thave us…”
His smile slipped tragically, but Isadora’s eyes flickered open, and she reached out both arms in that sweet, tender way she kept for Sophia. “Soph!” Her voice croaked a little, and Nicholas went to pour her some water. “Are you all right?”
“Papa punched the man for me,” Sophia said in a serious voice.
Nicholas put his forehead in his hand, shielding his face.
Isadora glanced at him, a smile twitching at her lips. “Well, I suppose it’s good he knows how to.”
“He was a bad man,” Sophia nodded, still deathly serious. “Papa was right to punch him.”
“We are agreed there.” Isadora patted the coverlet beside her. “Come and tell me about the kittens. Are they behaving themselves?”
As Sophia hopped up and chatted, first about the kittens and then about the painting she had done while Isadora was recovering, Nicholas sat on Isadora’s other side. Her hand twitched closer to his, and he interlaced his fingers with hers.
He thought he heard her sigh. And, to his foolish delight, she didn’t pull away. His thumb swept the back of her hand, and he vowed never again to do anything to hurt her.
Never, never again.
So this was what love truly felt like.
Not the terrible, overbearing anger he’d known with Grace—that endless cycle of fighting and forgiving—but a bone-deep contentment in simply holding her hand, and a certainty that he would protect her from whatever might come, no matter what.
If he loved her, he trusted her; and she had been loyal all this time, when he had given her every reason not to be.
He could trust that. He could trust her.
He held her hand when the nurse came for Sophia, held it when Sophia hugged her and left, and held it when Isadora turned to him with a question in her gaze.
“I never did ask what will happen to Mr. Sherborne,” she murmured.
“He’s awaiting trial.” Nicholas’s fingers tightened in hers. “Likely he’ll be sent to the colonies. There’s a chance he’ll hang, though I can’t say that would please me, after hearing his side of the story.”
“Such is the law.” She sighed and sat up further. “Remove my bandage, will you?”
“Are you sure?”
“I’m not fully recovered, but I won’t be an invalid the rest of my days. Besides, it would frighten Sophia.”
He huffed a laugh and reached around her, unwinding the bandage until it came away in his hands. Isadora’s honey-glazed eyes stared up at him, a crease between her brows—all tangled hair and pale skin and exhaustion—and he loved her more than he could ever have put into words just then.
So he said the only thing he could. “I love you.”
She blinked, flinching. “Pardon—”
“I thought I knew what love was. You taught me otherwise.” He brushed a knuckle down her cheek. “I know you need time, and I’m prepared to give as much as you need—but you deserve to know I am desperately, madly in love with you, and have been for far longer than I ever wanted to admit.”
“You… love me.” She said the words as though she tasted them in her mouth before passing them to him.
“Endlessly. You are my last thought at night and my first every morning. Hell is a world where I can’t be by your side, and it was almost a world of my own making. I will spend every day of the rest of my life making it up to you.”
She made a choked sound, almost like a laugh, half like a sob. “You want to be with me for the rest of your life?”
“That ought to have been my intention from the very beginning, but at first I saw you as nothing but a glorified nursemaid. Now I understand the truth.” He held her gaze, his own utterly serious. “Sophia is not the only one who needs you.”
Her eyes were damp, looking into his as though she had never seen him before. Her chest rose and fell. She swallowed hard, and her fingers found his. “You love me,” she said again, but this time it wasn’t a question—more a statement of fact. An assurance. A certainty.
