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Chapter 2
Annalise was paralyzed with shock. Blake, Lord Payne,her husband, was standing right in front of her, in the middle of the ballroom, on the night of her betrothal to another man. Then his eyes glazed over, and he fell to his knees. The next moment, all her thoughts disappeared, and she ran toward him.
Blake was alive. He was here.
She fell to her knees and caught his heavy body against hers.
“Doctor! Bring me a doctor, now!” Annalise yelled as she tried unsuccessfully to keep her husband upright.
“Here, let me,” her betrothed said steadily from behind her. He knelt beside her, took Blake’s weight off her, and laid him gently on the floor.
In her haste and worry over Blake, she had completely forgotten about Kensington.
“Thank you, Your Grace,” she whispered.
Kensington’s warm hand settled on hers and squeezed her gently. He felt Blake’s pulse and checked his body for any outward signs of injury. He frowned, and Annalise grew frantic with worry.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” he said in a calm voice. “By all appearances, he is all right. However, we shan’t know for sure until the doctor arrives.”
Annalise nodded and turned to study her husband’s face. He looked different. So much so that she would have passed him in a crowd. She wouldn’t have recognized him now either if he hadn’t called her name.
He’d said it in the same breathy way that used to cause goosebumps on her skin. His velvety smooth voice still made her foolish heart leap in delight.
However, his voice was perhaps the only thing recognizable about him. His face was lean and dark. Red spots adorned the crests of his cheeks and nose, as if he spent a lot of time outdoors, under the sun or against the wind. His nose was crooked, as if it’d been broken one too many times. His dark brown hair, now long and tangled, lay strewn about his shoulders.
Annalise didn’t remember Blake’s hair from before. Come to think of it, she had never seen Blake without his wig. Not in the daylight, at least.
Her gaze traveled back to his face. It was hard, and a few lines had settled over his forehead and around his mouth.What has he gone through? Where has he been for over a year to make him look so different?
“He seems to just have fainted,” Kensington stated beside her, successfully pulling her out of her thoughts. “Probably the excitement of coming home and—”
“And seeing his wife getting betrothed to another man?” Annalise looked up at the duke with tear-filled eyes. Her lower lip protruded and quivered as she tried to hold on to her tears.
“It is not your fault,” he whispered. “We don’t know what had befallen him before his return.” He turned to the assembled crowd as he stood. “I need a couple of gentlemen who would be kind enough to help transport Lord Payne to his bed.”
Two gentlemen stepped forward instantly. Annalise recognized Blake’s long-time friend, Jarvis, Viscount St. John, and Blake’s cousin, the current Lord Payne. Or should she say the former Lord Payne and the current heir presumptive, Mr. Marcus Townsend? This all was too confusing.
The gentlemen hoisted Blake up and carried him through the parting crowd and up to the second floor. Annalise followed in their wake.
They carried him into the master’s bedchamber—Mr. Townsend insisted he should take his rightful bed.
“Countess.” Kensington turned to Annalise and gave her a look that meant he was about to say something she wouldn’t like, and he knew it. “I think you should leave. We shall need to undress him and see if there are any injuries I’ve missed and then wash him and prepare him for a doctor’s visit.”
Annalise frowned. “Why do I need to leave? I am his wife. Dane,” she said in a softer tone. She’d never called Kensington by his Christian name, but it just slipped at that moment. “I am grateful for everything you’ve done for me, but I can’t leave him. I am still his wife.”
“I know. But we don’t know what he went through in those months away. We don’t know if….” He cleared his throat. “Until I am sure there is nothing about him that might cause you shock—”
“Who do you take me for?” Annalise gaped at the man she thought she knew better than anyone else in this world. A man who’d protected her and comforted her during the worst months of her life and couldn’t believe she was hearing him right. “I am no simpering debutante. If there is anything wrong with my husband, I can deal with it.”
“Please.” The Duke of Kensington very rarely pleaded with anyone.
Annalise pursed her lips and looked at the prone body of her husband sprawled on the bed. “All right. But if you find nothing… objectionable on his person, please call for me. I shall help you prepare him for the doctor’s arrival.” Annalise spared one last glance at her husband’s body and left the room with her head held high.
The moment she exited the room, however, her shoulders slumped, and a horrid sob escaped her. She covered her mouth with her hand and leaned her back against the wall. The emotions, the excitement of the night, were finally catching up to her. Tears ran down her cheeks, and she angrily swiped them away.
There was no use. She was sobbing in earnest now, crying like an inconsolable babe. She tried to calm down, but the sobs wouldn’t stop. Her legs gave out, and she slid down the wall. She placed her head against her knees and covered it with her arms.
