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“You mean people who rob the bodies of dead soldiers?”
“It’s a time-honored tradition amongst soldiers of both sides, unfortunately.”
Anger seared like a hot poker in her chest. She wanted to kill anyone who’d hurt Royal—or would ever try to hurt him again.
“And you were obviously robbed,” she said.
Royal nodded. “The man thought I was dead, so he was quite surprised when I grabbed hold of his coat and asked for water.”
“Did he give you any?”
“Hardly. He coshed me on the head, riffled my pockets, and then rolled me into a ditch.”
When she gaped at him, too sickened to muster even a sympathetic word, he shrugged again, as if it didn’t matter.
“I . . . I don’t know what to say,” Ainsley finally stammered.
“There’s nothing to say, love. It’s war. That’s what men do.”
“Awful men. But not you,” she protested. “Or Lord Arnprior. Neither you nor any of your brothers would act like that.”
“I hope not. But war is a desperate, dirty business. It brings out the best and the worst in men, and you never know for certain what you’re capable of until the moment is upon you. You never know if you’re going to survive. That’s the worst part. The not knowing.”
She grabbed his hand, desperate for his touch. “But youdidsurvive.”
“Thanks to Nick. He defied orders and spent the whole night searching for me. He finally found me in that damned ditch, half-drowned and nearly dead. And I was in bad shape for weeks after that.” He shook his head. “Sometimes I wonder how—or even why—I survived when so many didn’t. There’s no making sense of it.”
She lurched up onto her knees and crawled to the head of the bed.
Royal peered at her with a concerned frown. “Ainsley?”
She grabbed him by the shoulders and shook him. “You survived for me, you stupid man, for me and for Tira. And don’t you ever,everforget it.”
And then, too upset to care that she hated to cry, Ainsley collapsed into his arms and burst into tears.
Chapter Nineteen
Royal cradled his wife as she sobbed in his arms. Desperately, he rummaged through his brain for the words that might console her. He’d never seen Ainsley cry with such abandon, not even when she’d given up Tira that fateful day in Cairndow. Her courage back then had filled him with awe. But if she’d cried then as she was crying now, he would not have been able to turn his back and walk away from her.
He never should have abandoned her, no matter how right the decision had seemed at the time. But the past was a country they could never revisit. Now, they could only go forward. Despite their shared legacy of pain, they could try to create a better life, a good life as husband and wife.
Nothing and no one would ever take Ainsley away from him again.
He stroked her silky black hair, breathing in the faint scents of lavender and mint that drifted up like a whisper of magic. “Hush, love. You mustn’t cry so, or you’ll make yourself ill.”
She half sobbed something into his nightshirt, her body plastered against him. Ainsley was a delicious armful and he was aware of every bit of it, especially the lush breasts that pressed into him when she gulped in air. His leg was killing him, he’d just told her about the worst day of his life, and she was a distraught mess in his arms, yet he still wanted to tip the lass onto her back and kiss her until she trembled for other reasons besides grief.
Get your mind out of the gutter, you idiot.
Ainsley needed comforting now, not a husband slaking his lust, even though that lust had grown to monumental proportions.
He focused on her muffled words. “What did you say, sweetheart? I couldn’t hear you.”
She was trying hard to contain herself, swallowing her broken sobs. Royal stroked a hand down her back, simply waiting for her to settle.
After a minute or so, she flattened her hands on his chest and pushed into a sitting position. The blue lace ribbon of her formerly impeccable coiffure had come undone, sending most of her hair down in a bedraggled tumble. Her cheeks were flushed, her eyes were swollen, and her nose had turned a rather bright shade of pink. She’d be utterly appalled if she caught a glimpse of herself, thanks to her fierce need to control how others saw her.
To Royal, Ainsley had never looked more beautiful. Every emotion shimmered right on the surface, raw, honest, and vulnerable. She was not a woman who liked being vulnerable, so the fact that she could be that way with him felt like a precious gift.
