AllFreeNovel
Share Us
He shook her. “Lady Raplan—no. Stay right here.” He shook her again.
Nothing.
Her body dropped, her backside landing on her heels.
Rune sank to his knees, keeping his right hand on her shoulder, and he grabbed her face, his thumb under her chin and his fingers pressing into her cheek. “Elle—stay here. Get back here right now. It was just a shot—just a hunting party. Nothing more. Some wild men after a deer. That was all. Elle.”
No response.
His thumb moved up along the other side of her face and he shook her head. “Elle. Elle. Get back here. Stay with me—you’re safe—safe. I’m right here. Elle.”
Her head snapped up, her eyes clamping closed for the longest of seconds.
He froze, his breath held.
Slowly, her right hand rose, stuttering in its movement, almost dropping back to her side, but then it lifted, her hand twitching until it found his chest in front of her. Her palm flattened, her fingers spreading wide over the lapel of his coat.
Her eyes fluttered open. Focused. Confused, but focused.
Her brow furrowed as she searched his face. “Wha—”
The word cut off as she looked around. Her gaze darted back to him, her dark blue eyes wide. “What?”
Rune exhaled his held breath. “A hunting party crossed in front of us. Shots were fired.”
As afraid as he was that she would leave the present again—that his fingers gripping her cheeks were the only things keeping her focused—he let his left hand drop from her face.
But he held his clamp on her shoulder. There was still a sway in her torso he didn’t care for.
“You are back?”
She looked around, the confusion in her brow dissipating, and then her gaze fixed solidly on him. “I am.” She nodded to herself. “I am.”
Her eyes closed for a long breath and then she shook her head. “I am and I’m mortified.” Her eyes opened to him. “That this should happen twice in as many days. It is rare—once or twice a year—but now twice. You must think me quite mad.”
“No. But I do want to know what the gunshot was.”
“The gunshot?”
“The one that did this to you.”
Her lips pursed and a quiver ran under his palm across her shoulders. “What do you mean?”
“I mean you’re feigning ignorance and I don’t care to fight through that.” His hand slipped off her shoulder and he leaned back, going to the balls of his feet as he balanced on his heels. “I don’t imagine you always reacted like this to gunshots. So tell me about the one gunshot that did this to you.”
Her chest lifted in a heavy breath and her head dipped forward, her gaze solidly on her hands that she’d clasped together on her blue skirts, her fingertips digging into the fabric. “It was the one that killed my husband. A duel. A duel over me—another man that had dared to talk to me a moment too long at a ball. I wasn’t supposed to be there that morning when they met on that field but I was. The one shot cut through the air and it almost sounded fake, like the gun didn’t have enough gunpowder or it misfired. But then my husband dropped. Sank into the tall grasses. He disappeared and I couldn’t see him and by the time I reached him…it took so long for my legs to move…the blood was everywhere. On my dress. On my fingers. My hands were stained red for days.”
She paused and Rune could only stare at her, shocked she’d so openly admitted to what had happened. Duels and death were not topics of conversation for ladies of theton. Des had told him nothing of her past and he was suddenly wishing he’d had a few more questions for his old friend as to the type of person Elle was.
She drew a deep breath. “It is silly.”
“Silly how?”
She shrugged, her look lifting to him and directly meeting his stare. “Unrequited love. The power it can have over a person. For all that it was not a grand love match between the earl and me, he was my world. I loved him. He didn’t love me. It was silly that he ended up dying because of me. Stupid.”
Rune rubbed the scruff of whiskers along his jaw. “You say he didn’t love you, but yet he died for you?”
A sad half smile lifted her cheek. “It would appear that way, wouldn’t it?”
