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Ivy rolled slowly onto her back. Her vision grew cloudy, and an ache speared through her skull.
She spied the determination in his gaze and the rock in his hand before the next blow fell. She barely had a chance to wish she was with Cillian before everything faded to black.
***
Cillian approached the maid tentatively. He didn’t want more conversations of his potential love for Ivy.
He didn’t need them.
He did, however, need to know where she was. He had some apologies to make.
She paused when she saw him come down the servant’s hallway, a biscuit halfway to her mouth.
Muriel dropped into a quick dip and shoved the rest of the biscuit into her mouth. “My lord,” she said, the words almost obscured by the mouthful.
“Have you seen Her Ladyship per chance?”
She shook her head, chewed quickly, and swallowed. “She went to Gravesend.”
Cillian’s stomach dropped. “Alone?”
“No.” Muriel fixed him with a look that saidshe’s not stupid. “She went in the carriage and took two of the footmen.”
“Ah.” The tension eased from his muscles. She’d gone to see the portrait again. He couldn’t even bring himself to be angry. The determination Ivy showed only made him love her more.
“Is that all, my lord?” She produced another biscuit from who knew where and lifted it halfway to her mouth.
“Yes, Muriel. Thank you.”
The maid pivoted and headed into the servant’s dining hall as she squirreled away the biscuit. He shook his head. Shah and the maid had seemed an odd match to his mind at first, but he was beginning to see why they might like one another. If anything, they clearly both shared a love of biscuits.
Cillian made his way upstairs, snared the butler’s attention and requested a bath be drawn. There wasn’t much he could do about his looks or his past behavior but at the very least, he could be clean and tidy when Ivy returned home, and he talked to her. He shook his head at himself as he took the stairs up two at a time. Here he was, behaving like a boy wanting to tell the girl with the pretty pigtails he liked her. But Ivy made him feel young again. She made him feel different. Less of a fighter and more of a man.
A partner.
If she accepted his apologies, he had no doubt they could forge an even stronger partnership, not just built on their shared skills but built on love. It should terrify him. The last time he’d loved a woman it had gone to hell. Yet all he could feel was excitement—for them and for the future.
So long as Ivy’s maid was correct, of course.
So long as Ivydidlove him.
He paused outside his bedroom when he heard a thud inside. There was no chance any of the servants had beaten him upstairs and he hadn’t seen anyone coming down the hall. Frowning, he twisted the doorknob.
“Marshall.” The name escaped his lips before he registered the scene in front of him.
The man was on his bed.
With Ivy beneath him.
She rolled her head to one side, her movements slow. Or perhaps the moment played out slowly to Cillian. His heart seemed to come to a stop as he spied Marshall’s hands wrapped around her throat. He saw her legs kick weakly beneath heavy skirts. She gripped the bedding with whitened knuckles.
Marshall didn’t even notice him.
“You’ll die,” he said to Ivy. “And Cillian will be blamed.”
The world moved again. Cillian’s heart started pounding, fast and raging like a surging river. He covered the distance between the door and the bed in a moment.
He grabbed Marshall and tore him from Ivy. She moved slowly, blinked at him foggily, but she was alive.
