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She wanted to be the one he relied upon.
She wanted—noneeded—to heal him and set him free.
But he had to tell her how.
“I…” he rasped out after a disbelieving, drawn-out silence.
“Don’t lie,” she commanded softly.
“I can always tell when someone tells the truth or not. You might feel safer lying to others, but please…don’t lie to me.”
He stared at her for a long while, barely navigating the phaeton, their public surroundings at the park and their two companions forgotten. His glittering eyes probed deeply into her own, searching for she knew not what.
A sign that he could trust her? A shred of evidence that she cared?
She did care.
Not only because she felt like she’d known him all her life. A ghostly companion that kept her loneliness at bay. But also because he was clearly hurting.
She felt his pain vicariously. She couldn’t bear it.
She sensed his pure heart, his innate strength and goodness. She knew from her dreams and the brief interactions they’d had that he was innocent and brave. A natural protector. Defender of the weak.
But he was lost.
He practically vibrated with a terrible tension, sitting there next to her. He was the same the night of the ball. Armored in exquisite finery, yet hollow inside.
Only when she touched him, when she said his name, did she ever see a crack in his flawless façade.
So, she touched him now for encouragement. And, if she was honest, simply because she wanted to.
Slowly, she pulled off the glove of her right hand one finger at a time. Then, she laid her bare palm on the back of his hand. As light as a butterfly alighting on a rose.
Even so, his hand spasmed and clawed into a fist, the prominent veins on the back distending even more starkly like tree roots.
Instead of making her retreat, his reaction emboldened her further. Gently but insistently, she dug her fingers between his until their hands were inextricably entwined.
He stared down at their joined limbs as if he’d never seen such a thing before. Wonder and shock in equal measure spread across his sharply etched face.
“So warm…” he murmured without seeming to know that he did, as if speaking to himself.
“Your touch fills me with such warmth.”
She brought his hand to her face with both of her own now, one gloved, one bare, her fingers still interlinked with his.
She opened his tight fist with a bit of coaxing, for she could never have done so by force alone. He was inconceivably strong, his body like marble over steel, encased in smooth skin and soft cloth. Then, she huffed her breath into his palm, filling it with damp heat.
Daringly, before she could think better of it, she placed a swift kiss in its center and folded his fingers back into a fist, as if to trap her kiss inside.
“There,” she said. “You can keep my breath with you always. The next time you feel cold, just remember that it’s there. It will make you warm again, I promise.”
Torment contorted his face like a jagged fissure racing across a frozen lake. It was gone as soon as it appeared.
But Brigid knew she hadn’t imagined it.
“You should hate me, Lady Brigid,” he growled in a husky, tortured voice. So low, so filled with pain, it sounded more animal than human.
“Never,” she rejoined gently, matter-of-factly.
