“Aunt Glynis came to the club waving the letter you wrote and telling me that my foolish bride had put herself in danger. It wasquite remarkable. I honestly think that she’s rather fond of you, though she’d never admit it.”
“That’s . . . unexpected.” Ana’s head drooped. “I’m so . . . tired.”
“Are you certain you didn’t sustain an injury?”
“Only to my heart. He’s gone, Dex. Papa is dead. I must let him go.” She choked back a sob, her body quivering.
“Shhh,” he said soothingly, wrapping his arm tighter around her slender shoulders. “You don’t have to do anything tonight but rest.”
“You were right all along.”
“I didn’t want to be right. I’ll help you grieve him. I have experience in that area.”
“Does the pain dull?”
“The pain... lessens. With time, with friendship, with...” Love. He wanted to tell her everything in his heart but she was grieving, lost in a dark place. He knew what that was like. He must give her time.
“We made a good team facing down those villains, did we not? I almost feel sorry for old Burt, having narrowly escaped a similar fate the first day I met you.”
His attempt at humor fell flat. Only a brief nod. Not even the glimmer of a smile.
The tables were turned and he didn’t like it. Was this what living with him was like? She was always teasing him, always trying to make him smile. And now he couldn’t do the same for her.
“Ana, talk to me. Tell me what you’re feeling. It will ease your pain.”
She shook her head. “How could I have been so stupid? I trusted the letter because I followed my heart and not my head.Maybe I’ve finally learned my lesson. Maybe I’m with you in the cave. Lost in the darkness.”
“You can’t be. You’re the brightest light I know, filled with hope and optimism. They preyed upon that.”
She sighed. “I’ve always told myself that even in the darkest of times, the sun will return. Now I’m not so sure.”
“I don’t want you to lose that belief that the sun is waiting to shine again. You make me want to believe it, too.”
“It’s too much, Dex,” she sobbed, collapsing against him.
He held her tightly. “We’ll feel it together, shall we? It’s never going to disappear. The pain of losing him will always be there, like a hard knot of scar tissue on your heart. I’m willing to flay myself open for you, Ana. I would die to ease your way in life.”
He was desperate to lighten her heart, hungry for the sweet curve of her lips, the answering gleam in her eyes.
“Ana, do you know what I was doing at the Thunderbolt Club tonight?”
“Talking to Odysseus . . . carousing with your rakish friends . . . getting pummeled in the boxing ring.”
“I brought a book with me and I sat quietly reading in a corner the whole evening.”
She quirked her head. “I find that unlikely.”
“Believe it. And do you know what book I was reading?”
“A scintillating tome on the bloodlines of Yorkshire Trotters?”
“Ha. There were no horses in this book, only hedgehogs and dragons.”
She lifted her head. “What do you mean, dragons?”
“I went to Norwood & Pennington and retrieved your manuscript. They’d already had a copy made. I started where I’d left offand read straight through to the end, hardly pausing to breathe or relieve the call of nature.”
“Dex.” Her lips twitched. “Why on earth did you do that?”