“No!” Honoria returned with a loud sob and a lunge forward.
“Ow!” Roger bellowed, as the knife thudded to the ground.
And that’s when Dermont saw Ferris. The ferret had his teeth clamped down on Roger’s wrist. That’s the moment Dermont seized, flung himself forward and thrust his fist in Roger’s face. He pocketed the knife and found some ropes to tie Roger’s limp body to the carriage.
It was over almost before it began, Phoebe threw herself on her brother, weeping, her entire body shuddering.
“I was so scared,” she sobbed without taking a breath.
“It’s all right, Phoebe,” Honoria soothed from behind her with a soft voice and a caressing hand on her back.
“Oh!” Phoebe turned around and embraced Honoria in a savage hug. “You’re an angel. Honoria!” Much blubbering ensued. And it would have been enough to drive Dermont to grab a whiskey except that his heart had expanded too many times inside of his chest to move. “You tried to save me.”
He couldn’t take his eyes off Honoria. She was incredible. And as much as he wanted to comfort his sister, he just wanted to hold Honoria.
Chapter 12
Honoria
“What were you thinking?” Honoria watched as Dermont raked both hands through his hair and tugged hard.
He was pacing. Again. But at least he was talking now. She had been sitting in his personal study for several minutes in silence just waiting for him to do something, and she would have spoken up—really, she would have—except that small tick in his eyebrow warned her not to.
“Erm—”
“I can’t believe you would do such a thing. Why did you do it?”
Precisely what thing he was referring to, she wasn’t sure. And perhaps—yes—-that eyebrow tick indicated that these just might be rhetorical questions he was asking.
“What am I supposed to do with you?” Pacing stopped. Hair raking ceased. He stood staring at her. Helplessly. In a way she had never seen before. His arms hung at his side loosely, he looked to be a man in need of answers, but he was not searching his desk papers for them. No. He was looking at her.
“W-what should I say?”
“You should explain yourself.”
“Explain what, exactly?”
“What? Explain what?” he roared, his face growing red.
“Um—”
And then he was toe to toe with her, towering over her, hands on her upper arms, gripping hard. “Why did you tell that lunatic to take you instead, Honoria?” he roared, cutting her off. “Why would you do that?”
She couldn’t understand his reaction. She had just followed her gut to try and save her friend. That was all that mattered in the moment. Her silence charged the air between them, and his fingers dug deeper into her flesh.
His voice lowered, and in a raspy tone, he mumbled, “You act like nothing just happened.”
That wasn’t actually true as she was still shaking from the whole encounter. But since everyone was safe, there was an ample amount of relief that had washed over her. So she said the most reassuring thing she could think of, “Phoebe is safe.”
“Phoebe,” he scoffed in disbelief. “Phoebe?” The echo of her name was followed by an unamused laugh. “What about you?” His hand came up to trace her jaw. “What about you Honoria?”
“Me?”
“Yes.”
“I…I just needed Phoebe to be safe.”
“You know I care about my sister with everything that I am, and I’d be shattered if anything happened to her. But you must know, as much as you needed her to be safe, I just need you to be safe.” His eyes searched hers.