“I’m sorry.”
“I’ll get her through this, I will.” Her fist clenched in his shirt. “She’s not going to die.”
He’d been right about her determination to save the people she loved. He wondered with a sudden pang he couldn’t identify how it would feel having someone like Antonia on his side.
He bent and placed a gentle, chaste kiss on the corner of her mouth. She tasted salty, she tasted like tears. “If anyone can get her through, you can. Rest for a moment. Then go in and win the battle.”
He smoothed loose tendrils of hair away from her hot face. She looked an absolute fright with red eyes and a pink nose. Yet another revelation—he, the connoisseur of diamonds of the first water, hardly cared.
“She’s like my sister,” Antonia said thickly. “I couldn’t bear to lose her. I’ve lost . . . I’ve lost too many people.”
It was almost a confidence. Somewhere in the distant reaches of his brain, a voice insisted this was the time to pry open her secrets. The voice urged him to seduce her now, when her defenses crumbled, the rest of the household be damned. Nobody had seen him come in, and silence from the next room indicated interruptions were unlikely.
He ignored the voice. With more ease than he expected.
He was a rotter through and through. Even the world’s worst rotter wouldn’t take advantage of a woman in this state.
“She’s lucky to have you.” He meant it.
“Why are you being kind to me?” Familiar, watchful Antonia returned.
“Haven’t a clue,” he replied with perfect honesty. Sincerity felt like a luxury, which spoke reams for his relationships.
Her choked laugh ended on a broken sob. “That makes two of us.”
He kept stroking her hair back from her sticky face. Tears clumped her eyelashes together and her mouth was full and swollen. He resisted the urge to kiss her.
Something inside him shifted as he looked at her. The sensation was astonishing enough to check his usual rakish impulses. And to stir the need to restore the light in her eyes. He struggled for words to cheer her.
“Cassie will be leading you a grand chase through the ballrooms of London before you know it,” he said, with absolutely no basis for his claim.
Antonia’s lush mouth quirked as if she too recognized the flimsy logic behind his assertion. “With your encouragement.” Her face crumpled and she drew a quavering breath. “I hope you’re right, Nicholas. I hope to heaven you’re right.”
Shock held him motionless as she crushed her face into his chest, clutching his shirt in shaking hands. She’d only once before used his Christian name without his prompting, when it slipped out after she thought she’d killed him. Hard to equate that avenging angel of chastity with this broken woman.
Except the inner core of strength remained. Even as she lay in his arms, crying her heart out, he recognized her essential valor. He suspected she hadn’t permitted herself the relief of a good cry since Cassie fell ill.
He felt hot moisture against his skin. Some instinct made him place his hand behind her head and press her closer. The same instinct that made him murmur foolish reassurance.
He had no idea if he helped. He had no idea if his words penetrated her fog of misery. She just huddled against him, weeping with a heartbroken desperation that made him want to hit someone.
Eventually she calmed.
He’d always loved how she fought him. He loved the crackle and spark of her wit. Now he discovered he also loved the way she lay against him in what felt like perfect trust.
He knew there was no such thing and like most people, she’d betray him eventually. If only by disappointing him after she incited such anticipation.
Right now he couldn’t bring himself to believe it.
Antonia was a tall, vital woman, no shrinking miss. Now she felt brittle and vulnerable. He tightened his hold and told himself the surge of protectiveness meant nothing.
Again he couldn’t quite believe it.
He brushed his cheek against her disheveled hair. He was surprised she remained in his arms. After all, she knew exactly what he was. She’d always known. It was a sign of the tribulations of these last days that her usual spiky barriers were absent.
Take advantage, the voice insisted.
Next time, he assured the voice, wondering why he delayed.