Or she really had gone mad.
Either way, it was time to find out.
Bennet stoodat the door of the mausoleum and grimaced. He didn’t have the key. He had no idea who would.
The queen knew he was alive, so no attempt had been made to bequeath the title to his cousin Sampson. Did Sampson think to inherit? Bennet would prefer if he did, and he still might yet.
Once Bennet reemerged from death, whoever had killed his brother might very well do the same to him.
He hadn’t seen Sampson at the funeral, so he doubted the man had the key. But what other close kin might have handled the arrangements?
“You’re supposed to be in there. Not out here.”
Bennet sucked in a breath as he spun around. Rebecca. He’d known it even before his gaze caught hers, the green of her eyes dancing with an almost unnatural light.
“Tell me,” she started, moving closer, “have I finally gone mad?”
He couldn’t look away, couldn’t breathe as he watched the gentle sway of her body when she walked. So much grace. Always.
“Are you a ghost? If someone were to pass by, would they see me talking to no one?”
She stopped a foot away. So close that she had to tilt her chin to look at him. She’d grown more angular since he’d left. Higher cheekbones, slight hollows under her eyes, but still breathtakingly gorgeous. “You’re not mad,” he said, resisting the urge to stroke his fingers down her cheek.
She reached out then, poking him square in the chest. “You do feel solid.” Her gaze narrowed. “Are you an impostor? I’m a reporter, you know. I’ve ways of finding out. You’ll never be able to—”
“Bec,” he said, his voice coming out rough and hoarse. It’s what he’d always called her when it was just the two of them.
But the pet name seemed to break something inside her. Because rather than looking strong and cautious, she seemed to crack before his eyes.
Her face tightened into hard lines of grief a second before her knees crumbled.
He caught her before she hit the ground, gathering her soft curves, still so achingly soft, to his chest.
A moan of pain he’d only ever heard before from a dying animal erupted from her lips. His own body echoed the feeling. So much lost.
Her hand fisted in his coat as she clung to his front, her cry breaking on a sob. “Ben?”
“It’s me,” he said, because he didn’t have the guile to say anything else. He ought to lie. He meant to protect her. But with her in his arms…
He couldn’t. Not now. Not ever.
“What? Where? How…” The single words tumbled from her lips as tears leaked from those eyes.
He’d been haunted too. He’d spent countless hours trying to capture the words to describe the exact right shade of them.They were lighter than grass, deeper than ferns, more sparkle than an emerald.
“It doesn’t matter,” he said as he held her tight. “And I can’t stay, but—”
“I beg your pardon?” Her tears stopped in an instant as all the softness and uncertainty left her features.
He still held her. He couldn’t let go. Not yet. “Bec. I can’t stay. I’m a danger to you.”
Her hands only tightened. “You’re not leaving.”
The edge to her voice almost made him smile. Only Rebecca could be this strong after everything she’d been through. “I have to, love, it’s a matter of—”
“And don’t you dare call me ‘love.’” She’d gone from a melted puddle to as stiff as a board. But with the last word, she transformed again, into a spitting cat. She hit his chest and her finger—still gloved, thank goodness for small favors—raked over his collarbone and up his neck. “If you loved me half as much as I loved you, you would never say such things.”
“Bec,” he started again, attempting to still her fingers without hurting her, “try to understand—”