The moment she heard from Dot what had happened at the docks, Angelique dropped her mending and raced to find a wet Lucien in their room, standing in front of their clothing press.
He fixed her with a searching, careful look as he pulled open a drawer in search of a dry shirt.
“St. Leger dove into the Thames to save a child and then we all pulled St. Leger out.” He sounded subdued. “We all got wet. St. Leger got the wettest, of course.”
Angelique’s hand went to her throat. “I heard. Lucien, are you . . . ? And is he . . . ? And the child . . . ?”
“St. Leger and the child are both fine. As am I.”
An awkward little lull ensued, to be expected in the aftermath of an unresolved argument. The two people involved were taking each other’s emotional temperature.
Lucien tried for levity. “I’ve a little experience, as you know, with being tossed in the drink so it was a good thing I was there to advise.”
When he’d been an angry young bastard son of a neglectful duke, someone in his life had a selfish reason to want him dead. He’d been set upon and tossed into the Thames late one night and assumed drowned. Fate had intervened in the form of a rescue; he’d disappeared from London. A resurrected Lucien had gone on to shock the ton nearly a decade later.
Angelique was quiet a moment.
“Lucien, when you joke about being tossed into the drink . . .”
“Yes?” He pulled off his shirt.
“I’ve never told you this . . . but I’ve had nightmares about it. About what you told me about the night you were kidnapped and thrown into the Thames and how you could have drowned.”
He froze.
Good God, was he beautiful. She’d been married for more than a year, but when confronted by her husband’s bare torso, Angelique still felt a spasm of stunned longing.
“I dream of you sinking, alone in the water . . . and I wake up and I stifle my screams with my pillow so I don’t wake you.”
He stared at her.
“Holy Christ,” he breathed.
“Do you have nightmares about it, too?” she asked.
He tossed his wet shirt across a chair. He was quiet for a long moment. “I do,” he confessed. “And then I jolt awake. And turn over. And when I see you, I decide that it doesn’t matter whether I’m alive or dead. If you’re there, I’m in heaven, either way.”
She exhaled a stunned laugh. He did this, always: brought her close to tears by saying something beautiful as if it were a cardinal truth.
This side of Lucien was for her only.
She looped her arms around his bare waist and pulled him closer. She laid her warm cheek against his hard abdomen. “Lucien, I love you. You’re so chilly,” she murmured. “Sit with me.”
He sat.
She tugged the coverlet up to cover the two of them and put her arms around him, so she could warm him.
“Did you enjoy sleeping with Captain Hardy?” she murmured.
“I did not. It’s like sleeping next to a plank. He made me wear a nightshirt.”
She smiled.
“Did you like sleeping next to Delilah?”
“I did, at that. She smells nice and we had a good chat.”
Lucien laughed.
They sat quietly. “I don’t ever have to joke about it again, Angelique, if you don’t want me to.”
“I know that humor is what you do with painful things. We both do it. Joke if you must, in company. I mean that sincerely. I just wanted you to know that I have never once thought of it lightly. The notion that anyone could hurt you . . .”
He nodded, silently, very moved.
For a moment they sat together wordlessly.
“Angelique . . .” The word sounded hesitant.
She turned to him.
“I think I know what was bothering you last night. About the governess.” He took a breath. “It’s to do with Derring. And the others before. Or rather . . . is it?”
“It was,” she said, stiltedly. “Yes. In a way.”
Lucien closed his eyes. “I’m devastated if even for an instant I made you feel like . . . something to partake of. You are so indescribably precious to me.”
“I knew you would suffer over it, Lucien, and I . . . I really cannot bear the idea of you suffering.”
“I understand. But Angelique . . . I need you to understand this, too: for you I would bear anything.”
She drew in a long, shuddering breath.
“Thank you,” she whispered.
He gently brushed her tears from her eyes.
“And Lucien, last night . . . you did nothing wrong. You always make me feel cherished. I was just very tired, as we all are, and feeling a little raw, and . . . somehow your playfulness found that vulnerable place in me and it hurt quite a bit. I’m sorry, too. I should have been able to tell you.”
Thusly, two slightly battered people with old wounds destined to every now and then ache held each other fast and forgave.
“St. Leger is a brave man, Angelique. You have my permission to make love to him if the two of you are the last humans standing in an apocalypse.”
She gave a shout of laughter.
And she kissed him, lingeringly. He sighed, with pleasure, against her lips.
“Do I have permission to make love to my husband right now?” she murmured.
“Permission granted,” he growled, and he tugged her down with him onto the bed.
