Seize the Fire (59 page)

Beneath his hands, he felt a faint quiver begin to grow in her. She stayed still, but the trembling intensified. She bit her lip. A single tear tumbled down her cheek.

Sheridan pressed his mouth to the shining drop. He held her face cupped in his hands, just held her, not speaking, not looking into her eyes.

"They killed Julia," she said in a squeaky voice. Her whole body was shaking. "I saw it."

He stroked his thumbs across her skin, feeling the tears begin to spill down her cheeks.

"And my uncle and my g-grandfather." Her body shook in a hiccuping breath. "That crowd—my people…" She sounded like a child. "I never thought they could be like that. Like…animals. They just…swept over everyone. The lancers. They trampled them. Took their swords." She pulled back, looked up at him, her green eyes swimming. "And Julia came out of the door, and they killed her. She hadn't done anything. Not anything."

He pushed back the wet tendril of hair that clung to her temple, his hands gentle.

"I was always so jealous of Julia," she whispered. "Sometimes I wished she was dead. And look what I did. I was the cause of that—mob—and they killed her." She looked at Sheridan helplessly. "Do you think I killed her?"

"I don't care," he said. "Listen to me. I won't say it would have happened anyway if you hadn't walked out of that church. I don't know what would have happened. Maybe I'd have shot Claude Nicolas and be hanging for it now. Julia's no loss to me; she was a scheming, selfish bitch, but Princess, I wouldn't care if she'd been Joan of Arc—I can't find a moral in it and say the blame lies here or there or with somebody else. I just don't know. We're dominoes—we fall one way or we fall another." He kept stroking her cheeks. "I don't care. I only know I'd love you whichever way it fell out."

She bit her lip. "I don't deserve that."

"Oh, Jesus…If we all only got what we deserved…" He shook his head and squeezed his eyes shut against new tears. "Pray God to spare me that," he whispered.

He let her go and sat back, cold and drained and aching. The chilly mist drifted down around them, sinking like midnight into his bones. His arm hurt, and his heart felt like an open wound in his chest. He stared at the crushed grass beneath his knees.

Please—spare me that
, he thought, and wondered what would happen to him if she didn't. He couldn't go back now to the numb denial; he'd put himself in the open with no way to retreat. He was too tired to move; if she turned away from him, he would just give up. He would sit here on his knees with the rain and the gray mist and the sky and never get up again.

He gazed up into the low clouds above him, pale gray between the black towers, his hands locked gently together, resting between his legs. With clean rain and salty tears sliding down his temples he waited for his fate.

A long time passed.

A long, long time.

He felt himself vanishing, fading away like the mist that drifted over the gargoyles and monsters carved on his father's house.

And then something touched him: a soft touch on his hand, and then on his face. He turned toward her, trying to swallow down the emotion. She came into his arms. He couldn't speak; he knelt on the ground and held her against him.

"Sheridan." Her lips were trembling, her voice a feeble breath next to his ear. "My terrible lonely wolf." Her arms tightened, and he could feel the wetness on her face against his throat.

He stroked her hair with shaking hands.

"I'm here," she said into his shoulder. "I'm here, and I love you. I love you no matter what."

Laura Kinsale

Laura Kinsale, a former petroleum engineer, is the New York Times bestselling author of THE SHADOW AND THE STAR, SEIZE THE FIRE, THE PRINCE OF MIDNIGHT, FLOWERS FROM THE STORM, FOR MY LADY'S HEART, and THE DREAM HUNTER. She and her husband divide their time Santa Fe and Dallas.