She drew up a chair. “And if I’m honest, there’s another reason I returned.” Her voice softened. “I was worried. I didn’t want you to be alone.”
Good Lord. How was it that this woman saw the rest of the world through the gauzy filter of some fairy tale but had an eagle’s keenness when it came to Ransom’s shortcomings? No matter how small the weakness, now matter how he tried to hide it . . . she homed in on that vulnerability and latched onto it with talons.
She sat down next to him. “Finding that poor man’s remains . . .” He sensed her shudder. “Well, it shocked us all. But it seemed to truly unnerve you.”
It had. It had unnerved him greatly. Because it could have been him.
He leaned forward, letting his head hang toward the floor. Two hundred years from now, that could have been him. A wasted, forgotten sack of bones in this castle.
“I’ll have you know, Goodnight, you have been the ruination of all my plans.”
“All of them?” she said. “Really? That sounds like an accomplishment.”
“Don’t be so smug. There weren’t many plans left to ruin. There was exactly one plan remaining, in point of fact, which was to stay here until I rotted to dust.” He sat tall again and pushed a hand through his hair. “Then you came along.”
“Don’t tell me you’ve found the desire to live again, and it’s all to do with me.” Fabric whispered as she slid farther into her chair. “I wouldn’t recognize you.”
“For God’s sake. Don’t do that.”
“Don’t do what?”
“Smile.”
“How do you know I’m smiling?”
“I can hear it. Hell, I can feel it. It’s all warm and sweet and . . .” He scowled. “Bah.”
She made a little crooning noise. “Oh, Ransom.”
“That’s even worse.” He lifted his shoulders, as if they could shield his ears. “See, this is why you’ve ruined everything. Just ask that fellow we found in the wall. For centuries now, a man couldn’t find a better place than Gostley Castle to shrivel up and decay. Not anymore. Now there are draperies and dinner parties. It’s insupportable.”
“Maybe,” she said gently, “this means you should return to London. Rejoin the world of the living.”
He shook his head. Return for what? There was nothing for him there.
He had no true friends. He’d never wanted them. He was the Duke of Rothbury, one of the highest-ranked and wealthiest men in England. He didn’t need to go courting acceptance, and anyone who tried to court his favor was a candidate for suspicion. They could only want something from him.
As for enemies . . . In his youth, he’d collected enemies like a boy collects shiny pebbles. If people hated him, at least he knew he came by that revulsion honestly. And it wasn’t as though his enemies could hurt him. He was invulnerable.
Right up until the moment he wasn’t.
Damn his eyes. Of all the injuries to incur. If he’d lost a hand, he could have done without. For that matter, he could have given a leg. Both of them. But unless he regained his sight, he could never manage his affairs unaided. Now he was a prisoner of his own youthful arrogance. Left alone, with no one he could trust.
Well, he revised grudgingly, that wasn’t quite true tonight.
Right now, he was very much not alone. He couldn’t remember ever being so aware of a woman in his life. The rawness of his senses was painful. Izzy was killing him in a hundred tiny ways.
The fire she’d stoked was sending waves of heat in his direction, and they were all scented of her. Smoky and herbal. He felt drugged by her nearness.
He could hear her removing the pins from her hair. One by one, those slender bits of metal hit the side table. Each tap concussed his eardrums like a powder blast.
Then she sighed. Just the faintest, softest release of breath. The sound swept through his chest like a hurricane, with the force to topple trees.