Reaver ran a hand through his hair and paced. He couldn’t settle himself. Visions of Augusta being struck by a fist, then reeling backward to slump against a wall, gasping for breath, repeated in his mind like a devil’s trick. It was torment.
“My, for a man who does not favor tea, yours is always excellent. Are you ready for me to examine your hands?”
Halting, Reaver glared at Dr. Young. “My hands are fine.”
“They are bleeding.”
He glanced at his knuckles and snorted. “Should have been broken. Duff pulled me off that wretched bugger before I could finish him.”
Dr. Young cleared his throat and smiled. “Yes, well. Probably for the best. A coroner’s inquiry might interfere with your schedule.”
“Duff reports the man disappeared shortly after we left.”
“Oh?”
“Some of the older boys saw my work and decided they’d complete the job.”
“Well, now,” said the old man, nodding. “It is heartening when boys show an interest in keeping things tidy.”
Reaver huffed and shook his head. “The man kept dozens of them in that house. Ran them as his own thieving ring, used some of them as sweeps for burgling houses. According to Ash, more than one ended in graves because of that—”
“Yes, yes. He was certainly deserving of his punishment.”
“Aye.” Reaver frowned. “How is Ash faring?”
“Quite well, actually. A few bruises and such. But nothing broken. Made of stout stuff, that one. Last I saw of him, he was wheedling an extra plate of bacon from your housekeeper.”
The boy was impressive. Reaver’s gut had twisted painfully to see Ash clinging to Augusta, tears streaking his face. Until she’d awakened, he’d felt a similar need to touch her, beg her to come back and be his strong, steady Gus. His heart had stopped beating when he’d seen her collapse. It had started again only when those soft, gray eyes had fluttered open. She’d regained her normal breathing shortly after Duff wrestled Reaver away from the fight—or bludgeoning, to be more precise, for the heavy-jowled pig hadn’t even taken a swing.
Although she’d insisted she was capable of walking, he’d scooped her into his arms and carried her out to the coach. Then, he’d climbed inside and cradled her, kissing her temple, forehead, and lips over and over. He’d needed the reassurance. She was warm. She was safe. She breathed and clung to his neck. Laughed about being his valise.
It had not been enough. Even holding her through the night, running his hands over her hair and her face and her body, had not been enough.
His mind, having snapped its tether, still scrambled for purchase. He didn’t know what it would take, only that nothing thus far had worked.
Fear and violence and need coursed through him.
“I think I shall take my leave.” A china cup clinked lightly into its saucer. “Time for my afternoon nap.” The physician slowly got to his feet and gave Reaver an assessing sweep. “Consider having a lie-down, yourself. Might settle you a bit.”
He glanced at the light streaming through the window and snorted. “I can scarcely sleep at full dark.”
The man reached up and patted Reaver’s shoulder as he passed. “I said nothing about sleep, young man.”
~~*
Augusta flattened her palms over her bare belly and gazed at her hands in the mirror. She watched them rise and fall with her breaths. She tested the soreness of her abdomen, marveling that it scarcely pained her at all.
She’d been struggling to reconcile the events of the previous day since they’d occurred. No answer had yet appeared. Her hands trembled. Her belly shook. She wondered if she was falling apart or coming together in a new form.
For so long, Phoebe had been everything that mattered. Now, Augusta had Ash. She had Bastian. She had the possibility of a babe of her own. More than one, perhaps.
A smile dawned.
She would like that. Bastian’s babes swelling her belly. Being born. Clinging to her neck. Growing into little giants.
Her life was fuller now. She even had cousins—granted, they were Bastian’s cousins, but they cared whether she was hurt. They’d visited only that morning, Tannenbrook telling her gruffly that she must not place herself in such danger again. Viola had squeezed her hands and sat with her, explaining in her sweet way that Augusta must realize her own importance.
“Do you know why I gave Elijah my list of potential brides?”
Augusta had blinked. “Er, because you wished him to marry?”
“Yes, of course. But I made that list after weeks of meeting his resistance. He refused to discuss marriage—insisted he had no need of a wife. James and I both wanted him to continue the Kilbrenner line, yes, but much more than that, we wished his life to … fill up, I suppose.” Her stunning blue eyes had sheened as she smiled. “They way you filled his empty house.”
She’d explained how, no matter her coaxing or persuasion, Sebastian had resisted with all his considerable will being Elijah Kilbrenner. He’d said again and again that he liked his life precisely as it was, and he’d little interest in changing it.
“Until you,” Viola had continued. “I am most persuasive when I set my heart upon something, but my efforts were in vain. You changed everything. He is happy, Augusta. Filled up entirely. And now, because he wishes to give you a home and a family, he has accepted his place at last. So, you see, you are important. To him. To us. To our family’s future.”
Gently, Augusta had asked why Viola spoke as though there were little chance that Viola might produce an heir apparent.
She had lowered her lashes, her smile turning shaky. “James and I came to London when I was carrying Elizabeth. She is our first child. We—we struggled to conceive her. I struggled to carry her. James found a physician here who specializes in … difficulties of this sort. He helped me deliver our beautiful daughter. But during the birth, I suffered bleeding. He managed to stop it, but he said it is likely I shall not conceive again.”
Viola had explained Tannenbrook’s concern that his estate and the adjacent village pass into capable hands. She’d leaned forward and spoken as though sharing a secret. “He has slept soundly since Elijah asked him for wooing advice. Like a babe after a meal, he’s been. He is convinced you will produce at least a dozen strapping Kilbrenner boys.”
Augusta had glanced at her husband, struck by the thought that she had changed his course—just as he had changed hers. Neither of them were the people they’d been when they met.
Now, as she let her shift fall back into place, she wondered who she was, precisely. No longer a Widmore. No longer simply Phoebe’s sister, standing watch and slaying dragons. She was a wife. A friend. Perhaps soon a mother.
She loved Sebastian with a ferocity that frightened her. Yesterday, when Ash had been in danger, she’d realized how deeply he, too, had anchored himself in her heart. How could she love them all—Ash and Bastian and their children—as much as she’d loved Phoebe without losing herself? How could she stand in the gale and the flood, protecting them as she was driven to do, and come away whole? Loving Phoebe had taken everything she had. And yet, she could not imagine doing anything differently.