Page 126 of The Duke's Counterfeit Wife

And there was Bull, dangling by one hand from the railing post.

Christ. Jesus Christ, thank ye!

Then Griffin was lying on his stomach—his injury a distant throbbing as his heart recovered—his hands reaching for Bull.

They caught the lad’s wrist in both hands just as Bull’s grip gave out.

And then he was dangling there, this son he’d come to love dangling from both of Griffin’s hands, looking downward.

…to where his other hand gripped the leather strap of the camera.

The leather strap Totwafel desperately clutched, the only thing keeping him from plummeting into the maelstrom of water below.

“Bull!” Griffin grunted, trying to get the lad’s attention. He could hold the slight young man, but not him and Totwafel. “Bull.”

The lad turned his face upward, and Griffin’s heart broke at the fear he saw in those gray eyes. Eyes which looked so much like Felicity’s, despite the difference in color.

“Bull, let go,” he commanded, his voice strained.

“Her camera…” When the lad shook his head, his weight shifted. Totwafel slid closer to the churning water below, and Bull’s wrist slipped through Griffin’s hold. “Da!”

“I’ve got ye.” But for how much longer? “Look at me, Bull. Breathe.” The lad met his eyes, and Griffin held his gaze, trying to convey how serious this was. “Ye are more important than the damned camera, or Wilson. I’m telling ye this as yer father. Let go.”

Thank all the saints, the lad listened.

Bull’s fingers uncurled, releasing the camera’s leather strap. For a moment, Totwafel and the camera hung suspended in the air, shock on the man’s face, then he fell.

When he hit the water, he was wailing.

Griffin let out a long breath, then flexed. It wasn’t easy to lift Bull, not with the angry wound across his torso, but there was no question of not doing it. Besides, Bull now had a free hand to help.

In a moment, the pair of them were lying, panting on the top of the bridge, Griffin’s arms around the lad.

He called ye Da. In the heat of the moment, when it mattered, he didnae call ye Gruff or Griffin, but Da.

Griffin squeezed his eyes shut and burrowed his nose against Bull’s hair, thanking God for allowing him to reach the lad in time.

This lad, and his mother…they were his family. His and Marcia’s and Rupert’s. They were a family, even if it wasn’t legal.

This was where his heart belonged.

Now he just had to convince them.

And the Duke.

Chapter 23

And now it was a day later.

Felicity doubted she’d recover from yesterday’s horror, but several facts were doing their best to make up for it:

The fluffy ball of surprisingly affectionate kitten currently curled in her lap.

The fact that Griffin’s arm was thrown across the back of the sofa, behind her shoulders, and his thumb occasionally rubbed a soothing circle across her upper arm.

The bracing cup of tea she’d just enjoyed from the trolley which contained—she suspected thanks to Mrs. Mac—a bracing splash of bracing whisky.

Perhaps a bit more than a splash.

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