Page 66 of Crying Wolfe
Eli glanced between it and the lethal blackguard next to him. He’d stripped her of garters, clasps, ribbons, and everything, tore them right off her tender flesh. No wonder the wad of delicate clothing was heavier than expected.
“If you place them in here, you may retrieve the satchel from the butler’s office after you’ve been cleared to leave,” Dorian offered, shaking the satchel as if to prompt him to hurry.
“Thank you, kindly.” Eli gracelessly stuffed it all inside the bag and snapped it closed, not liking his wife’s underthings exposed to another man’s eyes.
Er…eye, on account of him only having the one.
“Think nothing of it, Mr. Wolfe. Now this way, if you please.”
Eli spent the wait milling over the words his wife had hurled at him. Grinding them down to examine their contents, to examine it for a vein of truth in the grit of the emotion. He barely felt the search, spreading his arms and legs in a Vitruvian stance while a stoic man patted him in places no other man had dared venture.
“Easy there, bucko,” he warned. “None of your counterparts better dare to touch my wife like that, or you’ll be sucking on the barrel of my pistol.”
“Not to worry,” drawled the older Scottish gentleman with kind blue eyes. “The lasses will be searched by a woman.”
“All right, then,” Eli nodded, wishing he felt better. That he didn’t fear what they might find.
By the time he was cleared, it was all Eli could do not to sprint from Northwalk Hall in search of Rosaline.
“Mr. Wolfe!” the butler called, puffing after him. “Mr. Wolfe! You’ve forgotten your satchel.”
Whirling, Eli took the bag and thanked the butler. “Do you know if the ladies are finished?”
“The ones who are should be waiting in the drive.” The butler pointed around to the front where a mess of carriages awaited the mass exodus. “I’ve been told to inform you that Mrs. Wolfe was among the first searched, and was seen hiring a hansom to conduct her away.”
Cursing, he sprinted for his carriage.
Her eyes had been so raw, her expression so wounded and bleak. A part of him worried she might do herself a mischief.
A picture of her standing on the ledge of Hespera House caused him to push his driver aside and snatch the reins from him.
Whipping the coach into a bracing run over the cobbles, he chanted her name much in the same way he’d done on the night he’d pulled Caleb’s dead body from the rubble.
He wasn’t a praying man, but this time he sent a plea to every deity he’d ever heard of, even the devil himself, promising his very soul if only he could make it to her in time.
CHAPTER14
Rosaline stared up at the stars, her arms flung wide on the damp grass, her legs numb, and her feet fallen open.
In all her time here, she’d never much noticed the gardens at Hespera House. Now that she was unable to move, she wondered if she’d ever leave them.
Bury me here, she thought,beneath the rare winter stars.
It felt as though the dreary winter sky had cleared suddenly…as if the heavens heard her soul’s weary sob and sparkled for her benefit.
How many nights had she stared up at the stars, lonely tears leaking from her eyes, speaking to the constellations as if they were familiar friends?
Even when she’d known better.
Tonight was her last night with this particular sky… She’d never see it again. Some people believed their fates were already written in the stars.
She fervently hoped that was not true. Because she was a blight to all who crossed her path, and her own fate was both confusing and callous.
Though her body was deliciously bruised and her heart bleeding, she also swam in this strange, euphoric sense of relief. She’d told the truth. All of it. And the unburdening of it had made her feel as though she might survive this.
She’d handed Eli his sapphire to do with as he pleased, and now there was nothing between them but the truth of who she was and what she’d done.
The stars would decide what happened next.
