Page 61 of Stolen By the Duke of Stone

The final time, the baby placed in her arms was not Percy, but William. And as he lay sleeping peacefully, Jessamine sobbed above him, knowing what would happen and unable to stop it. She cradled him close and kissed his perfect head and begged the heavens to let her keep him.

She’d lost Percy, but at least let her keep William.

But then, just as she had whispered her final prayer to the gods, he jerked in her arms. Convulsed. Spit bubbled in his mouth, and she tried to wipe it clean, tried to hold on to him, but those mysterious hands came anyway, dragging her son away from her, dragging her baby, and she could do nothing but listen and sob as his wheezing, uneven breaths stopped.

“Jessamine!”

The voice was desperate, almost ragged, and her eyelids fluttered open.

She stared into Andrew’s face. Light bloomed beside him. A candle. She was panting, her hair plastered to her head. His eyes, too, were wild, taking her in as though he feared she might have been dead.

“Jessamine,” he said again, a trifle calmer. His hand stroked over her hair in a reassuring gesture that made her heart clench. “It was just a nightmare.”

“A nightmare.” She sat bolt upright. “William. I must⁠—”

“Jessamine.” Andrew held her against him, his strong arms wrapping around her, and in the sudden silence, she heard a baby cry. “He’s all right. Lucy is with him.”

Jessamine exhaled slowly. William was all right. It felt like it couldn’t be true, like everything in her dream was more real than this shadowy reality.

“I know,” he murmured, his heart pounding against her ear. “I get them too.”

“Nightmares where William dies?” she whispered.

“Nightmares,” he said, and the gravel in his voice convinced her.

Whatever he had nightmares about, it was probably just as terrible, just as traumatic. He was probably just as helpless to stop them.

But Jessamine wasn’t helpless.

She disentangled herself from him. “I must see him.”

“It’ll be like when we came home from the ball,” he said, cupping her face between his hands and staring at her seriously. “You will convince yourself he’s in danger or something is wrong, and he will be perfectly fine.”

She licked her lips. “But what if he’s not? What if I take my eyes off him and he’s not, Andrew? How am I supposed to live with myself, then?”

That seemed to have hit a nerve, because his hands loosened on her, and she was able to escape, sliding free of the bed and moving into William’s room in a daze.

Here, she would be here, and she would stay here, and it wouldn’t matter if William’s crying kept her up at night or if she had to spend every single day for the rest of her life here⁠—

It would all be worth it so long as William was all right.

Chapter Twenty-One

Three days passed where Andrew once again barely saw Jessamine. Just like when they first came to the house, she spent all her time in the nursery, barely eating and barely sleeping.

From what he could tell, there was nothing wrong with William, but her nightmare must have shaken her more than she would ever articulate to him.

When he did see her, entering William’s room to find her cradling the babe in her arms, eyes red-rimmed with exhaustion, it was to find the boy perfectly well and something haunted in her face as she looked at him.

He understood what it was like. When he fell into the depths of thinking about what he could have done if only he had been a better captain to his people—if he thought too much about all the men he had lost—then he felt as though he were going mad. And if he could have done something to prevent someone else, another soldier, from dying, then he would.

But as the days passed, he watched as Jessamine became a shadow of herself, eaten away by her fear, and enough was enough.

“All right,” he said, entering the nursery and tapping the doorframe.

The sun had set several hours ago, and night had well and truly fallen on the city. If he were spending a quiet evening at home, it wouldn’t have been long before he would have retired to bed.

And lay away for hours thinking about Jessamine in this room.