Page 97 of The Duchess He Couldn’t Resist

“It’s not that bad,” he sighed with relief. “Some ointment and staying off them will have them healed in no time.”

“I told you I am fine.” Marigold smiled.

Brandon looked up at her, still tumultuous. The battle was raging inside him. She lightly touched his cheek to douse the flames inside him, and it seemed to work. His furrowed eyebrows evened, his lips relaxed, and the look in his eyes was no longer that of an untamed beast. But that only made room for another emotion that was overwhelming him. Worry and shame.

“I should have been there,” he said softly.

“You were,” she reminded him.

“I didn’t protect you.”

“You did protect me. You came for me.”

Brandon let go, and his head fell on her lap, his fists curling around her skirts. It was as if he was trying to make sure that she was real, that she was not some illusion that his crazed-with-worry mind had conjured.

“Brandon, please look at me.”

He looked up, and Marigold was floored by the intense emotions swimming in those dark eyes. She had thought of him as cold the first time they met, unemotional and calculating, but she could now see that he was anything but all those things.

“I am here.”

“I almost lost you, Marigold.”

“But you didn’t,” she assured. “You saved me once more, like you did the first night we met in one of these dark alleys.”

“I should have been there. If I were at home to protect you, they wouldn’t have been able to get to you.”

Marigold looked down with shame.

“It was Donny that found me.”

“Found you?” Brandon demanded. “Found you where?”

“I was out on the streets.”

Brandon frowned.

“What were you doing alone out on the streets, Marigold?”

Marigold couldn’t believe that this was the same day that all of this had happened. If only she had stayed in the safety of her home, she would have spared him this pain.

“I was leaving my mother’s.”

Brandon’s back straightened. He was starting to suspect something, and Marigold could now realize that she was being a fool, rash, impulsive.

“What were you doing back there? Did your mother set an ambush for you? Did she lure you back into your house so that she could⁠—”

“No, it was not like that,” Marigold tried to explain. “I went there to ask her to let me stay for the night.”

Brandon’s jaw dropped, and then his lips tightened again. He was breathing heavily when he looked at her with those deep, dark eyes.

“Why would you need to stay the night at your mother’s when you have a whole estate to yourself?”

“I thought you wanted me away.”

Brandon once more had to abandon his anger, and now, he too was caught in shame.

“What did I ever do to make you think I would like you out of the house? Our house?”