The Dying Duke's One-Year Wife Is a Nurse novel · Chapter 22 of 24
Chapter 22: Say You Want a Future
He did not say a word.
He carried her to the bed and sat down on the edge of it with her in his lap, and held her while she wept.
He rocked her slowly.
He stroked her hair and her back in long, steady passes, and when the sobs came harder he kissed her temple and kept on rocking.
It went on a long time.
When it eased, she was limp against his shoulder, hiccupping, with her face swollen and her breath coming in wet pulls.
"I'm sorry," she said.
"Do not."
"I've been fine for weeks. I counted. I did the arithmetic. One year, maybe less, and I put it away like a chart. I did the whole trial in my head and I never once let myself..."
"Let yourself what?"
"Want it. All of it. A house, and you, and a lot of years."
"Why not?"
"Because I'd have to lose it."
He lifted her chin.
His grey eyes were red-rimmed and steady.
"You will not lose it," said Lysander. "I will not permit it."
"You can't order a heart."
"I have been ordering mine around for twenty years, and look at it." He kissed the tip of her nose. "I ask for a different thing. I ask you to say it. Not that you will try, and not that you are not afraid. That you want a future."
"I..."
"Say it with me in you."
Her breath stopped.
He went on, quiet and implacable.
"I am going to make love to you, slowly, until dawn if you like. And every time I stop, you will say it. And you will mean it, and I will know. Because a nurse does not lie to a pulse."
She stared at him.
Then she slid off his lap and stood on unsteady legs.
She walked across the gold carpet to the little travelling box he had put by the fire.
It held three things.
A sand-glass, a book of numbers, and a long folded document in two hands.
The rest of this chapter is part of the paid portion of the series. Chapters 1–6 of The Dying Duke's One-Year Wife Is a Nurse are free to read — start from the beginning, then unlock the rest with coins in the app.
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