Because this wasn’t imagined fear. Not anymore. This was genuine terror for the safety of someone she cared about. Someone she loved. She loved him, and it didn’t matter that he’d sabotaged all their hard work and future happiness today. If he was out there somewhere, hurting in the dark, she had to help.

And then—just as she’d finally worked loose the knot on her second boot—she heard noises in the courtyard. She ran to the window.

Oh, thank heaven.

He was home.

He was home, his arm slung over Duncan’s shoulder, and he was . . . laughing.

Laughing?

Her fear was gone. In its place, she knew a rush of pure fury.

Izzy stormed down the staircase and into the great hall, just in time to greet the returning men.

She wrapped her arms about herself to stop her trembling. “Ransom. I’ve been worried sick. Where have you been?”

Duncan seemed to know his cue to clear out. “I have some . . .” He gestured vaguely toward the ceiling. Then turned his head to look over his shoulder. “The laundry. Need to . . .”

“Just go,” Izzy pleaded.

He went, and gratefully.

“My thanks,” Ransom called after him. “For all of it.”

Duncan paused and bowed. “It was my honor.”

“So?” She hugged herself tight. “Where have you been?”

“I’ve been . . .” He gestured expansively. “Making friends.”

Making friends? She couldn’t have been more astonished if he’d answered, Chasing unicorns.

“Where?” she asked. “And with whom?”

“Well, I started at the vicarage. Wendell Butterfield was there for dinner with the Pelham family. Then, after a few hours, I went to the village inn. When their public room closed for the night, I moved on to the seedy tavern. The Musky Boar, I think it’s called. Charming, sticky little place, filled with interesting types. At least one or two of them could read.”

“Read.”

“Yes,” Ransom said. “You see, that’s what I’ve been doing. Moving from place to place all evening. I needed something read aloud to me, and I couldn’t ask you. Something important.”

“Oh? And what was that?”

“The Goodnight Tales.”

She felt his answer like a blow to the knees. “Oh, no.”

“Oh, yes. It became clear to me today, if I had any hope of ever understanding you, deserving you, much less winning you back—I needed to know what was in those stories. And now, thanks to Abigail and Mr. Butterfield, and the kindly patrons of the local drinking spots, I’ve been through the entire saga. Start to finish. Not that the tale is finished, of course. I’ve some questions for you about that.”

No. No.

Not him. Not Ransom. The one man who didn’t treat her like some insipid little girl in a fairy tale but as a full-grown woman. A beautiful temptress of a woman, with interesting ideas and sensual wit.

Now that he’d read all those stories, he’d be just like Lord Archer and Abigail and everyone else.

Izzy reeled away from him before he could do something soul-destroying. Like pat her on the head. Or offer her a sweetmeat.

He sang out, “Put out the light, my darling Izzy, and I’ll tell you such a tale.”

She choked back a sob. “How could you?”

“How could I?” he asked. “How could you? That’s what I want to know. I must say, I have some sympathy for those people who write you so many letters. No wonder they’re deranged. Ulric’s been left hanging for more than a year now, and Cressida’s still stuck in that tower . . . You must tell me who the Shadow Knight is. I need that much, at least. I have my theories, but—”

She buried her face in her hands. “This is terrible. Not you, too.”

“Yes, me, too. I’m a full-blooded Moranglian. A convert to the wondrous enchantment that is The Goodnight Tales.” He stretched out on the sofa, folding his arms beneath his head and facing the ceiling. “You warned me the first few years were rubbish. I’ll give you, you were right on that score. Juvenile and predictable, for the most part.”

“Predictable?” Against all logic, Izzy was a bit miffed.

He went on talking. “But then, somewhere into Cressida’s second kidnapping, the story started to change. Like a good whisky aging in a barrel. There were deeper layers, more shadings of emotion. And the words painted such vivid pictures. I could see it all happening in my mind. So clearly, as if it were taking place before me, but the story kept taking me by surprise. By the time we reached the end—or the Not The End—I was riveted to my barstool. The tavern didn’t even exist. I found myself wishing I were half the man Ulric is. I don’t mind saying, I’m rather taken with Cressida.”

She whimpered with despair.

“But the biggest shock of all had nothing to do with the characters or the storyline.” He sat up, facing her. His dark eyes seemed to focus on hers. “It had to do with you.”

Her heart quivered in her chest.

Oh, God. He knew.

“Yes,” he said, confirming her fears. “I know the truth.”

That was it, then. Her charade of thirteen years was up. He knew everything.

Which left Izzy with only one possible response.

Run.

Chapter Twenty-three

With a painful gasp, Izzy broke the icy veneer of her panic. She tore from the great hall and dashed up the spiraling staircase.

“Izzy.”

She rushed on.

He chased after her. “Izzy, stop. Don’t run from me, damn it. Don’t ever run from me.”

She stumbled to a halt in the corridor, putting one hand to the wall for strength.

He was right. Lady Emily Riverdale had run from him. She’d done it because of Izzy’s stories, and in doing so, the girl had ruined Ransom’s life.

If Izzy could give him nothing else, she owed him this. The chance to confront her, face-to-face.

So she stopped running. And turned to face the truth.

“Ransom, I . . . I can’t imagine how you must be feeling right now.”

“Oh,” he said, “I think you can.”

He caught her by the waist and steered her into the nearest room—which happened to be the newly refurnished, never yet used ducal chamber.

He kicked the door shut behind them.

“You did dream up all those outlandish stories, after all. So it’s clear that you can imagine quite a lot of things.” As he spoke, he backed her toward the bed. “So perhaps you can put yourself in my place, as I sat there—first in the vicarage, then the inn, then that sticky tavern—slowly coming to the certain realization that the author of these tales was not Sir Henry Goodnight. It was, and always had been, you.”

The edge of the mattress hit her in the back of the knees, and she fell backward onto the bed. He fell with her, caging her with his limbs and using his weight to pin her to the mattress.

“So, tell me.” His voice was as dark and hollow as a cave. “Can you possibly imagine how I felt? Can you put a name to that intense emotion that filled my chest so completely, it pained my ribs?”

“Anger,” she guessed, feeling faint.

He shook his head. “Wrong.”

“Rage? Betrayal?”

“Wrong, and wrong again.” He touched her lips, tracing their shape with his thumb. “It was pride. Oh, my Izzy. I was so damned proud of you, I thought my heart would burst.”

Her heart stopped beating altogether.

“Proud of . . .” She cleared a lump from her throat. “What do you mean? How could you be proud of me?”

“Stop that nonsense. Don’t pretend anymore, not with me.” He swiped away her tear. “I was proud because you wrote it. You wrote all of it.”

“Yes, and that means it’s all my fault. My work is to blame for Lady Emily’s elopement. Your injuries and blindness. The fact that you’re now on the brink of losing everything. It’s my fault, all of it.”

“Then all I can say is . . .” He inhaled and exhaled slowly. “Bless you. Thank you.”

“You can’t mean those things.”

“But I do. If you had not taught that silly, flighty Emily Riverdale to dream of love, I would have had no chance of believing in it, myself. I would not have come here. I would not have met you. Even if I had, I would have been too arrogant and hardheaded to ever let you close.”

He dropped his head, burying his face in her neck. “Izzy, I owe you everything. You are my heart. My very life. If you leave me . . . ”

His voice broke. Her heart swelled.

She slid her arms around his neck and hugged him tight. “If you’ll only let me hold you, I won’t ever let you go.”

They kissed deeply, sweetly. And slowly. As though now they had all the time in the world.

“I’m so sorry for earlier,” he said. “The stupid things I said. I was a bastard.”

“I won’t argue.”

“I ruined all your work. Worse, I destroyed all the plans I’d been making.”

Her brow wrinkled. “What plans had you been making?”

“Well, to begin with . . .” He rose up on his elbows. “I’d been planning to seduce you in this bed tonight.”

Izzy swallowed. “Has that plan altered?”

Please say no. Please say no.

“Yes, it has.” He rose up and straddled her waist. “I don’t think seduction is called for. I think you’re overdue for a ravishing.”

A thrill shot through her.

Yes.

This was just what part of her craved—for him to take control. Just this once. She’d been the responsible person in the Goodnight household since the age of ten. All those years of feverishly scribbling stories, working to keep bread on the table and oil in the lamps. Then the constant tension of keeping the truth to herself—always counting her statements in any conversation, clenching her fists and holding her tongue. Making sure no one got close enough to guess. Because she needed to guard not only their family income but the dreams and hopes of thousands.

And all the while, she’d been yearning for someone to take care of her. She’d dreamed of this. A man strong enough to protect her, bold enough to see her for who she truly was. Willing to claim her for his own.

She was long overdue for a ravishing. A lifetime overdue.

But it couldn’t happen tonight.

When he laced his hands with hers and pushed her back against the bed, she protested. “No.”

He frowned. “No?”

“Not like this. I can’t let you ravish me.”

She took advantage of his surprise, turning and flipping their positions on the bed so that she lay sprawled atop him.

“Tonight,” she vowed, “I’m going to ravish you.”

Ravish him?

Ransom made a halfhearted attempt at demurring. He muttered a few incoherent words of protest. But his body betrayed him.

“I know you want it,” she whispered, hiking her skirts to straddle his hips.

And he did. He wanted this badly indeed.

She couldn’t know what it meant to him, to be pushed back against the bed, divested of all his clothing, and then . . . just touched. Caressed. And best of all, kissed. Kissed everywhere. With no reciprocation or compensation expected. Nothing up for barter or exchange. Just the outpouring of her sweetness, her passion. Her beautiful heart.

She kissed him everywhere. Everywhere.

He found it adorable, some of the places she chose to grace with her lips. The inside of his elbow. His knobby chin. His hairy, muscled calves. And all the while, her soft, sensual hair dragged over his skin, like a thousand caressing fingers.

She kissed his lips, of course, sliding her tongue deep to twine with his. She kissed his cheeks and temples—both the unmarked and the scarred. She kissed the tender place just beneath his ear, and she ran her tongue down the center of his chest and . . .