“They shot at him?” Fanny turned toward the tents, suddenly feeling slightly sick in her stomach. “How do you know he wasn’t hit?”
“Because he told me,” Rian said, grinning. “Right before he cordially told me to go to hell, asking asinine questions, because he was still walking, wasn’t he? I like him, Fanny, so don’t pest him out of his mind the way you do the rest of us. He wrote to Jack yesterday, told him you’re all right and that he’ll act as your guardian until he can get you home again. So you’re his ward now, I think it’s called, and that means he’s in charge of you.”
“Oh, he is not,” Fanny protested, wishing she felt as confident about that as she sounded. “You’re here. You’ll act as my guardian.”
Rian pushed his spread fingers through his dark hair. “But you see, Fanny, the thing is, I don’t want to. I already know you’d drive a monk to drink, but the Earl doesn’t. Let him find out for himself.”
“And that’s fine with you?” Fanny asked him, looking at him narrowly, and in some disappointment. “You’ll just hand me over to him, a stranger, and wash your hands of me?”
“I washed my hands of you—no, let me start over before you launch yourself at me. I said goodbye to you at Becket Hall, Fanny. I’m here now, where I want to be, and it’s not my fault you got it into your head that we…that we…”
“That I love you,” Fanny whispered, as three soldiers walked by, on their way to their horses. “That you love me. That you’d want to see me as much as I needed to see you. Rian, I’ve been having strange—” She clamped her mouth shut, realizing she’d almost blurted out some nonsense about her frightening dreams, had almost added to his worries. “Please, Rian, understand….”
Rian’s hair took another raking from his stabbing fingers. “Oh, Christ, Fanny-panny. I do love you. You’re my sis—My best friend,” he corrected quickly. “My very best friend, Fanny. But you’re young, and you’ve never seen the world.”
“And you have?” she asked him, blinking back tears as she looked into his beautiful face. His kind eyes. Didn’t he know that he was her world?
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