Page 92 of Misadventures with a Duke

“You know it too, Miss Raegan Tavish…oui?” whispers my determined sorceress of a former kitchen maid. But right now, Kavia wields no charmed wood shards or alluring incantations. She summons no extra power but that of the truth. “You have already seen it. Smelled it. Touched it. You have already been touched by…her.”

And there it is.

Too outlandish to consider.

Too terrifying to dream of.

So I do not dare.

“Kavia.” I lower my arm between Raegan and her. I keep going, pushing vehemently enough to make her stumble back. “You will stop.” I swing my gaze up to hers. “Please. She is gone, and I have to accept that. I have accepted it.”

“No. No, my boy. Do you not know it? Do you not see it?”

“Of course I see it, damn it. But that is not the same as wishing such a thing into existence. Rebirth is for Bible passages and folk tales. It is not for—”

“But what if it is?”

My mouth is already open, drawing more air to settle Kavia into her existential place, but stop short when realizing the retort is not hers.

As usual, Raegan Karlinne Tavish has toppled my mind like a brimming apple cart. The fruit tumbles through my mind at wild velocity. Just like her bold, bustling city. Just like her vibrant, passionate spirit. All the ways she challenges me…

But none so much as now.

“I said, Bastien De Leon, what if it is possible?”

She rolls a sweet but strong hand along my outstretched arm. With gentle guidance pulls it around her waist. Along the way, her hair tickles my knuckles. After all the jostling tonight, her shiny strawberry curls have started to tumble free, exactly the way I like them.

Just a tiny part of everything I have grown to love about her.

“Rayonnement?” I hook my other arm around her. “What are you saying?”

I draw her yet closer, needing her here now. Unable to see her anywhere else. More than just my connection to this place and time. She is my bridge back to…me. The life I thought so lost to me. The soul I had all but torched in that loss.

“The whole of it, Raegan.” It is a demand I do not intend but cannot ignore. Something already tells me that her answer is too important for a simple whisper. “You have never distilled the truth from me, woman. Do not begin such disrespect now.”

If she is going to insist that I depart with Kavia and Carl, then she will honor me by saying exactly that.

But dear God, how I pray it is everything but that.

Oh yes, this is me—praying.

And now this is her—smiling.

“Well, I’m not dictating it in code, Desperado.”

She adds to all of the sudden lightness with a small giggle. Laughter? Why? What am I telling myself not to hope for—but dare to do just that anyway?

“Hey. I really am asking this, buddy. I mean, what if…all of this…really is the freaking miracle? What if, in a weird way, I was right about the ultimate plan but wrong about the spark for it?”

I scowl. It is not a proper reply for her mirth, but her honesty deserves the wholeness of my own. “Which means what?”

“Which means…what if you really were just here for a stop-over but not a full arrival? What if you were always meant to return to your own time—but not to rescue Magique? What if you were meant to travel here so you could bring her back with you?”

At once, there are wings springing from my heart. But then I realize they have always been there. All this time, I have been carefully cutting them back, refusing to let them take complete flight. They are poised now, so ready to carry me into the heavens…

But not yet.

“Rayonnement…” The endearment is equally as tenuous. Waiting…for what, I am not fully sure. But it feels like something good. So right. So huge. So full. “Are you really saying…”