A Risk Worth Taking (24 page)

“Was your father in love with someone else?”

“Not someone. Something. His next drink. My father loved his next bottle of whiskey too much to even know how he destroyed everything he touched.”

Griff didn’t move. He couldn’t. He felt the color drain from his face and sank back as if a heavy weight had dropped onto his chest.

The air in the close confines of the carriage stilled as if both of them had ceased breathing.

I need to know which one of us you choose.

Bloody hell. This was the risk she was taking.

“Your father was a drunkard?”

She lowered her gaze to her hands twisting in her lap. “I don’t remember him ever being sober.”

“I didn’t know.”

“Not many did. For the most part, he kept to himself in the country and did his drinking where no one could see him. We rarely went to London, where anyone would realize his problem.”

“How did he die? I remember he had an accident of some sort.”

“His pride and joy were his stables. He loved to ride. The more inebriated he was, the faster he rode and the
more chances he took. When I was sixteen, he took out a new horse he’d just purchased. The horse was not as tame as the others, nor was it used to Father. He was drunk and had no business riding. He tried to jump a row of hedges and missed. He broke his neck in the fall. Mother died of loneliness less than a year later. She’d lived her whole life thinking her love could make him stop drinking. After he was gone, she could not live with her failure. She loved him too much to go on without him.”

“And you will not make that same mistake?”

He heard the soft gasp that caught the air in her throat. She appeared untouchable. He waited, but she didn’t answer him.

Her silence was more telling than a thousand words.

“Are you afraid I might be like your father?”

She opened her mouth to speak, then closed it again as if she couldn’t find the courage to tell him she did. Couldn’t find the courage to tell him she was terrified that someday a bottle of liquor would be more important to him than she. Instead, she said the last words he ever expected to come from her mouth.

“We will go day by day. One day at a time.”

The air drained from his lungs. “What did you say?”

“I said, we’ll go day by day, one day at a time, and we’ll be fine.”

His mind raced back to the time right after he’d brought her to London. To when he lay in a secluded room at Adam’s town house and thought he would die before the liquor in his body left him. To the time when he thought Julia had come to him, held his hand, placed a cool cloth on his forehead, and whispered encouragement in his ear. To
when the words
just stay with me and I’ll help you, day by day, one day at a time
had been all that kept him going.

But Julia hadn’t spoken those words. They’d been spoken by Anne. She’d been the one at his bedside, not Julia. Anne knew how strong a hold liquor had on him. She knew he was a drunkard just like her father, struggling to stay away from that next drink, wondering when he could no longer push it away, when the blessed relief of a drink would be more important than his wife or his family. No wonder she didn’t want to marry him. No wonder she had demanded that he choose between her and the glass of whiskey he’d cradled in his hand.

“May I ask you a question, sir?”

He slowly turned his head to look at her.

“The day you came to see me at the cottage to tell me I had to go to London to find a husband, I made the mistake of assuming you had come to offer marriage yourself. You told me then you would rather face a firing squad than marry. Is the idea of marriage still so reprehensible?”

“That is a moot point, wife. Just as your reasons for not wanting to marry me are no longer of importance. Any reason we might have had before for avoiding matrimony was taken out of our hands when Lord Portsmouth walked through that door and found us together.”

He turned to keep watch out the window. “We have both made the devil’s bargain.”

Before he could see her reaction to his statement, a loud pop stopped him from saying whatever else he intended to say. The carriage jerked hard to the right.

Before he had time to reach for the pistol in his jacket pocket, the carriage lurched forward. The jolt tossed him across the seat.

The sound of horses’ screaming clashed with the driver’s loud yells. The carriage tipped precariously, then rolled end over end.

Griff clutched Anne tightly as the carriage turned over. They were tossed about like little marbles shaken in a cup. His only thought was to protect her from being hurt.

There was a loud crack of splintering wood, then the carriage careened headlong down a sharp ravine and through the thick underbrush off the side of the road. The frightened look on Anne’s face and her bloodcurdling scream were the last things Griff remembered before they came to a jarring halt.

Anne couldn’t move. Every muscle in her body refused to obey her orders to move. She had a stitch in her side where she’d slammed against the edge of the seat, and her head pounded as if she’d knocked it against something hard. Otherwise, she thought she was unhurt.

Griff lay sprawled on top of her. He’d taken the brunt of the bruises in his effort to protect her.

She pushed against him to ease him off of her, but she couldn’t move him. She needed to see if he was hurt.

“Griff?” She pressed her hands between their bodies until she touched his face. Her fingers felt something warm and wet. “Griff!” she yelled, pushing harder to ease him from on top of her.

His weight shifted and he moaned.

“Griff, let me up so I can see how badly you’re hurt.”

He pushed himself off her then shook his head as if trying to clear it.

She knew the exact moment he remembered what happened.

He clasped his hands on either side of her face. “Are you all right?”

“I’m fine. But I think you may need some assistance.”

“No, it isn’t serious.” He touched her arms and straightened her legs, then tipped her face to check for any cuts or bruises. “Are you sure you’re unhurt?”

“Yes.” She looked up. The bottom of the carriage was where the top should be. They had tipped over. “Is it possible for us to get out?”

He pushed on a door until it opened. “Here, let me crawl over you and I’ll help you out.”

Anne moved her skirts and made room for him to step over her, then sat up when he was out of the carriage. She turned around in a very unladylike manner, then climbed out of the carriage with little trouble.

“Are you sure you’re uninjured?” he asked again, running his hands up and down her arms.

“Yes, but you have a gash above your eye. Here, let me see it.”

He stood still barely long enough for her to take the handkerchief from his pocket and wipe the blood away. She was relieved to see the gash was not very deep and had already stopped bleeding. Before she finished, their driver ran up with the two horses in tow.

“Mr.
Blackmoor”—the driver dropped the reins and let the horses munch on the thick grass—“are you and the mistress all right?”

“Yes, Franklin. Thank you.”

“I can’t understand what could have happened. One minute everything was fine, then there was this loud pop and the horses took off. It’s a good thing I had just slowed down for that crossing there.” He pointed to a small path that intersected with theirs. “Or it would have been a lot worse. You could have gone into the stream and drowned.”

Griff walked over to where the front of the carriage hung in the air. Franklin followed him, still scratching his head.

“Well, don’t that look odd,” Franklin said, reaching up to touch the splintered bar of wood that was the tongue of the carriage. “You just got this carriage not too long ago, and look how that piece looks rotted through. Like it wasn’t a good piece of wood to start with. Or like someone mighta sawed it part of the way through.”

The breath caught in Anne’s throat. She turned her gaze to Griff’s. The hard look on his face blazed with smoldering fury.

“Did someone tamper with the carriage, Griff?”

His face was pale, the dangerous look in his eyes sent shivers down her spine. He didn’t answer but fisted his hands at his side.

“We need to get you home. Are you capable of riding a horse if I hold you?”

She nodded in answer.

“Franklin,
bring the horses. We’ll ride them home, and you can come back for the carriage later. Don’t touch anything until I have a chance to look at it.”

The groom nodded in understanding, then brought the horses over. Griff helped her mount, then got up behind her.

They rode in silence the rest of the way. With each turn in the road, Anne felt him distance himself from her. Even though his arms still held her close and his broad chest shielded her from harm, his silence told her he blamed himself for the accident. The manner in which he kept her at arm’s length told her he was afraid his nearness was what had caused her harm.

As soon as they reached Covington Manor, he lifted her in his arms and carried her to the house.

“I’m not hurt, Griff. I am quite capable of walking by myself.”

He ignored her protests and carried her through the front door and up the stairs. He issued orders with every step upward. He instructed the maid, Martha, to follow. For a warm bath to be sent up. For a tea tray to be prepared. For Anne to be waited on and her every need seen to.

The minute he was assured the staff had done his bidding, he turned his back and left without a word.

If the carriage ride were a sign of things to come, it was an ominous beginning to their marriage and her life at Covington Manor.

A
nne was glad he didn’t make her wait long after she’d bathed and dressed before he came to her. She sat in the window seat overlooking the garden below when he knocked. She bid him enter.

“Are you better?” he asked when he came into the room.

She couldn’t keep her eyes from taking in every inch of him. He’d shed the strict black tailcoat he’d worn to their wedding and now wore a casual burgundy jacket that brought out the vivid blue of his eyes and his dark features. The snow-white linen shirt and cravat he wore beneath the jacket only accentuated his bronzed complexion. Her hands ached to reach out and touch him.

“I’m fine. I wasn’t hurt. Just tossed around a bit.” She stood. “Was the carriage tampered with?”

He avoided looking at her. “I’m not sure.”

“Yes, you are.”

His gaze darted to hers, the tight clench of his mouth an indication of his harshly controlled emotions. “Yes, it was. But I’ve increased the guards. You’ll be safe as long as you don’t go any farther than the gardens.”

“I don’t blame you for what happened to the carriage.”

“Well,
you should,” he fired back. “You should wish we had never met. We had never married. That we had never kissed that first time.”

“Because that is what you wish?” She was unable to ignore the rigid expression on his face.

She heard him breathe a heavy sigh. When he spoke again, his voice was much softer, his words much calmer. He had distanced himself from her again.

“Does your room meet with your approval? Is there anything else you need?”

“I have everything I need. The room is lovely. Thank you.” She let her gaze focus on their bedroom. It was beautifully decorated in rose and burgundy and cream, and accented in shades of blue. A huge four-poster bed took up most of one side of the room, and a dressing table, mirror, and two chaise longues sat off to the other side. A large, open window covered a major portion of the wall facing the garden, and beneath it was a long, embroidery-cushioned window seat.

“I’m glad you like it,” he answered. “There is a sitting room through here”—he led her beyond a door on the opposite side of the room—“with a sofa and chairs, and a small fireplace. And a writing desk and window seat over here. My bedroom is through that door.” He pointed to the far side of the room.

A small pain stabbed through her. He didn’t intend to share the same room with her.

“Is it normal for husbands and wives to keep separate bedrooms?” she asked.