How to Lose a Bride in One Night (19 page)
R
elief, dread. Both sentiments washed over her.
Bloodsworth’s hand tightened on her arm again. “Is that him?” he demanded in a low voice.
She nodded and then stopped, catching herself. She did not know
how
to respond. She had never imagined this—Owen and Bloodsworth face-to-face. Of all the worst case scenarios, this was one she had not anticipated.
“Ah. I see that it is he. And from the lovely pink to your cheeks, I gather that you care for him. I imagine that it would hurt a great deal to be the sole reason for his demise.”
All the warmth bled out from her face as his meaning sank in. “You wouldn’t . . .”
He angled his head. “Truly? You think not? I would not even have to dirty my hands this time. I could simply hire some miscreant to dispatch him for me.” He uttered this as though he were remarking on the weather.
She quickly glanced at Owen and back to Bloodsworth again. She knew he spoke the truth. He’d suffer no compunction ending Owen’s life. Owen, who had only ever tried to help her, who tolerated her intrusion and demands on his life. He didn’t deserve such a fate. Especially after all he’d been through. He hadn’t survived a war to come home and be killed by the likes of Bloodsworth.
Her stomach rolled. She pressed a hand to her lips, fearing she might be ill. Swallowing back the tide of bile, she dropped her hand. Her fingers curled into fists at her sides. The sudden urge to inflict violence upon Bloodsworth overcame her. He would not harm Owen. She must see to that.
She would
.
“Leave. Him. Be.”
The duke smiled. “Ah, such fire in your eyes. If looks could kill, I think I’d perish where I stand. Is this love then, my pet? Touching. And so tragic if he should die because you don’t know how to make yourself scarce. Because you didn’t know how to die like a good girl should.”
She flinched at this.
He tsked his tongue and shook his head as though she were a misbehaving child. “You should have never shown your face in Town. Really very unwise.”
“Promise not to harm him, and I’ll disappear.” She spoke quickly, her voice a feverish rush. “I’ll bury myself in some small corner of the country. In years, no one will even recall my face. I am quite forgettable. No one will remember you were ever even married to me.”
He scrutinized her, weighing her words, searching for the truth in her eyes. His gaze flicked to Owen, moving in their direction, before returning to her. “I believe you mean that.” And yet there was something in his words . . . a lingering distrust. Still, he nodded in agreement. “Very well. Know that if you surface, I will kill him. As soon as we part ways, I will follow you. I shall have his name and know where he lives. His life is in your hands.” His fingers tightened on her arm. “Understand?”
She nodded, a relieved breath escaping her. Owen’s fate was in her hands, and she would make certain he was not hurt.
At that moment Owen caught sight of her standing with Bloodsworth and paused. Everything about him tensed. It was imperceptible. And yet she saw it. She knew.
He flicked an imaginary piece of lint off the front of his jacket, but his gaze never left Bloodsworth. To the casual observer, he would appear nonchalant in manner, but she had made a study of Owen from the moment she opened her eyes to him in the back of Mirela’s wagon. She recognized the unwavering intensity of that gaze.
She well remembered his pose. The squared shoulders slightly pulled back. The tension feathering his clenched jaw. She had seen him like this before, on their picnic outside the fair when those two ruffians harassed them. And of course she had not forgotten what he did to those men with such ease and finesse.
Owen looked at her and then back to Bloodsworth, assessing, and she knew he was trying to correctly read the situation. Was Bloodsworth a stranger? Or someone she knew? A friend?
A quick glance revealed that Bloodsworth wore one of his artful smiles. The one she had always thought conveyed polite interest, but now she knew the darkest of thoughts lurked behind it.
Anxiety ribboned through her. Her hand pressed against her side, fingers curling, fisting the fabric of her skirts.
“Come. You have my word. Leave now,” she urged, hoping to avoid a confrontation between the two men.
“I should like to meet your lover,” he mused, clearly enjoying her misery.
“As yourself?” she hissed. “That will only complicate matters.”
He shrugged, neither agreeing or disagreeing.
“Please, stop toying with me,” she murmured. “I’ll leave Town this very night. Just . . .
go
.”
She couldn’t bear to watch Owen turn from her once he knew she was this man’s wife—and surely he would. She only had this last day with him . . . she did not want it full of ugliness.
Her husband cocked his head thoughtfully as Owen, who had paused slightly, now advanced on them, his strides swift and sure, his face cast in its usual blandness.
“Please, he will be upon us any moment.” She tugged at her arm, but Bloodsworth held fast.
“Anna.” Just the sound of that false name made her shiver. Not for the first time she wished Owen knew her real name. “Who is this?”
Bloodsworth cocked his head, surveying Owen.
“I—I—” She looked to her husband, the truth sticking in her throat.
Owen didn’t wait for her to answer, though. Or perhaps her hesitation was the only answer he needed. His gaze locked on Bloodsworth. “Take your hand off her.”
Her husband stiffened at her side, and she was quite certain this was the first time in his life anyone had issued him a command. He pulled back his shoulders, and she knew whatever his intent, he would reveal his identity now. “Do you know who I am?”
“I don’t need to know.”
“Oh, I think you do.”
She sucked in a breath, the tightness in her chest a physical ache.
This had become worse than facing Bloodsworth and falling into his clutches again. Owen turning his back on her—losing him. That was the worst part of all this. Even if she had to leave him.
She did not acknowledge the fact that she had never
had
Owen in the first place. Somehow she had felt bonded to him since the beginning. She had fooled herself into feeling safe with him. Absurd, when she was married to a man who would rather kill her than have her for a wife. She should have never been lulled into a sense of safety.
Owen was not hers. Never had that been clearer than now.
She blinked hard and long, waiting in dread for Bloodsworth to declare her his wife and for Owen to walk away. Except Bloodsworth didn’t say anything. He didn’t have the chance.
Opening her eyes, it was to find that Owen had moved with startling suddenness.
She gasped softly as his hand closed around Bloodsworth’s throat. “I can promise that if you don’t unhand her, you will know only pain.” He spoke slowly, succinctly, angling his head. “I’ve spent years learning how to inflict pain on men much more imposing than you. It will be an easy matter.”
There was something in his face, a steeliness in his eyes, a flatness in his voice, that guaranteed he meant every word.
The color leeched out of Bloodsworth’s face. Apparently he believed Owen.
His hand loosened but did not completely fall away from her arm. His tongue darted out over his lips. “You dare touch me? Threaten me?”
Annalise almost did not recognize his voice. Gone was the arrogant, lofty tone.
Owen nodded once. “Unless you want me to spill your blood all over this pretty jacket of yours, let her go.” The way his lip curled over the words told her he thought nothing of Bloodsworth’s fine attire. His knuckles whitened at Bloodsworth’s throat and she knew he was exerting more pressure.
Her husband’s face reddened as Owen continued, his voice a deep, ominous rumble. “It’s amazing how much blood is in the human face. It’s the head, really, I suppose. Those injuries always bleed the most.”
Bloodsworth’s eyes bulged. His hand trembled on her arm, and, as though he noticed the shameful tremor, he finally let her go.
Almost instantly Owen released him.
Annalise looked with astonishment at Bloodsworth. He was shaken, one hand rubbing at his throat as he took several steps back. This man whose memory had terrified her for so long was
afraid
. It dawned on her then that he was the veriest of cowards. One who bullied those weaker—such as an unsuspecting bride on her wedding night.
He glared at Owen as he backed farther away, lips pressed into a hard, cruel line.
A part of her should have been comforted at the ease in which Owen overpowered Bloodsworth, but she knew it did not matter. In his mind, he was calculating that he would have to hire multiple miscreants to kill Owen should she not follow through with her promise and vanish into obscurity.
“Anna,” Owen said, motioning her to his side, his gaze never straying from Bloodsworth. She moved in closer, allowing herself to take comfort in his nearness even though she knew it was fleeting. He could not protect her. Only she could protect him.
Her husband’s gaze slid to her and the threat she read there made her throat seize. He would relish hurting Owen. Or rather,
having
him hurt. She sent him a single nod that she hoped conveyed that she was as well as gone. He could count on that. Anything to keep Owen safe.
Bloodsworth held her gaze a beat longer and then turned abruptly, fleeing in the opposite direction. Air expelled from her lungs.
Owen’s hand settled at the small of her back. “Come,” he instructed. A quick glance revealed the rigid set to his jaw. He was not happy, and she intuitively knew it wasn’t just with Bloodsworth, the stranger who refused to unhand her. Indeed not. Much of the ire she felt radiating off him was aimed at
her
.
His hand on her back turned her and guided her down the sidewalk. She looked several times over her shoulder, almost as though she expected to see her husband give chase. Unnecessary, of course. He would follow them. He’d said as much, but he would be discreet. Especially after Owen nearly choked the life out of him.
Despite herself, she felt satisfaction curl deeply through her. That would be something she would take with her to warm her heart in whatever obscure location she buried herself.
She quickened her pace. Owen’s hand dropped away from her back. She spotted their carriage at the end of the street. The groom descended when he saw them, pulling open the door. A quick glance over her shoulder revealed no sight of Bloodsworth. All the same, she knew he was out there. Forever close. It was her task to make certain close never became too close again.
Falling back on the velvet squabs, she released a shuddery breath, grateful to be free of her husband. Now she simply had to say good-bye to Owen.
A lump formed in her throat that she couldn’t fathom. It was incomprehensible. She always knew they would part ways. There had never been an expectation otherwise. She gripped the edge of the seat and squeezed the cushion until her fingers ached.
She forced a tremulous smile and lifted her gaze to Owen, prepared to offer some dismissive remark about overly forward gentlemen. When they arrived home would be soon enough to explain she was leaving. After she packed. Perhaps on her way out the front door. She winced.
Such a coward
.
Any words she intended to speak died on her lips the moment she met his formidable gaze. His eyes gleamed almost black in the shadowed confines of the rocking carriage.
“Enough games.” His lips barely moved as they formed the words. “Who are you really?”
S
ilence fell between them the moment Owen uttered the question. If possible, her hands tightened even more against the squabs. Even in the shadows he could detect the whitening of her knuckles.
His hands opened and closed at his sides with suppressed fury. He would like nothing more than to turn around and chase after that bastard who had bled all the color from Anna’s face and left her trembling across from him in the carriage.
He had never seen her like this before. Even with all his churlish and rough ways, she had never once appeared as she did now . . .
afraid
.
The carriage hit a rut. She reached for the wall to steady herself. “Wh-What do you mean?”
“Damn it, Anna. No more games.”
Her eyes widened. The fear was still there, writ all over her round face, but not for him. Not because of him. She was still back there on that street.
She met his gaze directly. The paleness of her cheeks made her eyes even more prominent, the brown bright as a chestnut mare he’d once had as a lad. His father had bought it for him on his eighth birthday. His brothers were jealous, and he had been so proud of that horse. He’d loved and tended her himself. No groom had a hand in it. She had been all his and he doted on her.
He’d wept when she broke a foreleg. He put the creature down himself because his father said that’s what a man did. For some reason the memory of that horse as he stared at Anna brought forth a host of uncomfortable emotions. The same helplessness he’d felt as a boy faced with a doomed horse returned to him.
“We’ve carried this on long enough.” Her voice was small and hurried, scarcely filling the space between them. “It’s time I leave.”
He moved across the carriage and landed beside her on the seat, crowding her. Her eyes flared, the velvety brown melting something inside him.
She inched away, her back bumping the wall of the carriage, her hand reaching for the strap above her head, as though she needed something to cling to.
“Leave where?” he demanded.
“I can manage on my own.”
“Indeed? This time you won’t end up half dead on some riverbank.”
She gasped. “That’s not fair.”
“No. It wasn’t, but you are so certain that it won’t happen again. It almost makes me think you recall what happened . . . if you can be so certain it won’t happen again.”
She shook her head from side to side. “What do you want from me? I know you never wanted the burden of me. I appreciate everything you’ve done, but it’s time for me to move on.”
“Oh. Where will you go? Do you even know? Is there a destination in mind? Have you a plan?”
Her gaze beseeched him. “It doesn’t matter, Owen—”
“It matters. It matters to me.” His chest lifted high with a ragged breath as they gazed at one another, hearing what it was he wasn’t saying—
you
matter to me. At least he assumed she heard it. The realization thundered through him like artillery cannon.
She closed her eyes as if his nearness—or his words—caused her physical pain. He knew not which, but that only infuriated him. Why should she hide from him? Hide and evade and
lie
.
He inched his face closer. So close he could actually smell the soap on her skin, the lemon in her hair. “You can trust me.”
The carriage rolled to a hard stop and the door was pulled open before she could respond. If she even intended to.
They sat still, gazing at one another for a heavy moment, sunlight pouring into the carriage from the open door. She slid her gaze away and scooted around him, taking the groom’s proffered hand to descend.
He followed her inside, tension knotting his shoulders. Once in the foyer, he seized her hand and led her up the stairs. He evened his pace, still mindful of her leg. She, however, appeared to have no difficulty keeping up with him.
“Where are we going?” she asked.
“Where we can continue our discussion in private.”
She stalled outside the door to his bedchamber, taking her bottom lip between her teeth and worrying the flesh. “This is unseemly.”
He arched a brow and snorted. “We’ve been sharing adjoining rooms. Shall you enter through your door and I enter through mine and we meet in the middle?”
She scowled at him but made no objection when he pulled his door open and waved her inside. But when she stepped in, she moved far across the room, a careful distance from him.
He advanced and circled her slowly.
She chafed her arms. “Stop doing that.”
“What?”
“Stalking me,” she snapped, her eyes flashing.
He stopped and surveyed her with only one thought riding in his mind. “The man today. Who was he?”
She strode to the window, her skirts swishing at her ankles. Presenting him with her back, she peered out the damask drapes.
He studied the rigid set to her spine as she answered him, “Simply some boorish fellow.”
He crossed the room and grasped her arm to force her around. “You lie abominably. I suggest you quit altogether and try for the truth. For once.”
Her chin lifted. “I haven’t lied . . .”
A quiver of something else hung in her voice. Perhaps she hadn’t outright lied, but she had not been forthcoming with him. “Evaded. Omitted. It’s semantics, Anna.”
“It’s neither here nor there, Owen.” She tried to twist his hand off her arm, to no avail. “I’m leaving, so you needn’t feel responsible for me anymore. It’s no longer necessary.”
He growled, “Woman, you are maddening.”
“I should think you would be relieved,” she charged, bright splotches of color flaming her cheeks. “I’m ready to continue on with my life and free you of your responsibility.”
“And what life is that? The one you suddenly remember? The one that has to do with that bastard we just left?”
Her lips pressed stubbornly shut.
“What are you so afraid of?” he pressed.
That chin flew higher and her eyes burned. “I am not afraid.”
He stepped closer. “Sweetheart, everything about you drips fear.”
She stilled, her eyes horrified.
“That’s not true!” She renewed her efforts to escape his hold, struggling wildly, her words choked and angry. He’d clearly hit a nerve.
With a growl, he flung his hands free of her.
She staggered back.
“Fine. Go. Will you need the funds I promised?” He bit out a laugh. “Of course you do. I wouldn’t want you to perish after going through the trouble of nursing you to health. That would be a tragic bit of irony.” He dove into his jacket and dangled several notes before her.
She slapped at his hand furiously, her face stricken. “I don’t want your money. Keep it.”
“Oh, unnecessary, is it? Have you a destination in mind, then? A protector waiting eagerly for your return?”
Something dark and ugly twisted inside him at the notion. He dropped the notes, watching briefly as they fluttered to the floor before his gaze tore back to her. “In any case, they are yours, Anna.”
She staggered back several steps, her wild-eyed gaze fastened on him. “You wretch!”
Unable to look at her another moment, not trusting his hands to remain at his sides, he turned and moved to the window that had held her rapt attention only moments before.
Rage and desperation simmered inside him as he sensed her moving away. As her soft tread made for the adjoining door, a sinking sensation came over him.
She was really leaving.
“Good-bye, Anna,” he uttered so quietly he was not certain she heard him.
He heard a whisper of fabric, a slight intake of breath, and realized she had not fled the room. In fact, she sounded quite close behind him.
Turning, he caught only a blur of her as she launched herself at him. The instant her curves tumbled into him, he caught hold of her—soft, pliant female overflowing in his arms.
Her hands came up to his face, her palms holding his cheeks as if he were something she must memorize through touch.
Sensation overwhelmed him. Her hands on his face. The abundance of curves against his hardness. The sudden rising of his cock.
He scarcely registered her hoarse whisper. “My name is Annalise.”