How to Lose a Bride in One Night (8 page)

Chapter Nine

I
t was pouring by the time they arrived at his town house. Not in the most fashionable neighborhood, the two-storied, white-stone-faced edifice peered down at him through sheets of rain like a long-lost relation.

Something eased inside his chest at sight of it. The house was a feast for hungry eyes. His mother’s family had resided here whenever they visited from Scotland. He recalled her telling him that his father had proposed to her in the back gardens beneath the crab apple tree.

He’d thought the story fanciful then, even as a lad, but it had not stopped him from asking her to tell him the story again and again. He shook off the memory of his mother and pounded on the front door, holding his jacket over his head in an effort to ward off the rain. The door opened to a groom he did not recognize.

The young man blinked at him like he did not quite know what to do with the drenched man on the doorstep so late in the evening. His eyes only widened further when he spotted the hulking wagon behind. With its ornate markings, it obviously belonged to Gypsies.

Before he could announce himself, Mrs. Kirkpatrick appeared behind him, holding a lamp. “My lord,” she cried out when she saw him.

Grateful that she recognized him, Owen pushed inside the foyer. Standing in an ever-growing puddle, he was about to request an umbrella to fetch Anna from the wagon when Luca was suddenly there. Carrying Anna, he’d tossed a blanket over her head to shield her from the weather.

Inside the shadowy foyer, Luca pulled the blanket from her face. She blinked her brown eyes, eyeing her new surroundings. Several wisps of hair floated loose around her face.

“Where should I put her?” Luca asked in his deep accent.

Mrs. Kirkpatrick gaped, her lips working, clearly trying to form words that would not offend while obviously curious about what was happening.

“Mrs. Kirkpatrick,” Owen said, “please see to it that the young lady is made comfortable in the master chamber.”

She nodded, even as her lips thinned in disapproval, the lines at either side of her mouth drawing tightly. Clearly she was making her own conclusions.

Unwilling to let her labor under the misapprehension that Anna was his mistress, he added, “She’s suffering from a broken leg. You will need to assist her as long as she is our guest here.” His mind shied away from just how long that would be.

“I see . . . yes, my lord. Of course.”

“My lord?” Anna looked from him to his housekeeper, her velvety eyes impossibly big. “You’re . . .”

Mrs. Kilpatrick pulled back her shoulders and surveyed Anna as though she were mad. “He’s the Earl of McDowell.” Her voice dripped with censure that this hapless girl did not know.

“You are?” Anna’s long lashes blinked over her eyes.

He gave a curt nod. Through odd circumstance—since he was a youngest son of an English earl and not in line for a title—he’d inherited an earldom through his Scottish grandfather.

With a wearied breath, he turned to the groom and motioned outside. “See that my mount is taken to the stable and my things are brought to one of the guest chambers.”

With a swift nod, the man dashed out the door into the rain.

Luca looked Owen over appraisingly, no doubt wondering if he should have demanded more money from an earl.

Owen stepped forward. “I’ll take her from here.”

Luca hesitated only a moment before shrugging and handing Anna over. Owen flexed his hands carefully on the soft slope of her thigh as he took her. With his other hand he cupped her arm. She was pleasantly warm. The musty aroma of the damp blanket mingled with the fresh, clean smell of her hair. He felt her gaze on the side of his face without looking at her and knew she was watching him, measuring him with the new knowledge that he was an earl. For some reason he did not sense relief or awe—all likely sentiments. Especially from a young lady in her precarious situation. He felt only trepidation coming off her in waves.

Luca nodded to each of them in farewell before turning and striding back out into the rain.

Mrs. Kirkpatrick motioned to the stairs. “We can have Edmond carry her up, my lord.”

“Unnecessary. I recall the way well enough.” And he was not quite confident Edmond would handle her with the care necessary for her leg.

He took the steps, hearing Mrs. Kirkpatrick scurrying below, snapping orders.

Anna’s hand rested lightly on his shoulder, barely touching, as though fearing too much contact. He felt the hand there nonetheless, the imprint of each slight finger against his shoulder, searing through the fabric of his jacket.

He stopped at the door to his chamber. “Can you open it, please?”

She reached down to turn the latch. He shoved it open with his boot and carried her to the chaise lounge near the balcony doors. He set her down carefully before turning to the bed that dominated one side of the room, and felt her gaze on him as he pulled back the counterpane

He stopped for a moment, unsure of himself. Which only served to annoy him. He wasn’t a green lad, uncomfortable around females. Nor should he feel uncomfortable beneath his own roof. But here he stood, wondering how he had ended up in circumstances where he was totally responsible for a girl he’d only known a fortnight—and for one week of that time she had been out of her head with fever. Indeed, he knew her not at all.

She watched him across the dark room, her eyes glowing like a timid creature peering out of the woods.

“Mrs. Kirkpatrick will be here momentarily,” he murmured. “She’ll see you settled . . . bring you something to eat. Tell her if you require anything. She will care for your needs.”

He started for the door, stopping in the threshold at the sound of her voice.

“When will I see you again?”

There must have been something in his manner that hinted at his eagerness to leave—to deposit her in the housekeeper’s capable hands and go to ground. After all, when he left Jamie and Paget in Winninghamshire it had been with the express goal of doing that very thing. Burying himself in the comforting familiarity of his mother’s town house.

All of that was before he found her. Before he had, in a moment of weakness, made that promise to her.

“When you’re on your feet, we’ll begin your . . .” He paused, not even knowing what to call it. What was it precisely he intended to do for her?

Prevent her from ending up broken and facedown on a riverbank again
, a voice whispered across his mind.

Apparently she understood even as he failed to articulate himself. She nodded from where she sat in the shadows, sitting straight and prim, her legs stretched out over the chaise. “Yes,” she quickly supplied. “Yes, I look forward to that.”

I look forward to that.
As if he was going to merely instruct her on the fine points of needlework.

With a nod, he bade her good-night, turning his back on the image of her, so small and alone on the other side of his vast chamber.

He heard her soft echo behind him, “Good night.”

He departed the room, tying to ignore the notion that he should have remained.

I
t was the same dream.

Annalise woke shaking, lurching upright in the bed she had been sleeping in for the last week. The silken sheets puddled to her waist like a waterfall.

Panting, chest heaving, she stared straight ahead into the dark.

She could still see Bloodsworth’s face, so lifelike in front of her. His whisper still floated in her ear.
Nasty bit of rubbish . . .

Annalise swallowed past the lump in her throat and glanced around her darkened bedchamber. She knew it was Owen’s chamber. Mrs. Kirkpatrick had said as much when she helped her settle in the first day. Even though it belonged to him, it bore none of his influence. No personal effects. A wardrobe and a few other simple pieces of masculine furniture. The bed was the most ornate piece in the room. A mammoth, canopied, mahogany four-post.

Filmy curtains fluttered at her balcony window, and her throat constricted as she realized those doors were open.

Her hands pressed down on the mattress on either side of her. If she could have walked, she would have risen, crossed the room and closed the doors. But she was trapped on the bed. Alone with her fear, that thing she loathed so much.

A small sound scratched the air. Her gaze swung around the room, searching for the source.

The pulse in her throat thumped impossibly harder, faster, as the latch to the bedchamber door slowly turned. It swung inward and Owen stood there, light flooding into the room behind him from the corridor. A relieved breath gusted out of her lips, replaced with a different kind of anxiety at the sight of him wearing only a dressing robe, open down the chest. Her mouth dried.

“Anna?”

She nodded for a moment before answering. “Yes.”

“Are you well? I heard you call out.”

Her hands twisted the silken sheets. “Did I disturb you? I’m sorry.”

Annoyance flickered back to life inside her. He’d been avoiding her since they arrived. Now he cared to show himself?

“You needn’t apologize. Nightmares aren’t exactly something we can control.”

Her breath eased from her lips. “You speak from experience?” She didn’t know precisely where the question came from. She supposed from the desire that welled up inside her to know more about him. This earl that wasn’t an earl. At least not like any earl she had ever met. What manner of earl kept the fact that he was an earl to himself? He was not like any of the noblemen her father had thrust upon her. He was deadly with a knife and rescued girls and consorted with Gypsies and eschewed Society and brought strangers into his home. He mystified her.

She wished the room were more well-lit so she might view him better. She craved a glimpse of him. Just to prove that he was as attractive as memory served. He’d been keeping his distance, leaving her to the care of Mrs. Kirkpatrick. Much as he had when they stayed with Mirela and her kinsmen.

She supposed she had not wanted for anything in his neglect. With a staff of Mrs. Kirkpatrick, a cook, two maids, and two grooms, she was well attended. Mrs. Kirkpatrick had left a bell beside her should she ever need assistance. She rarely did.

Finally seeing him again filled her with a strange sense of hunger. She did not want him to go and leave her alone with her nightmares all over again. Desperate to keep him from leaving, she asked what had been weighing on her mind for weeks: “Where did you learn to fight like you did? With those two men?”

Silence met her question. She moistened her lips, wondering if it would always be this way. Would she have to pull speech from him like tugging a heavy bucket from a well?

Just when she was convinced he would ignore her, he replied. “I fought in India.”

She inhaled a ragged breath to have this much from him. Finally. Some bit of himself.

Annalise recalled what the papers said about the rebellion, the horrible brutality the rebels inflicted on Europeans living in India and the equally brutal backlash against them.

“It was . . . difficult,” he continued. “You had to do certain things to survive.”

“Of course,” she murmured in understanding. “It was war.”

“No,” he said, cutting her off quickly. “Certain things were expected, demanded, that went beyond war.”

An awkward silence stretched between them before she once again filled it, hoping she did not sound terribly inane. “I’m certain you only did as you were commanded.”

He laughed, and the sound was ugly and harsh. “Yes. I did as I was commanded. I was very good, exemplary even, at following commands.”

She flattened her palms over the counterpane covering her thighs, knowing that complimenting him yet again on this was not the thing to do. Her leg tingled beneath her splint, desperate for a good scratch. She ignored it.

“I am excellent at killing.” There was nothing in his voice as he uttered this, and yet she knew he was disgusted with himself.

He rose in one swift move, and she knew that it was with the same grace, the same quick stealth, that he attacked and took lives. She should be appalled, having just fled one killer to find herself in the company of another. And yet compassion swelled inside her chest because she knew this man was so much more, so much better, than the killer he described himself to be. He was heroic. Nothing demanded him to help her and yet he had. Everything he had done underscored that he valued life.

At her silence, he continued. “I’ve shocked you.”

She lifted one shoulder. “Not so much.”

“Horrified, then?”

“No.”

His head angled to the side. “No?”

“No.”

“You’re a most peculiar female, Anna.”

She smiled. “I cannot argue with that assessment.”

“Aren’t you the least bit concerned that you’re currently residing beneath the roof of a seasoned killer?” His boots thudded across the floor as he moved toward her.

Her heart hammered faster at the knowledge that he wasn’t leaving her. In fact, he was coming closer. He stopped at the foot of the bed. She stared at the lean shape of him, her gaze skimming the narrow waist, the peak of tantalizing, male flesh at his throat, the broad shoulders. Her face heated. The fleeting reminder came that she was still a virgin. Married but a virgin. Never even been kissed. Well, she refused to count those two pecks on the morning of her nuptials. And just as that fleeting idea crossed her mind the next thought came that she should
like
him to kiss her. She would like to taste his lips and the skin at his throat that always looked so warm and inviting.