The Patriot Bride (7 page)

“You are Lady Wexley, Duchess of Northumberland. You do not work for a living. You are the one who buys clothes like the ones you made – only I’ll take you to Paris to do that, where you can buy originals.”

Wolf had thought that her face would light up at the idea of buying clothes in Paris, or even just traveling to Paris. But he was just beginning to learn that his young wife couldn’t be counted on to do the expected, and in a way, he liked it. At least she didn’t seem to be after him for his money – but at this point, he wasn’t sure whether that was bad or good. At least that would give him a handle on her, something he could use to make himself more palatable.

He almost shook his head at himself. He wasn’t used to having to ingratiate himself with the fairer sex. It was always the other way around – he’d always had his choice of women; they fell at his feet. He’d never had to work so hard for a woman – especially one he wasn’t supposed to have to work for at all! She was his wife, for Heaven’s sake!

With that, he took her mouth, not in the gentle, exploratory way he just had, but in a manner that left no doubt as to who was in control, and one that sent a clear message of ownership. He let the hand that had held her chin wander down to cup a full breast, while the other reached around to that bottom he was getting to know so well, squeezing it in a no nonsense manner that make her squeal and crash against him in an attempt to avoid his painful caress. When he’d whetted both their appetites – not that his had needed any stoking literally since the moment he’d confronted her on her doorstep, he stepped back and patted her condescendingly on the cheek, then executed a precise about face and went out the door. He gave the corporal on duty – who most definitely was not Wilkins – explicit instructions that he was not to let anyone in or out of the room besides the innkeeper, then stalked down the stairs and out the front door.

Hannah was left feeling bereft, and hating the feeling, hating him, and hating this situation. How had her simple little life ended up like this? What had she done to deserve such a fate? Hadn’t she always looked after her sisters and kept them from their father’s wrath? Wasn’t she working hard and diligently at the dress shop to earn enough money to bring them to her, and away from his greedy clutches?

Overwhelmed by a feeling of utter despair, she lay on the bed and gave into the tears she’d been holding in check since he’d made his abrupt appearance, sobbing her heart out into the fluffy feather pillow.

***

At the end of the day, Wolf trudged up the stairs at the Inn. He certainly was in a different mood from what he’d expected when he’d left her. He’d planned to vault up the stairs and into their room, have a long, pleasant meal with her, and then seduce her into their long delayed marriage bed. But a very disturbing thought had occurred to him while he was working that had entirely disrupted his carefully laid plans.

He couldn’t satisfy himself with her tonight or any other night until she’d had her monthly flow. He wasn’t about to let her fob off some bastard child as the next Preston heir. Regardless of what he wanted, regardless of the fact that, by his own word, they were going to be sleeping nude together every evening, he could not indulge himself with her in the manner he craved until he was sure that she wasn’t pregnant with another man’s child.

It was that annoying thought that was going through his mind when he returned the corporal’s absent salute and entered his room. It was late evening and the room was dark. He crossed to light the lantern, surprised that she would sit alone in the darkness – but then he didn’t really know her that well.

He didn’t know her well at all.

When he turned the flame up on the lamp, he saw that she was sitting in one of the small chairs near the window, facing him, holding the loaded pistol he kept under his pillow aimed squarely at the center of his chest.

Chapter Five

Hannah was terrified by what she was doing, but she’d vowed to herself that she’d take every opportunity she could to get away from this man, and she meant to do just that. If she had to, she’d go to Canada or go west and restart her life yet again. It wouldn’t be easy, and it certainly wasn’t what she wanted to do. She wanted to convince him to leave her alone, to turn around and walk out the door, get a divorce and find someone else to marry. He wasn’t bad looking and he apparently had a lot of money – it couldn’t be that hard for him to find someone to say yes to his proposal.

As soon as she’d recovered from her crying bout, she’d scoured the room for anything she could use to get away, but there really wasn’t much. His clothes didn’t do her any good – she couldn’t wear them; they would be ridiculously big on her and it would take too long for her to alter them to fit her. She’d returned the bed, having turned the place topsey turvey then carefully put everything back to rights, feeling defeated yet again. Her hand had wrapped around one pillow but landed under the other, and found something made of a mixture of metal and wood, and it turned out to be some sort of gun.

She’d never held a gun in her life, but she’d spent the afternoon trying to learn to hold it without shaking, and that had worked . . . until the minute she’d heard his heavy, booted steps on the stairs. Now she was sitting there, pointing a gun at him that she wasn’t even sure was loaded, and shaking like a leaf.

Wolf was extraordinarily angry at himself. He’d forgotten he’d put that gun there, just in case. No matter how civilized a colonial town appeared, he’d found that it was better to be prepared. But now he was being held at gunpoint by a his own wife, who apparently was having a very hard time holding the gun steady. At times, if it was to go off, it would, indeed, pierce his heart and kill him relatively instantaneously. At other times, mere seconds later, its nose was pointed in a more southerly direction, which actually gave him much more pause for thought. Of the two sites, ignoring the multitude of organs just ripe for gangrene in between, he’d much rather be killed quickly than made a eunuch by his own wife.

He could see, though, that her arms were getting tired. The weapon she was holding was a Light Dragoon pistol – he commanded a regiment of the 17th Light Dragoons. But the name was a misnomer. It wasn’t that light a gun, made of brass, iron, and walnut and being well over a foot long. It was much too big for her, and he realized that he might get out of this situation alive if he could just wait until she became too tired to hold the gun up. It wasn’t easy to keep one’s arms stretched full out and then hold something of that weight clenched tightly in both hands.

All he had to do was keep her from pulling the trigger, by accident or on purpose.

He wasn’t looking at her, and somehow Hannah knew that wasn’t good – besides the fact that it was insulting. She was holding a gun on him, and yet he was getting undressed as if nothing was amiss, removing his uniform coat and brushing it off with his hand, then hanging it in the garter robe. He took the ribbon from his hair almost absently and dropped it on his night table, then sat down on the bed with his back to her, to reach down and pull of his spit shined black boots.

Hannah’s arms were beginning to shake from the stress of holding the gun rather than fear of confronting this overbearing man. And, beyond a brief flare of what seemed to be much more chagrin than fear when he’d first seen her sitting there, he didn’t seem to be in the least concerned about his own safety.

“I want you to open the door and tell the guard outside to have all of my things brought back to Mrs. Wentworth’s cabin, and then I want you to leave me alone. I never want to hear from you or see you again. I’m quite certain you can find some other woman who would be more than willing to marry you.” Why did that idea cause a pang in her chest at the mere thought?

Apparently her words were falling on deaf ears, because he hadn’t changed what he was doing. Each article of his clothing was meticulously folded or hung exactly where it belonged, and when he finally did turn and face her, after never having acknowledged that she’d even spoken, he was completely – and magnificently, she had to admit – nude.

And coming right for her, slowly and deliberately, not watching her, but watching the gun instead, which had wavered quite considerably from where she’d held it originally. Most of the time now, it was pointed harmlessly at the ground.

Hannah struggled to lift the muzzle of the gun to his chest, but now, besides the shaky weariness and pain in her arms, she had to deal with the sight of her first naked man, and she wasn’t handling it well. That part of him that was most male was practically at eye level, and she found herself intensely curious about it, despite her fear and embarrassment.

He was going to win. He always won. He was bigger and stronger and faster and a whole lot meaner. So much for nobility and chivalry, Hannah thought with a sigh. He was going to take the gun from her, and Lord knew what he was going to do to her then. Figuring that she was damned if she did and damned if she didn’t, she pulled the trigger, just as her arms were collapsing and he was reaching towards the barrel of the gun.

The explosion knocked Hannah back in her chair, and the bullet nicked the fleshy side of Wolf’s left hand – she’d veered away from his right hand, which had been stretched out to grab the gun. He didn’t even flinch or adjust his stride, didn’t even acknowledge that he’d been shot or cringe from the loud report. He just kept coming, until he had the gun firmly in his hand and out of hers, then in one fluid motion he lifted her up and deposited her on the bed. “Stay!” he commanded and, this time, she didn’t even consider doing anything other than what she was told. She was too shell shocked to think of anything else, exhausted from the jitters over what she’d planned and executed, badly.

Someone – several someones – were banging loudly at the door, but he was unnervingly calm. He’d doused his wound in the bay rum he favored as an aftershave, then commandeered one of her petticoats and ripped off one of the ruffles with his bare hands, wrapping it around his hand to stem the seeping blood. Only once he’d treated his hand as best he could and donned a silk robe did he open the door, letting his corporal and the innkeeper nearly fall into the room.

“I’m sorry, gentlemen. I was showing my wife the finer points of shooting and neglected to tell her that the pistol was loaded. Of course, I’ll pay for any damages.”

His little speech mollified the apoplectic innkeeper, but the soldier came in with his rifle at the ready. “Stand down, corporal.” Hannah recognized that tone. She’d thought he’d used it on her exclusively, but it seemed he spoke to everyone like that.

The young soldier did exactly as he was told, saluting profusely and backing himself and the blubbering hotelier out of the room.

Hannah wanted to call them back, wanted to hide behind someone, anyone, rather than face the wrath of the man who claimed to be her husband. She hated herself for being such a weak willed coward, but it appeared she was not as strong as she’d thought she was.

Wolf was pacing back and forth like a caged version of the animal he was named for, but he stopped for just a second, glaring back and her and saying just one heart stopping word. “Strip.”

She knew she couldn’t refuse him. She knew exactly what he’d do if she did. Hannah sighed. She figured she knew what he was going to do even if she did exactly as he said. She’d failed, and gotten herself into an even worse situation than she’d been in before. At least until a few minute ago, she hadn’t shot him.

So she slid off the edge of the bed, slowly, keeping a weather eye on him as he stalked back and forth. He hadn’t hit her with his fists yet, but that didn’t mean that he wouldn’t. She’d certainly given him provocation enough for it.

Wolf couldn’t believe what had transpired between himself and the woman he was going to be attached to – legally if not emotionally – for the rest of his life. She’d shot him, for God’s sake! The little chit had used his own gun on him and shot him. He could barely believe he’s been so stupid as to leave a loaded gun in the bedroom where he was holding his wife – whom he obviously didn’t trust and rightfully so, it appeared – captive. He wasn’t quite sure whether to be madder at her or himself, but he certainly had enough anger to go around right now for the both of them, and then some.

At least this time she was doing as she was told, though she’d turned primly away from him to do it, facing the bed and working the buttons of her dress with fingers that shook fit to rival the way her arms had shaken while holding the gun on him. He guessed she had a good idea what he was going to do to her for shooting him, and he knew she was right. He was going to whip her butt good.

The thing of it was, that if their situations had been reversed, he would have done exactly what she did – rummaged through the room for anything he could have used to protect himself. At his size, though, he might have tried to take the guard and escape, but she wasn’t likely to be able to overpower even the stripling corporal, so what she’d done was probably what she considered to be her only choice to defend herself against him.

Her dress and petticoat fell to the floor with a soft “flump”, and she stood there in just her chemise and drawers, her shoulders rounded as if she was trying to make herself as small as possible. He stopped and watched her as she reached for the buttons on the chemise, then jerked them down to the drawstring waist of the drawers, then back up to the buttons, as if she couldn’t decide which was the lesser of two evils.

It was then that he saw the dark blotches on the front of her chemise, and his jaw clenched. He didn’t like the idea of a woman crying, and for some strange reason Hannah crying was just that much worse to him. Must be because she was his, and he was supposed to prevent her tears, not cause them.

But he was who he was, and the situation was what it was, and there were some things even he couldn’t change. She was his wife, like it or not, and she shouldn’t have tried to kill him. He could hardly ignore the fact that she’d held him at gunpoint, and he wasn’t about to set a precedent in their marriage whereby she thought she could say and do exactly as she pleased – especially not when it involved his own death.