Trial by Desire (23 page)

His eyes glittered with all the fury she’d anticipated. His hand tightened on her wrist; she rose on her toes as he turned her arm. She kept that smile on her face, flattened against the wall, her eyes clenched tightly shut. She didn’t dare let him see how much he hurt her.

And then Harcroft gave a pained cry of his own, and that wrenching pressure on her arm vanished. Kate turned in time to see Ned lift him by the lapels of his coat and slam him against the wall.

“I told you,” Ned said, his voice gravelly, “I told you to leave my wife alone. But no. You didn’t listen.”

Harcroft waved his legs furiously in the air, but he was as ineffective as a beetle overturned on the pavement, struggling to right itself. “No,
I
told
you,
” he squeaked. The whine of his voice seemed impotent against Ned’s dark anger. “I told you I would find my wife by any means necessary.”

“Oh, I see how it is,” Ned said in a dark voice. “You’ve driven away the woman you believe you deserve, and so, in the absence of having your own wife to do violence to, you’ve chosen mine.”

“I—”

“To think,” Ned continued, “there was a time when I actually respected you. When I first came back to England, I took pity on you. When you told me Louisa was missing, I felt sorrow. I have no idea when or how your wife disappeared. I was out of England, as you know. But as matters stand, if my wife helped Louisa escape you, she has my full, unmitigated support. If I had been here, I would have stolen her away myself.”

Oh.

Even with her arm tingling, Kate felt a sudden rush of warmth and safety at those words. He meant them. He did.

“You can’t mean that. You can’t mean to foster such suborning. It will lead to chaos, if women make decisions—”

“I should hardly think so,” Ned said. He didn’t seem to be getting tired, holding Harcroft against the wall with one hand, but he gave the man a shake for good measure. “I don’t see the fabric of
my
life eroding, just because my wife happens to have a brain in her head. In fact, it’s actually one of her most attractive qualities. If you’d allowed your wife to make a few decisions of her own, instead of trying to control her with blows, perhaps you wouldn’t be here.”

Harcroft didn’t say anything. He’d stopped struggling against Ned’s inexorable hold. But his lips compressed to a hard line, and his eyes blazed with fury. His breathing was ragged; by contrast, Ned’s chest rose and fell as if he were not doing anything more strenuous than sipping tea.

It was in that moment that Kate realized something quite startling. Her husband was magnificent. It was not just the contour of his arm, that hidden strength that held the man who’d threatened her against the wall. It was not just the ease with which he defended her.

It was that assumption he made, without even glancing at her, that she was doing the right thing, that she was strong rather than weak, decisive rather than dithering. It was as if he had turned everything everyone saw of her upside down.

“Kate,” he said, without taking his eyes off Harcroft, “what should we do with this carrion-eater?”

“We’ve sent him home once. I suppose we can do it again.” Kate shook her head and gingerly touched her wrist. “We haven’t any use for him here.”

“Shall I decorate his face for him, before he takes his leave of our fine hospitality?”

“I should think there has been enough decoration for now.” Kate thought of the fine network of bruises she’d seen on Louisa’s arm. She thought about the spreading ache from her fingers on up to her shoulder. “The last thing we need at this point is violence. Isn’t that the case, Harcroft? I say that because I am, in fact, a gentle creature.”

“There,” Ned said. “Now you see why I turn to my wife for consideration in these important decisions. Because if it were up to me, I would break every bone in your body before I tossed you in the water trough to cool off. What do you think, Kate? May I break one rib? Please?”

Kate smiled. “If he comes back, break everything.”

“There. Mercy and justice, all in one delightful
package. I shall put you down now, and you will walk out the door.”

Harcroft licked his lips and turned to them as Ned let him down. “You will regret this,” he said. “You will both regret this.”

“I know,” Ned said, shaking his head sadly. “I already do. I shall have to make do with envisioning your body bloodied and in need of a physician. But we all suffer disappointments.”

“I won’t give up. You can’t send me away.”

“And I—” here Ned stepped forward “—I am not going to let you hurt my wife. Not for any reason, and certainly not for no reason at all, which is what you appear to have. You are not welcome here any longer, Harcroft, and you’d damned better crawl off and lick your wounds. You have some nerve, threatening my wife just because you can’t beat your own any longer. Now scramble away.”

Harcroft took one step toward Ned, his hands clenched into fists. And then he turned—and he scrambled.

Kate watched Harcroft scamper down the hall. Beside her, Ned’s chest heaved. He flexed out his hand. He stared at the empty hall, his eyes focused unseeingly on nothing. His head bowed, finally, and he scrubbed that hand through his hair.

“Hell,” he said. “I think I might have finally said too much. What have I done?”

Saved me,
she thought, before the rest of his speech caught up to her.

“You mean—you knew?”

He looked away. “Um. If you mean, did I happen on
Lady Harcroft in the shepherd’s cottage a few days prior? Well. Perhaps.”

Oh, God. Kate’s stomach fluttered. “Are you dreadfully angry with me for not disclosing it earlier? Do you want me to stop?”

“I am ablaze with curiosity as to how you managed such a tremendous feat in secret. But angry?” He looked in her eyes. “It took me years to trust myself. You’re allowed to wait at least a week. Now, if you had actually
loaded
the pistol Lady Harcroft pulled on me,
then
I would have been wounded by your mistrust.”

“She didn’t.” Kate’s hand covered her mouth.

“She did.” He smiled faintly. “But you needn’t worry. We saw eye-to-eye shortly after.”

He let out a sigh. “Damn me. I had it all under control—Harcroft actually
believed
I was on his side. I had allayed all his suspicions. One little setback and the next thing I know, I’ve ruined it all.”

“Ned. Are you joking?”

“If I had been in control of myself—”

Kate held a finger up to his lips. “I have had it up to here with your control,” she said, her voice shaking. “There is a time and a place for control. And that time and place is not when a man is threatening to rip your wife’s arm out of its socket. That is the moment when you are allowed to lose control and crush him like the worm that he is. You think too much of your control.”

He looked down at her, the afternoon light catching his eyelashes in gold. “Do I?”

“Yes.” Kate shook the last of the smarting pain out of her wrist and looked up at Ned in return. If she said the
word, he might run after Harcroft and pound the man to a delightful pulp. Or, better yet…

She placed her hand on his and gazed into his eyes with all the pent-up yearning of the past three years. “In fact,” she said with a tight little smile, “I wish you would lose control again.”

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

C
ONTROL
. I
T WASN’T EVEN
some last vestige of control that had kept Ned from breaking every last bone in Harcroft’s body. It had been nothing more than an animal instinct to protect what was his, to stay here, growling, hunkered down over the object of his desire in unthinking possession.

Desire? Hell, desire barely covered it. His hands tingled with the need to feel that visceral crunch of breaking bone. If Ned shut his eyes, he still saw that satisfying image of Harcroft lying bruised and bloody in the aftermath of his fury. It wasn’t about reason or rationality; it was about that hot, unending rage that had filled Ned when he’d stepped into the corridor and seen that bastard—that pretentious, arrogant bastard—with his hands on Kate.

Everything had ceased to exist but the roar in his ears, and the next thing he realized, he’d latched his hands around the bastard’s throat. He flexed his fingers even now, but he could not shake off that murderous hatred. Harcroft had placed his hands on Kate.

He turned to her. Her breathing was only now beginning to even out; her hands were trembling. She hadn’t shaken one bit when that bastard was manhandling her; she hadn’t even betrayed the slightest tremor. She’d been
as strong and unyielding as a stone cliff battered by the ocean’s rage. And perhaps that was why he’d held on to his civility by the bare thread that remained—because she had been strong enough not to lose control. And if she could maintain her cool demeanor…well, he could, too.

He didn’t know what to say to her, and so he reached out and took her hands in his. Her bones seemed so damned thin, so impossibly fragile. He could feel, now, the aftereffects of that frightening episode. Her hands were cold. Her eyes, when he looked down into them, were wide, as if just beyond Ned’s shoulder she could see the vista of what might have been. She let out a shaky breath—one, then another, and Ned looked down, away from her fear. If he let himself see it any longer, he
would
lose control. He would leave now and hunt Harcroft down. God knows what he might do if he actually caught him. Ned felt capable of any violence.

“Are you well?” He knew the question was stupid even as he asked it.

Still, she nodded.

Looking down had been a mistake, too. Because now he was caught by the veins in her wrist, that thin spider-tracery that formed a network. He could feel her pulse slamming against his fingertips. And there, at the edge of the lace of her cuff… Oh, God.

Every scrap of discipline kindled into heat. He slid her sleeve up her arm.

He had no words for the inchoate rage that welled up, hot and bitter, in his stomach. He had no label to put to the emotion that filled him in that devastating instant.
Because there, tracing up her delicate skin, were the unmistakable red marks that Harcroft’s fingers had left on her. They were branded deep into her skin. The imprints were bright red for now; in a few hours’ time, they would purple and bruise.

That bastard had hurt his wife.

He looked up into Kate’s eyes. He couldn’t think what to say, how to apologize. He’d been enforcing an artificial distance between them because he feared if he spent much more time in her intoxicating presence, he’d succumb to complete savagery.

He’d been right. Language deserted him. There was no room for words in his mind; just that limitless, unspeakable rage. He held her hand—gently, even though every muscle in his body screamed to contract.

And then, as if to tempt his anger, he saw the impression the wall had made against her cheek—the red-on-white mark where that bastard had slammed her into the plaster, the tiny scratch where the rough surface had drawn a bead of blood.

“I take it all back.” He could not clench his hand around hers, could not even squeeze his hand. He had to stay in control. “I am going to kill him.”

It wouldn’t make it better, though. Nothing he did
now
would heal that cut, would undo the pain she had felt. She’d needed him, and once again, he had been gone, thinking of
himself
when he ought to have been thinking of her. He’d vowed that he would find a way to be a good husband not two days ago, and already he was forsworn.

Worse, whatever semblance of civility he had, he
needed just to keep from crushing her hand. All his dark wants, all his savage desires—they were welling up in him now. A gentleman would walk away until he gained control—but the last thing Kate deserved after her bravery was solitude.

“I am going to kill him,” Ned repeated, “just as soon as I work up the fortitude to let go of your hand.”

“Don’t,” Kate said. And for a second that word, too, was meaningless—that silly implication that Harcroft’s life ought to be spared. She could not have meant anything so vapid.

But she said it again. “Don’t let go. Hold me.” And she looked up at him with those luminous eyes, eyes that betrayed all the fear she had not let Harcroft see. It was, Ned realized, her strength that made her vulnerable. She’d claimed she was weak, but in almost every way she was the strongest person he had ever met. And she needed him now.

And so he didn’t let go. He wanted to clasp her to him, wanted to squeeze her hand until the anger ran out of him. Instead, he pressed her fingers lightly between his palms, willing the hot rage in him to flow out of his hands, to warm the fears that echoed in her eyes. He moved his hand in circles until her hand curled in his, until her shoulders relaxed. As if that spare motion could lift away the pain she’d felt.

And when that scant comfort couldn’t take the past five minutes away—when she looked up at him, her eyes still wide with the unspoken horror of what she’d just experienced—Ned turned her hand in his, exposing her
wrist and those damned angry red marks. He leaned in and placed a kiss over them.

She smelled like a summer bower in full bloom. He lingered over that inch of fragile skin and let his breath heat her.

No, he wasn’t going to leave her to assuage his own desire to beat Harcroft’s face in, however pleasant the prospect might seem. He was going to stay here, where he belonged. And not just because she needed him, but because he was too damned weak to do anything but take in the scent of her, taste the sweetness of her wrist against his lips.

He could not take her memories away; he could not eradicate her bruises. He’d failed her enough for one day. But now, when she’d used up her strength, he would stand here while she needed him.

“I’m here,” he murmured against her skin. “If you need me, I am here.”

She stepped toward him, and he put his arm around her. She was cold all over; her shoulders were trembling in the aftermath of her fear. He wrapped his other arm around her and felt her press against him.