How to Lose a Bride in One Night Read online

  She gawked. She had not known he even possessed a knife. Certainly she had not seen it anywhere on his person. His sun-streaked hair was wild about his head, brushing the sharp planes of his face, falling low over his brow. His dark blue eyes appeared even darker, glittering like a night sea, full of an emotion she had never observed in him before. Not that she ever saw emotion from him.

  Peter sputtered obscenities. “Let him go, you bastard!”

  “And why would I do that?” Owen spoke as calmly as he looked, easily holding Freddy in check. “Considering what you were planning for us?” The knife pressed closer, blood pooling around the tip and dripping down Freddy’s cheek. “That wouldn’t be very wise of me.”

  Freddy’s face was purpling now, his lips fighting for words, arriving only at a squeaked “Please.”

  “We weren’t going to do nothing. Promise.” Peter held his hands up as though to show how harmless he really was.

  “Lying curs,” Owen said in that coldly even voice. “You were going to rob us and do whatever other sordid whim struck you. Why should I let you go to just do it again? To carry on and hurt others?”

  Annalise couldn’t look away. She knew she should tell him to stop, to let them go, but she couldn’t. Owen’s words resonated deeply within her. What if the duke had been hurting others, innocents, for years? No one would have dared stop him—a powerful lord. She vaguely realized she was nodding, silently encouraging Owen to stop these two.

  Then Owen was looking at her. Those dark blue eyes trained on her, all that carefully restrained emotion focused on her. Watching her. Seeing her.

  And something changed in his face then. A subtle altering. Some of the hard-edged tension ebbed from his features. That fire in his eyes faded, like coals banked.

  His eyes still on her, he said to Freddy, “I’m going to release you. If you or your friend make any sudden movements . . . if you come at either me or the girl, I will show you just how good I am with a knife. I’ve left a long line of corpses that can attest to just how excellent my aim is.”

  “ ’Course, ’course, yes, thank you,” Freddy babbled in his arms.

  “We understand,” Peter agreed.

  After some moments Owen slid his gaze from her and released his captive. He moved to stand before her as the unsavory pair scurried off, resembling wild animals. They scampered away as fast as their legs could carry them, looking over their shoulders several times as though to assure themselves that Owen was indeed letting them retreat and not making good on his threat.

  A beat of silence held before she found her voice again. She moistened her lips and stared up at him. He still watched the men flee, the long lines of his body rigid and tense, like a spring ready to snap. “That was impressive.”

  He turned and looked down at her, his eyes once again an impenetrable blue.

  She moistened her lips, realizing her pulse still raced in her neck even though they were out of danger.

  And then it dawned on her that they had never been in danger. Not truly. Not with this man—this stranger who apparently knew how to fight and wield a knife with deadly skill. He had always been in control. She scanned him from head to foot, admiring him . . . this man who could handle himself in any situation. She doubted he’d ever been a victim . . . ever tasted the sharp, coppery flood of fear in his mouth.

  He said nothing in response to her compliment, merely stared at her with that maddening impassivity.

  “How did you—” She stopped, swallowing back words as sudden hope blossomed in her heart. It didn’t matter how he knew how to handle himself in dangerous situations, only that he did. Only that he could.

  Chapter Eight

  Impressive?” Owen echoed as he looked down at her.

  “Yes.” She nodded doggedly. She waved her hand in a small circle. “What you just did . . . how you protected yourself.” She paused and moistened her lips. “I wish that I could be like you.”

  His expression cracked as he looked down at her, and she knew she had astounded him with her words. A frown pulled at his well-carved lips. “You don’t want to be anything like me.” He moved then, gathering up their things and setting them in the cart.

  “Why not? To do what you just did? To be so capable? You’re a hero. You saved me. Twice now, I suspect. To be able to do the things you do . . . that would be . . .” She paused, groping for the words to convey just how tremendous, just how relieved and at peace she would feel to be that strong, that in control.

  He shook his head as he bent to lift her in his arms.

  She squeezed his shoulder as he moved her toward the cart, her fingers digging into the muscle and sinew beneath the jacket. She tried to finish her earlier words, “That would be— ”

  “No,” he bit out, depositing her.

  She searched his face, trying to catch his gaze as he draped the blanket over her lap. “No?” He wouldn’t even let her praise him? “Why aren’t you proud—”

  “Please. Stop.”

  “Maybe if I could comport myself as you just did I could have prevented this from happening . . .” She waved at her body.

  He stared hard at her. “You remember what happened to you?”

  She inhaled and fought to hold his gaze as the lie tripped off her tongue, “No, but Mirela told me that the bruise on my ribs was from someone hitting me. I don’t think I fell into that river by accident.” She paused for breath, arching an eyebrow. “Do you?”

  He held her gaze a moment before looking away, staring off into the horizon where the two ruffians had disappeared. “No. I don’t think it was an accident.”

  She leaned forward, reaching over the edge of the cart to seize his arm. She curled her fingers into his forearm. “Then you should understand.”

  He glanced down and stared at her hand on his arm.

  She continued, “I can’t even walk—”

  “In a few more weeks you can get out of bed,” he reminded her.

  “But I’ll never be like you.” She felt herself smile and knew it was rueful. Sad even.

  He angled his head, surveying her with a bemused expression. “But you’d want that?”

  She looked down and plucked at the colorful fringe on the blanket, nodding and feeling foolish admitting such a thing.

  “I can teach you that.”

  Her head snapped up at his softly worded declaration. “What?”

  He was moving around the cart with his usual swift, easy strides to take up the handles again. “I can teach you,” he repeated, the words crisp, succinct.

  Her heart pounded in her chest. Her hand trembled on her lap. Had she misunderstood? Did he just offer to teach her to be more like him?

  “What . . . how . . . what do you mean precisely?”

  “I can show you how to be more self-possessed, more aware. You don’t have to be an easy target, Anna.”

  “Yes,” she breathed, awed and eager at the possibility. Questions whirled in her head. Would they remain with Mirela and the others until she could walk again?

  “Leave it to me. I’ll handle the arrangements,” he said as though he could read her spinning thoughts. He stared straight ahead, no longer looking at her.

  She scooted until her back rested against the wall of the cart and settled in for the ride back to camp, not even minding that he was returning her to the dreaded wagon with its dreaded bed. Imminent boredom didn’t matter anymore. Not with hope looming in her future.

  Owen strolled through the camp, searching for Mirela. Night had fallen and most everyone had returned from the village by now. He spotted her near the fire, ladling from a pot set over the crackling nest of flames.

  “Hungry?” she inquired when he approached.

  “We’ll be leaving in the morning. I’d like to borrow one wagon and one of your men to take us into Town. Naturally, I’ll pay you for your time and
services . . .”

  She stopped and stared at him. “Decided to keep her, have you?” She cackled then. It was the only word to describe her laughter.

  He scowled. His forehead drew tight and he resisted the urge to rub there and ease the sudden tension he felt. “No, of course not.”

  Her eyebrows winged high, twin gray birds. “Oh? Not yet then?”

  “Not ever,” he quickly snapped. “I merely think she’ll be more comfortable recuperating in Town.” And he’d had enough sleeping on the floor of a wagon. He wanted a bed. “I appreciate all you’ve done for us—”

  She waved a hand in dismissal. “You’ve paid for it. No thanks needed.”

  “At any rate, she would likely have perished without you.”

  Mirela was already turning away. “Luca can take you where you wish to go in the morning.”

  He watched the bent old woman walk away, wondering at her conviction that he and Anna were somehow linked. Absurd. It was the stuff superstitious old Gypsy women believed in.

  He winced again as he recalled the promise he made her. What possessed him? It was her eyes. He had seen something in them. It was the same thing he had seen when she first opened her eyes atop his mount. The same haunting fear was there, glazing that velvety brown.

  He supposed offering to help her didn’t exactly promote the notion that they were unattached—two strangers whose paths were only briefly intersecting. In his mind, he saw that bruise on her ribs, the cuts and scrapes covering her body, the wheeze of her breath, barely there, scarcely alive.

  His hands tightened into fists at his sides. She wasn’t a soldier. This wasn’t a war, and yet someone had brutalized her. Something out there terrified her. Whether she remembered or not—and he suspected she remembered more than she revealed—she needed to armor herself.

  And he couldn’t deny her the chance to help herself. Not staring into those eyes that seemed to reach inside him and pull at what was left of his soul.

  He’d help her heal, teach her to be strong.

  Her words from earlier washed over him. You’re a hero.

  He sucked a breath inside his suddenly shrinking lungs, reminding himself that she would soon be gone. Before she discovered just how far from a hero he really was.

  Chapter Nine

  It 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.

  It 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.