It was the creaking of the stable door. The head groomsman had meant to fix it yesterday, but he’d been called away on some silly errand, and everyone had been so busy today with so many guests.
But the creak meant that someone was here. And if someone was here, then Elizabeth had a chance.
“Is anyone here?”
James’s voice.
Elizabeth thrashed as she’d never thrashed before. She found strength she’d never dreamed she possessed, grunting and squeaking under Fellport’s hand.
What happened next was a blur. There was a loud cry—it didn’t even sound human—and then the stall door crashed open. Fellport was lifted from her, and Elizabeth scrambled toward the corner, clutching at the ragged pieces of her dress.
James was a man possessed. He pummeled Fellport with brutal fists, and his eyes held a wild, feral look as he shoved the man’s face into the hay.
“Do you like the taste of hay?” James hissed. “How do you like having your face pressed to the ground?”
Elizabeth stared at the two men in horrified fascination.
“Does it make you feel strong to hold her down, to abuse someone half your size? Is that it? You get to do whatever you want just because you’re bigger and stronger?” James shoved Fellport’s head farther down, grinding his face into the hay and dirt. “Ah, but I’m bigger and stronger than you. How does it feel, Fellport? How does it feel to be at my mercy? I could break you in two.”
There was a harsh silence, punctuated only by James’s ragged, uneven breathing. He was staring intently at Fellport, but his eyes looked strangely distant as he whispered, “I’ve waited for this moment. I’ve been waiting years to pay you back.”
“Me?” Fellport squeaked.
“All of you,” James ground out. “Every last one of you. I couldn’t save—” He choked on his words, and no one breathed as the muscles of his face jerked.
“I can save Elizabeth,” he whispered. “I won’t let you take her dignity.”
“James?” Elizabeth whispered. Dear God, he was going to kill him. And Elizabeth, God save her soul, wanted to watch. She wanted James to tear the man in two.
But she didn’t want to see James hang, which would almost certainly be the outcome. Fellport was a baronet. An estate manager couldn’t kill a baronet and get away with it. “James,” she said, more loudly, “you must stop.”
James paused, just long enough for Fellport to get a good look at his face. “You!” Fellport grunted.
James’s body was shaking, but he held his voice low and steady as he said, “Apologize to the lady.”
“That whore?”
Fellport’s head slammed against the ground.
“Apologize to the lady.”
Fellport said nothing.
And then, in a whir of movement so quick that Elizabeth couldn’t quite believe her eyes, James pulled out a gun.
Elizabeth’s breath caught, and her quivering hand flew up to cover her mouth.
There was a loud click, and James pressed the muzzle of the gun to Fellport’s head.
“Apologize to the lady.”
“I—I—” Fellport began to shake uncontrollably, and he couldn’t get the words out.
James moved the gun slowly, almost lovingly, against Fellport’s temple.
“Apologize to the lady.”
“James,” Elizabeth said, terror evident in her voice, “you must stop. It’s all right. I don’t need—”
“It’s not all right!” he roared. “It will never be all right! And this man will apologize or I’ll—”
“I’m sorry!” The words exploded from Fellport’s mouth, high-pitched and panicked.
James grabbed Fellport’s shirt collar and hauled him off the floor. Fellport gasped as the fabric bit into his skin. “You will be leaving this party,” James said in a deadly voice.
Fellport just made a choking sound.
James turned to Elizabeth, never once loosening his grip on Fellport. “I will be right back.”
She nodded tremulously, clutching her hands together in an effort to stem their shaking.
James dragged Fellport outside, leaving Elizabeth alone in the stall. Alone with a thousand questions.
Why had James been carrying a gun? And where had he learned to fight with such deadly precision? James’s punches hadn’t been influenced by friendly, sporting pugilism; they had been designed to kill.
And then there were the scarier questions, the ones that wouldn’t allow her heart to stop racing, her body to stop trembling. What if James hadn’t come across them in time? What if Fellport had turned brutal? What if…?
Life couldn’t be lived according to “what ifs?” and Elizabeth knew she was only prolonging her misery by dwelling on what might have happened rather than what did, but she couldn’t stop replaying the attack over and over in her mind. And whenever she got to the point where James had saved her, he didn’t appear, and Fellport pushed further, tearing off her clothes, bruising her skin, taking her—
“Stop,” she said aloud, pressing her fingers into her temples as she sank to the ground. Her tremors began to widen into shakes, and the sobs she hadn’t allowed herself to feel began to well in her throat. She took deep breaths, trying to keep her traitorous body under control, but she wasn’t strong enough to hold back the tears.
Her head fell into her hands, and she began to cry. And then she felt the oddest thing. Malcolm crawled onto her lap and began to lick away her tears. And for some reason that made her cry all the more.
James’s interview with Sir Bertram Fellport was brief. It didn’t require many words to explain what would happen to the baronet if he ever again set foot on Lady Danbury’s property. And while Fellport was shaking with fear and resentment, James amended his threat to include Fellport’s ever coming within twenty yards of Elizabeth, no matter her location.
After all, if James followed through with his plans to make her his wife, they would undoubtedly cross paths in London.
“Do we understand each other?” James asked, his voice terrifyingly calm.
Fellport nodded.
“Then get the hell off the property.”
“I need to gather my things.”
“I’ll have them sent to you,” James bit off. “Did you bring a carriage?”
Fellport shook his head. “I came with Binsby.”
“Good. The town is barely a mile away. You can hire someone to take you back to London from there.”
Fellport nodded.
“And if you breathe a word of this to anyone,” James said in a deadly voice, “if you so much as mention my presence here, I will kill you.”
Fellport nodded again, looking as if he wanted nothing more than to follow James’s orders and leave, but James still had him by the collar.
“One more thing,” James said. “If you mention me, I will, as I said, kill you, but if you mention Miss Hotchkiss…”
Fellport soiled himself.
“I will do it slowly.”
James let go of Fellport’s collar, and the baronet stumbled a few steps before running off. James watched him disappear over the gentle rise of the hill, then strode back into the stables. He hadn’t liked leaving Elizabeth alone after such a traumatic experience, but he’d had no choice. He had to deal with Fellport, and he didn’t think that Elizabeth wanted to be in the same room as the scoundrel for one moment longer than was necessary.
Not to mention that Fellport could have revealed James’s true identity at any moment.
The minute James stepped into the stables, he heard her crying.
“Damn,” he whispered, stumbling for half a step as he went to her. He didn’t know how to comfort her, didn’t have the slightest idea what to do. All he knew was that she needed him, and he prayed to God that he didn’t fail her.
He reached the corner stall, the door still hanging drunkenly from its hinges. Elizabeth was huddled against the far wall, her arms wrapped around her legs, her forehead resting against her knees. The cat
had somehow wedged itself into the hollow space between Elizabeth’s thighs and torso, and, much to James’s amazement, appeared to be trying to comfort her.
“Lizzie?” James whispered. “Oh, Lizzie.”
She was swaying slightly from side to side, and he could see her shoulders rise and fall with each shuddering breath.
He knew that sort of breath. It was the one you drew when you were trying so hard to keep your feelings inside, but you just weren’t strong enough.
He moved swiftly to her side, settling down next to her in the hay. Laying his arm around her slender shoulders, he whispered, “He’s gone.”
She said nothing, but he felt her muscles tense.
James looked down at her. Her clothing was dirty but not torn, and though he was fairly certain that Fellport had not managed to rape her, he prayed that his attack had not gone beyond a brutal kiss.
Kiss? He nearly spat out the word. Whatever Fellport had done to her, however much he had forced his mouth against hers, it had not been a kiss.
James’s eyes wandered over the top of her head. Her white-gold hair was matted with straw, and even though he could not see her face, she looked so forlorn.
His hand clenched. It was rushing back—that familiar feeling of helplessness. He could feel her terror. It shook through him, coiled in his belly. “Please,” he whispered. “Tell me what I can do.”
She made no sound, but she huddled closer to his side. James tightened his embrace.
“He won’t bother you again,” he said fiercely. “I promise you.”
“I try so hard to be strong,” she gasped. “Every day, I try so hard.…”
James turned and grasped her by the shoulders, forcing her to lift her teary eyes to his. “You are strong,” he said. “You’re the strongest woman I know.”
“I try so hard,” she said again, as if trying to reassure herself of this. “Every day. But I wasn’t strong enough. I wasn’t—”
“Don’t say that. This wasn’t your fault. Men like Fellport…” James paused to gather a ragged breath. “They hurt women. It’s the only way they know how to feel strong.”
She didn’t say anything, and he could see her struggling to hold back the sobs gathering in her throat.
“This—this violence…it is due to a defect in his person, not yours.” He shook his head and squeezed his eyes shut for the barest of moments. “You didn’t ask him to do this to you.”
“I know.” She shook her head, and her lips quivered into the saddest smile he’d ever seen. “But I couldn’t stop him.”
“Elizabeth, he is twice your size!”
She let out a long breath and pulled away from him, slumping back against the wall. “I’m tired of being strong. I’m so tired of it. Since the day of my father’s death…”
James stared at her, searched her eyes as they went blank, and a very queer, foreboding feeling squeezed around his heart. “Elizabeth,” he asked carefully, “how did your parents die?”
“My mother was killed in a carriage accident,” she replied, her voice hollow. “Everybody saw it. The mangled carriage. They covered her body, but everyone saw how she died.”
He waited for her to say something about her father, but she didn’t. Finally, he whispered, “And your father?”
“He killed himself.”
James’s lips parted in surprise, and he was struck by a fierce and uncontrollable anger. He had no idea what had happened to make Elizabeth’s father feel so desperate, but Mr. Hotchkiss had taken the coward’s way out, leaving his eldest daughter to care for his family.
“What happened?” he asked, trying to keep the anger out of his voice.
Elizabeth looked up, a bitter, fatalistic sound escaping her lips. “It was six months after Mama’s accident. He always—” She choked on her words. “He always did love her best.”
James started to say something, but words were spilling from Elizabeth’s lips with the speed of rushing water. It was as if he’d broken through a dam, and now she couldn’t stem the flow of emotion.
“He just couldn’t go on,” she said, her eyes growing bright with anger. “Every day he’d slip further and further into some secret place that none of us could reach. And we tried! God, I swear to you, we tried.”
“I know you did,” he murmured, squeezing her shoulder. “I know you. I know you tried.”
“Even Jane and Lucas. They would scramble onto his lap, just like before, but he’d push them away. He wouldn’t hug us. He wouldn’t touch us. And toward the end, he wouldn’t even speak to us.” She took a deep, sucking breath, but it did little to calm her. “I always knew he’d never love us as he did her, but you’d think he’d love us enough.”
Her fingers curled into a tight fist, and James watched with helpless sorrow as she pressed it hard against her mouth. He reached out and touched her fingers, feeling oddly relieved when they wrapped around his hand.
“You’d think,” she said, her voice the saddest, tiniest whisper, “that he’d have loved us enough to live.”
“You don’t have to say anything more,” James whispered, knowing he’d be haunted forever by this moment. “You don’t need to tell me.”
“No.” She shook her head. “I want to. I’ve never said the words.”
He waited while she gathered her courage.
“He shot himself,” she said, the words barely audible. “I found him in the garden. There was so much blood.” She swallowed convulsively. “I’ve never seen so much blood.”
James held silent, wanting so much to say something to comfort her, but knowing there were no words to help.
She laughed bitterly. “I tried to tell myself it was his last act of caring, shooting himself in the garden. I made so many trips to the well, but at least the blood washed right into the ground. If he’d shot himself in the house, the Lord only knows how I would have cleaned it up.”
“What did you do?” he asked softly.
“I made it look like a hunting accident,” she whispered. “I dragged his body out to the woods. Everybody knew he was a hunter. No one suspected it was anything else, or if they did, they never said anything.”
“You dragged him?” he asked in disbelief. “Was your father a small man? I mean, you’re quite petite, and—”
“He was about your height, although a bit thinner. I don’t know where I got the strength,” she said, shaking her head. “Born of pure terror, I suppose. I didn’t want the children to know what he’d done.” She looked up, the expression in her eyes suddenly unsure. “They still don’t know.”
He squeezed her hand.
“I’ve tried not to speak ill of him.”
“And you’ve been shouldering this burden for five years,” he said softly. “Secrets are heavy, Elizabeth. They’re hard to carry alone.”
Her shoulders rose and fell in a weary shrug. “Maybe I did the wrong thing. But I panicked. I didn’t know what else to do.”
“It sounds as if you did exactly what needed to be done.”
“He was buried in consecrated ground,” she said in a flat voice. “According to the church—according to everyone but me—it wasn’t a suicide. Everyone kept offering condolences, calling it such a tragedy, and it was all I could do not to scream out the truth.”
She twisted her head to face him. Her eyes were wet and glistening, the exact color of violets. “I hated that he was made to sound a hero. I was the one to hide his suicide, and yet I wanted to tell everyone that he was a coward, that he had left me to pick up his pieces. I wanted to shake them and shake them and shake them and make them stop saying what a good father he was. Because he wasn’t.” Her voice grew low and fierce. “He wasn’t a good father. We were nuisances. He only wanted Mama. He never wanted us.”
“I’m sorry,” James whispered, taking her hand.
“It’s not your fault.”
He smiled, trying to coax one from her in return. “I know, but I’m still sorry.”
Her lips quivered—almost
a smile, but not quite. “Isn’t it ironic? You’d think that love is a good thing, wouldn’t you?”
“Love is a good thing, Elizabeth.” And he meant it. He meant it more than he ever could have dreamed he would.
She shook her head. “My parents loved too much. There simply wasn’t enough left over for the rest of us. And when Mama was gone—well, we just couldn’t take her place.”
“That is not your fault,” James said, his eyes searching hers with mesmerizing intensity. “There’s no limit on love. If your father’s heart wasn’t big enough for his whole family, that means he was flawed, not you. If he’d been any sort of a man, he would have realized that his children were miraculous extensions of his love for your mother. And he would have had the strength to go on without her.”
Elizabeth digested his words, letting them sink slowly into her heart. She knew he was right, knew that her father’s weaknesses were his weaknesses, not hers. But it was so damned hard to accept it. She looked up at James, who was staring at her with the kindest, warmest eyes she’d ever seen. “Your parents must have loved each other very much,” she said softly.
James drew back in surprise. “My parents…” he said slowly. “Theirs was not a love match.”
“Oh,” she said softly. “But maybe that’s for the best. After all, my parents—”
“What your father did,” James interrupted, “was wrong and weak and cowardly. What my father did…”
Elizabeth saw the pain in his eyes and squeezed his hands.
“What my father did,” he whispered savagely, “should earn him a place in hell.”
Elizabeth felt her mouth go dry. “What do you mean?”
There was a long silence, and when James finally spoke, his voice was very strange. “I was six when my mother died.”
She held silent.
“They told me she fell down the stairs. Broke her neck. Such a tragedy, they all said.”
“Oh, no.” The words slipped from Elizabeth’s lips.
James turned his head abruptly to face her. “She always tried to tell me she was clumsy, but I’d seen her dance. She used to hum as she waltzed partnerless through the music room. She was the most beautiful, graceful woman I’ve ever seen. Sometimes she’d pick me up and waltz with me resting on her hip.”