The Complete Regency Surrender Collection. Louise Allen
you should go alone. You can travel faster that way and be far from here before my husband and the duke return.’
‘Your husband?’ Montague laughed at her.
It had been a stupid mistake. She must learn not to believe her own lies. ‘Lord William Felkirk,’ she corrected. ‘The man you attacked. Perhaps he will not even seek you out, if I am here to take the blame for the crime.’
Montague considered for a moment and shook his head. ‘You think you shall persuade him to forgive you, with your sad eyes, your bowed head and your gentle manners.’ He reached out then and plucked the cap from her head, running his fingers through the curls and then pulling sharply back on them so that she was forced to meet his gaze. ‘You will bind him with lust and pity, until he is as trapped by you as I have been. Then you will send him to find me and I will be the one who hangs.’
‘Then I suggest you run as far and as fast as you can,’ she said in a calm voice. She could feel the skin of her scalp pulled tight in his grip and the muscles in her neck straining against the force of his hands. It did not matter. After today, she had likely lost the love of her sister. She would lose Will as well and the respect of everyone else she had met here. There was little left that Montague could do that would hurt her.
‘I am not going anywhere,’ Montague said with a smile. ‘Unless it is back to the woods to await the return of your precious Felkirk.’ He released her, pushing her roughly back into the cushions of the chair, and withdrew a pistol from his coat pocket. When he was sure she had seen, he dropped it back to where it had been hidden. ‘How hard would it be, do you think, to finish him with a single shot?’
‘Harder than you think,’ she said breathlessly. ‘He is with his brother the duke. There will be coachmen, outriders, livery. You cannot have so many bullets as that in your little gun.’
‘Perhaps I shall wait until he rides out alone,’ Montague replied. ‘He is still weak, is he not? And probably just as careless as he was the day he turned his back on me.’
‘You would not dare,’ she said, suddenly quite sure he would.
‘I would not act, unless you gave me reason. If you were to stay here, to blather the story to him, for example. Or if you plan on raising the alarm against me.’ He paused, reaching for her again and running his thumb down her cheek. ‘I would have no reason for it if you came away with me. Things will be as they were between us. Then, if it pleases me, we will discuss your freedom and that of your sister.’
Her heart sank. He would win, just as he always did. She would go with him, if only to lure him away from Will and Margot. If she did not, he would wait and watch, and eventually he would strike.
He could feel her weakening. It made him smile. ‘Very good. I knew you would come to see things as I do. You of all people should understand what might happen to a man alone on that path. There are places that are shadowed, even in daylight. At night, when the moon is new as it was when your father died...’
‘How did you...?’
‘He thought he was too clever for me, just as you did,’ Montague said. ‘He hid the diamonds and carried nothing but an empty pouch. In the end, he gained nothing and lost his life. I got the insurance money, of course. But I wanted the stones as well.’ His voice trailed off, as he thought back to the incident, his face marked by a childlike disappointment.
‘You.’ She felt no surprise. It was as if she had known, all along, but it had been too awful to contemplate, so she had refused to think too closely about it.
‘Me,’ he said, with a proud smile. Then he gripped her by her shoulders, pulling her to her feet. ‘There is no point in resisting. I have been the architect of your fate for most of your life and I do not mean to change that now. In a few moments you will get your shawl and come away with me. You will leave this place and have no more contact with sweet William and his family. If you do anything to warn him, seek help of any kind, or reveal secrets that have been hidden for years, then things will be far worse than the lesson I mean to teach you now.’ He kissed her, if such an open-mouthed punishment could be called a kiss. She fought, but the contact was relentless, his tongue pushed deep into her mouth until she was near to gagging on it and had ceased her struggles. Only then did he release her, following it with a slap that sent her reeling on to the sofa.
It was happening again. And as usual, she could think of no way to stop it. To cry out would mean discovery and an end to the assault. But it would also require explanations and the story would eventually get back to Will and then to his brother. The servants would not conceal an attack on their mistress from the very people who might punish the perpetrator.
There would be questions, so many questions. Why would she welcome such a man into the house? Why had she not called out sooner? And the question she asked herself most often: Why had she not found a way to stop this, years ago?
As usual, she had no answer. And as usual, she closed her eyes and imagined she was somewhere else.
Will needed only a moment to decide the route and speed for his return trip to the manor. Keeping a sedate pace on the road beside the carriage would give him time to think. He did not need to do that. He had spent too much time in the last weeks trying to understand the circumstances of his new life. But when one was basing one’s cogitation on a horribly flawed series of supposed facts, one had nothing but nonsense at the end of it.
What he needed now was action, not thought. He set off cross country at a full gallop, through pastures and fields, scattering sheep and taking fences as a series of easy jumps. He had nothing to fear, after all. Jupiter was not dead. He had not fallen from a horse. And the injury he’d suffered was no accident.
He would arrive home much sooner than expected and surprise Justine de Bryun. The thought made him smile, but it was with none of the foolish, misplaced joy he’d been feeling lately. This was the kind of cold, grim satisfaction that thief takers must feel when they had their man dead to rights and heading towards the gallows.
He would arrive home and he would shake the truth out of her. He would ignore the huge, sad eyes and wistful smile, toss the lace into the fire and follow it with the ridiculous, prim cap she was likely wearing. A whore did not belong in modest gowns, nor did she bother to cover her head like a housewife. That she would sit with ladies under a scroll of virginal lace was an affront to him and his entire family.
She was a liar, nothing more than that. Below stairs, above stairs, and all the places in between. An image arose in his mind of the sweet, seemingly innocent face that had looked up at him as he’d touched her in their shared bed. Then he imagined that same face, smiling in a much more knowing way at Montague as they plotted against him. The beautiful body that had twined with his had writhed under another man, as she moaned with pleasure.
She was a liar and he had been a fool. Now it was not just her and Montague, but her sister he had to contend with. Lord knew if the girl was in any way involved in this. But was it really his problem, if she was not? He supposed she might be as big a victim as he was. All the same, it did not entitle her to much more than a ticket back to the school she supposedly attended.
The house was in sight now and he bore down on it, gaining speed, rather than slowing. After so long abandoned in a stall, Jupiter relished the speed, just as he did. But now he was eager to return to his own pasture and to be curried and cosseted by familiar hands. He stopped, still dancing with excitement, at the front door.
Will dismounted, handing the reins to a footman who could only manage an awed, ‘My, lord’, at the sight of the familiar, black stallion. Then Will pushed past him, into the house, to find his wife.
Not his wife, he reminded himself. No more weakness, no more foolishness. She was a madman’s plaything, nothing more than that. Soon she would be gone. She and her lover would be in the hands of the law and life would return to normal.
When he opened the door of the