Anna Campbell - What a Duke Dares

Her mouth flattened with defiance. “I’m not a naughty child, Cam. I’m your wife.”

“More’s the pity.”

She whitened and staggered back, fumbling for the banister. Her eyes were like dull black coals in her strained face.

He sucked in a breath and struggled to rein in his anger. “That was unworthy. My apologies.” His jaw was so tight that every word felt carved from stone. He bowed stiffly. “We’ll discuss our future when I return.”

“You’re going after them?” she asked unsteadily.

“Of course I’m bloody going after them.” His attempt at control frayed almost before he’d told himself to settle down, for the sake of his pride if nothing else. “I need to stop Leath from killing Harry, much as the sod deserves it.”

He was Camden Rothermere, famous for his self-possession. How he longed to be that man again. Not this agonized, confused, enraged creature who wanted to march away from his wife and never see her again. And who wanted to seize her in his arms and kiss her and make her swear that everything he’d learned tonight was spiteful lies.

“I didn’t think you cared what happens to Harry,” she said heavily.

“I care that this scandal gets no worse than it bloody is already.”

Unfortunately that wasn’t nearly the whole truth. He cared about much more than that. He cared about Pen, although he intended to eradicate that affliction before the night was done. He cared for reckless, thoughtless Harry Thorne. He cared for silly, headstrong Sophie Fairbrother, who right now imagined the world well lost for love. She’d face a bitter awakening once she’d abandoned the privilege and protection of life as the Marquess of Leath’s sister.

Love! The world would be a better place if there was no such thing.

“This is my fault,” Pen said in a leaden voice.

He didn’t answer. He didn’t have to. When the silence extended, she turned away with a despairing gesture.

He needed to leave if he meant to overtake Leath. But still he lingered to watch Pen climb the stairs. Her head was up, her shoulders were straight and her spine could double as a ship’s mast. But he didn’t misunderstand that if she’d dealt him a killing blow, he hadn’t been much kinder. If he had a heart, he’d feel sorry for her.

But he had no heart. She’d crushed it when she proved herself untrue.

Cam ran down the front steps. His phaeton waited, his two fastest horses restless after being roused from a warm stable before sunrise.

He wanted to concentrate on his immediate need to find that blockhead Harry Thorne and his brainless inamorata. Not to mention prevent Leath from committing murder and making this elopement a matter for the authorities. But he couldn’t help dwelling on the failure of his lifelong efforts to bury the old scandals. Scandal fattened on scandal, so all the stories about his mother and her taste for Rothermere brothers would do the rounds again.

Still, he’d rather think about scandal than about his duplicitous wife.

He’d already calculated the quickest route to Liverpool, where Harry had chosen to embark on this ill-considered adventure. There were closer ports offering passage across the Atlantic, but God forbid that his brother-in-law should make things easier. Perhaps the long journey was a blessing. It would give Cam a chance to cool down. At this juncture, if Leath didn’t shoot Harry, Cam would.

Jenkins, who had served the Dukes of Sedgemoor all his life, held the restive chestnuts. “Are you sure I shouldn’t come, Your Grace?”

“I appreciate the offer, but I’m going alone.” He grabbed the side of the carriage and vaulted into the seat, seizing the reins. “Stand aside.”

“Wait!”

With a sense of inevitability, Cam watched Pen rush from the house. She was dressed for travel and she carried a small bag. “Go back to bed.”

“I’m coming,” she said breathlessly, reaching for his hand to help her into the phaeton.

Cam didn’t release his grip on the reins. “No, you’re not.” He nodded to Jenkins. “Release the horses.”

“No!” Pen darted forward to block the carriage. “Not without me.”

Jenkins looked at Cam, then at Pen, then at Cam. He didn’t release the horses.

“Jenkins, you heard me,” Cam said through lips made of ice. If only his heart was.

“You won’t run me down,” Pen said with a confidence he resented.

“You’re making an exhibition of yourself,” he bit out.

“I don’t care.”

His eyes narrowed. “You’ll move if I drive the horses at you.”

“Try me.”

Cam raised his whip above the chestnuts’ glossy rumps. “Jenkins.”

“Your Grace,” he protested.

“Now.”

With obvious reluctance, Jenkins stepped away.

“Are you that angry with me?” Pen didn’t shift as Cam urged the horses forward. Her face revealed no trace of fear.

Instead of setting off smoothly, the horses moved choppily in the shafts. One neighed its confusion, the other tossed its head.

Across the distance, Pen’s eyes burned into his. At the last minute, as she knew he would, curse her, Cam turned the horses to avoid her.

She stepped into his way again.

“Stand aside.”

“No.”

“Damn it, woman,” he muttered.

“Harry will listen to me. And you’ll need a woman’s help with Sophie.”

It wasn’t the best moment to remember Pen’s stubbornness. If you gained her cooperation she’d go to the ends of the earth for you. If you didn’t, bullying only made her dig her heels in.

“Cam, you need me.”

No, he bloody well didn’t.

He glowered at Pen while his horses stamped on the cobblestones and tugged at the reins to evade this madwoman. Would she budge if he tried again? She was so blasted mulish, he suspected that she wouldn’t. He might want to strangle her, but he drew the line at cold-blooded murder.

Not that there was anything cold-blooded about his reactions. He wished to Hades there was.

“Come on, then,” he said grimly, firming his hold on the reins.

He waited for some evidence of relief or gratitude, but Pen calmly stepped around his horses, patting them on the way. “Thank you, Jenkins.”

His coachman bowed to her. “Your Grace.”

She stood beside the carriage and passed Cam the bag. “Help me up?”

“Don’t push it,” he growled, but he reached for her. Once she was settled, he dug around under the seat and found a travel rug which he shoved ungraciously in her direction. It was a deuced cold night for early May.

“Thank you,” she said quietly.

“Don’t expect any more concessions to female weakness. This isn’t a pleasure jaunt.”

He glanced at her, but she stared straight ahead as if she didn’t hear him. Although she did. She might suffer a poor grasp of ethics, but her hearing had always been excellent. Feeling he’d bartered his dignity enough, he clicked his tongue to the horses.

They were well out of London before he spoke. “You took a damned risk back there.”

He still felt sick to think that he might have lost control of his highly strung horses. Sick, and furious with Pen for placing herself in such danger out of sheer obstinacy.

“Not really,” she said steadily, staring at the road ahead.

“The horses could have charged you.”

“You had them in hand.”

Perversely her trust made him angrier. He’d trusted her and she’d let him down. “Running you down held a certain appeal,” he admitted, even as he reminded himself that silence was safer.

“I know,” she said in a subdued voice.

A quick glance revealed her desolate expression. He closed his heart against her. She was a deceitful snake. A man didn’t hug a deceitful snake unless he wanted to be bitten. And Cam had had quite enough of Pen’s poison.

After hours of traveling, Pen was stiff and frozen and queasy with regret and guilt. Cam hadn’t spoken to her since their exchange about that fraught scene outside Rothermere House.

He did a wonderful impression of a man impervious to feeling, but she’d seen his eyes when he’d learned that she’d helped Harry. She’d only realized how much he’d opened up to her when he’d stared at her like a stranger. The uncompromising line of his jaw told her that he’d cut off his arm before he’d trust her again.

As they stopped at yet another inn and the ostlers rushed to change the horses, Cam jumped to the ground with an energy that made Pen cringe. They’d left the chestnuts behind two inns ago, not that she’d noticed much difference. At this speed, nothing countered the rough roads. At least it wasn’t raining, but the wind was icy and belonged more to winter than nascent spring.

“Would you like something to eat?” Cam asked in a stern voice.

She sought some sign of relenting. But his eyes were colder than the wind and the smile lines that she loved so much were absent. Still, at previous stops he’d made no concessions to her comfort, so perhaps things weren’t as bad as they had been.

“I don’t want to hold you up.” After the long silence, her voice sounded rusty.

“Half an hour won’t make much difference.”

“Very well,” she said. “Thank you.”

To save him from touching her disgusting self—he’d ostentatiously avoided contact, despite the phaeton’s restricted space—she moved, wincing at her numb backside. But she’d misjudged the effects of sitting still so long. The moment her feet hit the cobbles, her legs folded.

She released a soft cry and grabbed for the carriage. Then strong arms caught her and lifted her high. It was like the time she’d collapsed after the shipwreck. Cam hadn’t liked her much then either. But that had been because he wanted her and couldn’t have her. This time, he didn’t like her because she’d betrayed him. Despair clenched her empty belly.