A Matter of Choice (29 page)

“I thought it might come to that. But I had faith Lord Chardwell could convince you.”

“I’m not sure I should have let him.”

Her brows lifted upward. “Then why did you?”

He tried to smile but wasn’t sure how convincing he was. “I don’t know. Perhaps because I had to know for sure.”

“I see.”

She stared at him as if she were searching past the facade that had been such a part of him when they’d first met. Beyond the hurt he was determined to conceal. To the very core of him, where the slightest glimmer of hope stared back at her.

He couldn’t stand the torture of waiting to hear her verdict any longer. He sucked in a deep breath and said, “Perhaps you should get this over.”

“Very well. But surely you know the reason it must be so public. The reason none of this could be handled in private.”

“Yes. I think I do.”

She nodded. “I want not only you, but everyone here to know what a tragic mistake I made.”

Mistake. She wanted everyone to know what a mistake marrying him had been.

Joshua lifted his chin while he stoically waited for the blow he knew was coming.

“I want everyone to know I had a choice to make and chose wrongly.”

A weight dropped to the pit of his stomach. Oh, please, he prayed. Just don’t let her say she didn’t love him. That she never had.

“I want everyone to know the fault is—”

A loud crash interrupted her words. She spun around, her gaze darting to the commotion behind her.

He froze.

A terror unlike anything he’d known before gripped every muscle in his body as his father stumbled toward them. He reached out and pulled Allison safely out of his father’s reach.

There was a wild look in the Duke of Ashbury’s eyes, his clothing askew, his hair disheveled and uncombed, his face contorted with fury. He staggered near them as if drunk, yet not from liquor, but from a bitter hatred that had left him unstable.

The deep frown on his father’s forehead pulled his thick, dark brows together in a menacing threat. There was no sign of kindness or rational thought, but only a murderous look in his eyes.

And a pistol clutched in his hand.

The crowd below gasped. The gathering of women shrieked in alarm.

When Joshua looked into his father’s eyes, the duke’s intent was obvious.

He saw the hatred. Realized his murderous intent. And knew his father intended to kill him.

The duke slowly raised his arm and pointed the barrel at the middle of Joshua’s chest.

Joshua pushed Allison further behind him.

A malevolent smile crossed his face as he moved his finger against the trigger.

“No!” Allison cried out.

Her scream cut through the murmurs from below.

Joshua tried to keep her where she’d be safe, but before he could get a firm grip on her, she bolted from behind him and stood midway between him and his father. Directly in the path of his father’s bullet.

“Allison!”

Fear gripped him with an iron fist.

A look of shocked surprise paled the duke’s face and Joshua reached to push her away. His father’s roar stopped him.

“Stay away from her!”

Another round of sharp cries and loud gasps echoed as the terrified crowd reacted to the scene playing out before them.

His father looked confused, disoriented. His hand wavered as his gaze darted from one side of the room to the other. An angry expression covered his face, a furious look because his plan to kill Joshua had been thwarted by a mere woman.

“Get out of the way!” the duke bellowed, motioning for Allison to step to the side.

Her face lost more of its color but she held her ground. “No.”

He swung his pistol through the air. “Move, damn you! Or I’ll kill you, too.”

Joshua’s heart thundered in his chest. “Move, Allison. Go down with the rest of your family. Now.”

She ignored him and took a step closer to the duke. “Please, Your Grace. Perhaps we could talk privately.” She took another step. “If you’ll just come with—“

“Fool!” Ashbury roared. “He’s not worth risking your life to save.”

She stopped. “Oh, but he is, Your Grace. He is.”

Joshua’s heart skipped a beat. The crowd gasped in disbelief.

“Do you think I won’t shoot you?” Ashbury waved his gun in the air. “This is your fault, you know.”

Joshua struggled against the panic. Against the terror that told him how close he was to losing her. “None of this is Allison’s fault. It’s mine. Mine alone.”

“No! It was her dowry that saved you.”

From the corner of his eye, Joshua watched Chardwell make his way toward them. If he could keep his father talking, perhaps Chardwell would have a chance to disarm him.

“I couldn’t save it, Father. Haven’t you heard? I lost it all.”

The demented sound of his father’s laughter echoed throughout the ballroom. “You fool! Don’t you realize why you’re here?”

His father steadied the gun, leveling it to the middle of Allison’s chest.

“No, Father. Why am I here?”

“She’s taking you back! And she’s invited half of London to witness it so there’s no mistaking her feelings for you.”

The crowd below them murmured in hushed tones.

“Allison has no feelings for me. She—”

“She
loves
you! Anyone can see that. And you love her!”

Joshua turned his gaze to Allison.

She loved him.

He saw it in her eyes. He’d known it, of course, but it had never been more obvious than now.

A lifetime of emotion flickered in her gaze as she stared at him, then she took another dangerous step toward his father.

“Allison, no!”

She didn’t heed his warning.

“Yes, Your Grace. I love him, and I won’t let you kill him.”

A fear unlike any Joshua had ever known consumed him. “Allison, step away.”

His father ignored Joshua’s efforts and waved his pistol, aiming it again at Allison.

“You think you can protect him?” he slurred. “You think I don’t have the courage to kill you, too?”

“You are the Duke of Ashbury. I think you are far too noble to harm a woman.”

Ashbury shook his head from side to side, then roared a pathetic cry of dismay. “You weren’t supposed to take him back.”

“I almost didn’t,” she interrupted. “Until I realized that your son would never break the promise he made me.” She looked out over the awe-struck crowd. “The scene I walked in on was a sham,” she said loudly. “Lady Paxton drugged my husband to make it look as if the two of them were having an affair.” She turned again to face Ashbury. “I’d simply like to know how you forced Lady Paxton to participate in your plan.”

A sinister grin lifted the corners of the duke’s mouth. “Everyone has at least one secret they’ll do anything to keep the world from discovering.”

“You blackmailed her?”

“I did what I had to do so
he
wouldn’t get everything. It’s Philip’s! Philip was supposed to have it!”

The duke pointed his gun again, but his grip was as unsteady as a flag flopping in a windstorm. “You weren’t supposed to take him back! He was supposed to lose everything!”

“He’ll never lose it. Because I love him. And he loves me.”

The gasp from the crowd sucked the air from the room.

She turned. “I was wrong, Joshua. You told me you loved me and I doubted you. I never should have.”

She turned again to face his father. “I invited everyone tonight because I wanted the world to know that I love your son.”

“Fool!”

His father’s composure slipped and Joshua struggled with the riot of emotions that erupted inside him. “Allison, step back.”

“I won’t let him kill you.” She stood firmly in front of the duke.

A look of demented terror filled his father’s gaze.

“Why couldn’t it have been you? Why did Philip have to die? He was to have it all. Not you.”

His father’s gun hand lifted and Joshua stepped to the side. Away from Allison.

The gun in his father’s hand followed him, and without hesitation, his father fired.

“No!” Allison screamed as she lunged forward.

Joshua tried to shield her but before he could push her out of harm’s way, the bullet struck. She staggered backward.

Joshua gathered her in his arms while the room burst into pandemonium. Wild screams of terror erupted all around him, the roar inside his head adding to the din of confusion. The scene before him turned to a picture of madness. And there was nothing he could do to undo what had happened. He’d failed to keep Allison safe.

“Allison!”

At first she stared at him with a surprised look on her face, as if she didn’t understand what had happened.

He pulled her close and held her tight as the color drained from her face. He lifted his hand from her back. His fingers came away dark and wet.

“Why, Allie? It was supposed to be me.”

A faint smile lifted the corners of her lips. “It was...my...choice.”

She stiffened in his arms as if struck by a stabbing of pain. “Joshua—“

“Shh, don’t talk. You’re going to be fine. I’ll take care of you.”

He looked to where his father stood, restrained by Chardwell and Hartley. The duke’s wild, demented look appeared more like what he really was; a weak, disgusting picture of insanity.

“What have you done?” Joshua demanded as he lifted Allison in his arms and carried her toward the door.

His father shook his head. “It was supposed to be you. You! Your life for his.”

“You fool! Killing me won’t bring Philip back!”

Joshua carried his wife past his father. There was no other way to leave the room. Was it possible for hatred to be so strong, so corrosive? He looked at Allison’s pale, limp body in his arms and knew it was.

“It should have been you,” the duke hissed again with even more bitterness than before.

“I wish to God it had been,” he answered, his eyes blurring as tears burned his eyes. He didn’t stop but hurried to get Allison away from this madness.

“She wasn’t supposed to take you back. You were supposed to lose it all.”

“Don’t worry, old man,” he said to no one in particular. “If she dies, I will.”

Joshua carried her up the stairs, his father’s voice echoing behind him, the loud demented bellows of a man consumed by insanity.

“You aren’t mine!” his father yelled. “You never were. Only hers.”

“Only hers!”

Joshua paced the floor of the library
, trying to avoid the worried expressions on Allison’s family’s faces. They were all there, as well as Chardwell, waiting for the doctor to tell them how seriously she’d been injured.

“Do you require anything, my lord?” Jenkins asked from the door. “More tea?”

He nodded, even though the thought of eating anything turned his stomach. But maybe someone else did.

“It won’t be long now, Montfort,” Chardwell said, clamping his fingers atop Joshua’s shoulders. “She’ll be fine. She’s a fighter.”

“I can’t lose her,” he said, needing to say the words. Needing someone to know how frightened he was.

“You won’t lose her,” Lady Fortiner said with confidence. Allison’s other sisters agreed.

“I never wanted to hurt her.”

“We know you didn’t,” Hartley said. He had his arm around his wife’s waist and held her close.

Each of Allison’s sisters stood next to their husbands. If nothing more had come from tonight’s tragedy, the attentive show of concern each husband felt for his wife was evident. Each couple stood with their arms around each other, as if to offer each other support.

Allison would have been happy to see the gestures. She would have tried to use the opportunity to point out to her brothers-in-law how important fidelity was. He suddenly wanted to make the effort for her.

“All Allison wanted was a husband who was faithful to her. Who was satisfied with the love she had to offer and didn’t seek his pleasures elsewhere.” He paused to look at each of his brothers-in-law. “I think that is all any woman wants of her husband. For the man she married to honor the vows he made before God. For her to be able to wear her husband’s name with pride. I know that is what Allison would tell you if she were here.”

Tears ran down her three sisters’ cheeks. Looks of shame and embarrassment covered his brothers-in-law’s faces as they gathered their wives closer to them.

His heart tugged inside his chest. Allison would feel good about what he’d said to her family. She’d feel good to know someone had pointed out indiscretions her sisters were too weak to face.

He turned away and swiped at an errant tear that ran down his cheek. He didn’t regret what he’d said. He only wished she were here to hear it. And she would be if she hadn’t stepped in front of him to protect him from his father’s bullet.

Joshua thought of his father. “Where is Ashbury?” he asked. Not that he cared. Not that it mattered to him one way or the other any more. He simply wanted to make sure he couldn’t hurt Allison more than he already had.