Adams, Eve - The Banished Bride [Brides of Bachelor Bay 5] (Siren Publishing Ménage Everlasting) (16 page)

And it was all his fault.

He should have stopped Logan from kicking her out. He should have at least protested. Instead, he stood there and said nothing more from his own silver-tongued brutality. He was no different than Aunt Mildred in that respect, and he hated himself for it.

She looked at him, her lower lip quivering, tears leaving clean streaks on her cheeks. She held up a broken piece of a porcelain pitcher. “I didn’t mean to. It sat on the edge of the dresser and I didn’t see it. She’s going to be so angry with me.”

The way those tears streamed down her face would surely kill him yet. Her shoulders shook as she cried and he broke. He couldn’t stand to see her like this. He groaned in a low, torn growl that shocked the shit out of him.

This was not how everything should have turned out. She was supposed to fight. She was supposed to give Mildred a run for her money. Instead, she’d given up. Goddamn her.

Goddamn him, too. He’d driven her to this point.

Ah. Hell. He couldn’t do this. He couldn’t stand here and let her give up on herself. He had to do something. He wanted
his
Amelia back. He didn’t want to break her and build her into someone she wasn’t.

He wanted her, spoiled rotten and all.

“Come here, baby.” He pulled her into his arms, not caring about the stains transferring from her rag of a dress onto one of his good suits. She trembled in his arms as she cried on his shoulder. He held her tight and ran his hand up and down her back as each sob tore through him. “Shh. It’s okay.”

“No, it’s not okay.” She pushed him away and wiped at her tears, leaving a dark streak across her cheek. “She hates me and is doing whatever she can to make me pay for things I have no control over.”

He’d have to have a little word with Aunt Mildred. Just who the hell did she think she was treating his future wife like this? Amelia Prescott would be family soon regardless of which brother she chose, and he’d need to help Aunt Mildred to understand that fact in no uncertainty. But, for now, Amelia needed him more than he needed to scold Aunt Mildred.

“Clean yourself up, my dear. We are going out.”

“Why?”

“Today is Founder’s Day. Adam Steele and his brother Raven founded Port Steele on this day. We celebrate it every year.”

“Not this year.” Her voice sounded so distant, so vacant. “You go. Please.”

“I most certainly will not be attending the picnic and watching the fireworks without my future bride with me. It is a festivity meant to be shared. I’m afraid I won’t take no for an answer.”

“Andrew,” she whimpered as her eyes filled with fresh tears. “Look at me. I can’t.”

“Yes, you can. You can and you will.” He took her hands and nailed her with an intense look. “This is not you. Where is my little spitfire ready to throw things if she doesn’t get her way?”

“Gone.” She blinked, and more giant tears streamed down her face. Looking up into his eyes, her lashes spiked with her tears, she held his gaze. “I don’t want to be that person, Andrew. I don’t want to be Mildred.” Her lip quivered as more tears streamed down her face. “But I am, aren’t I? I’m her. That’s why you sent me here. Oh, Andrew. I’m horrid!”

“You aren’t,” he told her with such intensity they both gasped at his tone. “Listen to me. You are to be my wife. I know what we’ll have behind closed doors, but to me and everyone else, I need you as my legal wife. Please, Amelia. Please marry me and leave this life we’ve forced upon you. You’ll never work another day in your life. I promise you that.”

“Really?”

“Let me place this ring on your hand and make it official. I’ll marry you before the sun sets if that’s what you want. We’ll go home, Amelia.”

“Logan doesn’t want me there.”

“Then we’ll build our own home, you and me and Noah. It will be the three of us, forever together.”

The slight light that had returned in her pretty eyes faded. She pushed the rat’s nest of her hair off her face. “Mildred expects me to clean all the rooms before nightfall. She’s expecting company and I must have my things moved before they arrive.”

Anger jolted his already taut nerves. It took him several seconds to process what she’d said. “She is expecting you to vacate your own room?”

“It’s only for one night,” she said, her gaze lowered beneath her lashes. In a quiet voice, she added, “I’ll make do.”

Andrew shook his head. What the hell had they done to her? He’d never seen her so defeated, and God be damned if he’d allow it to continue.

“I’ll have a few of Madam Chen’s girls come and finish for you. You need to make yourself presentable. Noah and I are taking you out.”

Amelia widened her gaze. “Noah’s here, too?”

“We have a proposal for you.”

“What sort of proposal?”

“You’ll see. Now clean yourself up. I must speak with Noah. Come down when you’re ready. We’ll be waiting.”

“Both of you?”

“Both of us,” he said and walked away, careful to hide his anger from her. He marched down the stairs and through the great room into the kitchen, his irritation building like an agitated volcano with each step. He was ready to blow.

Noah sat at the table laughing with Aunt Mildred as if he didn’t give a shit about Amelia’s state or their dear aunt’s hand in it. When Andrew barged in, both Noah and Aunt Mildred turned to him and lost their smiles.

“Aunt Mildred, a word, please.”

“Of course, dear. Did the girl do something to upset you?”

“Amelia,” he growled through clenched teeth, his glare riveted to her.

Aunt Mildred blinked at him. “Excuse me?”

“Her name is Amelia and you know it. It isn’t
the girl
.”

She waved her hand to dismiss his comment.

“You don’t think I see what you’re doing? Treating her this way is not teaching her a lesson. It’s inhumane and it stops now.”

“Andrew, my boy, what has gotten into you?”

He bit his tongue to stop himself from unleashing all of his anger on her and telling her exactly what had gotten into him. “We are taking Amelia out of here.”

Noah widened his gaze at Andrew. “Right now?”

“Oh, I’m afraid that simply won’t do. She has quite a few chores to complete before my friends arrive from Seattle.”

“I’ll hire you some of Madam Chen’s girls to finish her chores. She hasn’t left this house since she arrived except to pick up your list of things from the mercantile. She needs to get the hell away from you.”

“What she needs,” Aunt Mildred countered, the viciousness Andrew saw flashing in her eyes coming through in her tone, “is a firm hand. That girl is spoiled beyond belief, and it’s my duty to see that I break her of that. That was the agreement if you remember.”

“That’s where you’re wrong. We asked that you take her in. You were never asked to break her, yet that’s exactly what you’ve done. You broke her, period. I just paid her a visit and barely recognized her in rags and head-to-toe filth. Don’t you allow her to bathe?”

“Don’t place the blame on me. I’ve asked her to bathe. I’ve even drawn the water myself. She refuses, saying something about not deserving it or some nonsense. She barely eats as well. I’ve never seen such a stubborn girl.”

“Haven’t you?” Andrew countered.

Aunt Mildred thrust out her chin and turned to Noah. “She simply needs discipline, wouldn’t you agree?”

Noah had a half smile, half frown of confusion on his face. He stepped back from the table as his gaze flicked to Andrew. “Should I see if Amelia needs any assistance?”

Andrew gave him a curt nod. Noah scurried out of the room, which gave Andrew ample time to rest his glare on his aunt.

“I’m afraid we have a problem, Aunt Millie.”

She frowned, the crinkle in her forehead more of a permanent scowl than anything else these days. “And that is?”

“I think you know what it is I’m referring to.”

With a shrug of her petite shoulders, she thrust her nose straight up into the air with a haughty sniff. “I’ve done nothing wrong. She is far too undisciplined. She can’t even build a fire in the stove, Andrew.”

“Can you?”

She looked at him.

“No, you can’t. Every day one of us pays you a visit, checks your fire, and makes sure you want for nothing. Have you ever thanked us? Even once?”

“A woman should not have to thank a man for doing his duty.”

“It is not our duty to care for you night and day, dear aunt, and it is not Amelia’s duty, either.”

“Frankly, I fail to see what you find so fascinating about her. She’s rather a bore. How on earth did she reach her age without either maiming herself or others in her incompetence?”

“She’s the youngest in her family and has never had to lift a finger to get what she wants. Surely you know what that’s like.”

She shrugged again but said nothing.

Of course she didn’t respond to his comment. He’d hit home. Every time she looked at Amelia Prescott it reminded her of who Mildred Cabot used to be, making all of the same mistakes.

“I plan to take Amelia from this place and never return. You’ll not see me again. I hope you can live with what you’ve done.”

“Don’t hate me, Drew.”

He slowed at the use of the name his mother used to call him. He hated that she used that against him this time as well as others when she wanted something from him. With deliberate determination, he glanced over his shoulder, his glare certain to convey the disapproval racing through his body.

“And why not? You’ve made the woman I love miserable.”

Aunt Mildred rose to her feet and squared her frail shoulders. “Don’t you dare stand there and lie to me, young man. If you truly loved her, you would have never sent her to me.”

“She is to be my bride someday.”

“Someday?”
She laughed, the shrill sound like nails against his heart. “Andrew, my dear naïve boy, there is no such thing. You don’t banish your bride. You don’t make her wait in the hopes that
someday
will come along, and you most certainly do not give a girl like her false hope that
someday
really exists. That is far crueler than any other punishment you could possibly deliver, such as forcing her to live with an old spinster such as myself simply to show what she’ll be in forty years.”

“I would marry her today if she agreed.”

“And if she doesn’t? What then? Will you continue playing this dangerous game you and Noah have started with her? Have you no thought of what this might do to her? What it might have already done? You stand there and accuse me of breaking her. Am I really the one to blame?”

Andrew swallowed hard and lowered his burning glare. She’d been so upset after he’d left her alone that morning after he and Noah had taken her. He’d made a promise that he’d never leave her wanting, and yet that was exactly what he’d done.

Damn him.

“Perhaps you should be certain where the blame lies before you pass judgment, dear boy.”

He snapped his glare to her as so many emotions passed through him it hurt to breathe. “What you’ve done—”

“I’ve been teaching her to stand up for herself.”

“You’ve broken her!”