In the Barrister's Bed (33 page)
Read In the Barrister's Bed Online
Authors: Tina Gabrielle
He was going to catch her. She needed a place to hide. But where? She turned sharply to the right and spotted a large, fallen oak. She scrambled over its massive trunk, then crouched low against it. Sweat trickled between her breasts in the tight bodice.
Booted feet snapped a nearby branch on the forest floor, and a man’s heavy breathing came close.
“There’s no sense ’iding. If ye come out, I’ll make it quick fer ye.”
His ominous words had the force of a lightning jolt to her already pounding heart. She needed a weapon. Her hands felt about the forest floor, resting on a rock the size of her fist. She grasped it in her right hand.
The man stepped onto the fallen tree, discovering her hiding place.
She looked up at him with wide, panicked eyes. “The duke is coming. He’ll track you down!”
The corners of his mouth twisted in a malevolent smile, and he reached down for her.
Bella feinted to the side, and threw the rock, aiming for his forehead. It struck his good eye instead.
The man howled through clenched jaws and fell to his knees.
Bella jumped to her feet and sprinted back toward the clearing, toward the moonlight. Her lungs felt as if they would burst in the tight bodice, and her arms and legs ached from her mad dash. She cleared the woods, risking a glance behind her, when she ran straight into Gregory and fell down heavily.
He loomed above her, his face red and blotchy with anger. “Bitch! There’s no escape from your fate.”
Just as he grasped her wrist and wrenched her to her feet, the sound of pounding hooves could be heard on the dirt road. Gregory’s head jerked around.
The shouts of men followed, and Bella spotted the riders. There were three in all, one in the lead riding a black stallion. Judging by its size, it had to be Maximus.
“James!” Bella cried out.
Gregory pulled Bella against him and pressed the knife against her throat.
“Killing me will gain you nothing,” she hissed. “He is the duke. He has always been the duke.”
“Shut up!”
The riders came close, and James pulled back on the reins. Anthony and Jack followed on their own mounts. James took in the scene. His gaze met hers, a frantic need shining within the sapphire depths of his eyes, but when he turned to Gregory they held a murderous fury. He held a pistol in his hand.
“I never knew you had a death wish, Gregory,” James bit out as he jumped down from his horse.
“Death wish! It’s not me that’s going to see their maker this night.”
“The opium has addled your brains.” James aimed his pistol at Gregory. “You’re outnumbered. Throw down the knife and step away from my woman.”
Anthony and Jack aimed their own pistols at Gregory’s accomplice as he ran into the clearing, blood running down his face.
Gregory backed up a step, taking Bella with him. “No! You shouldn’t get everything!”
James’s expression hardened. “It’s over, Gregory. There’s no way out. Let her go.”
“So you can have me arrested?”
“No, so you can get the help you need.”
Gregory continued urging Bella backward. With the knife pressed to her throat, there was only one way to go. She dropped her chin then whipped her head back with all her might, smashing into his face. Gregory stumbled, dropping the knife away from her throat. She followed with an elbow jab into his stomach. Gregory fell backward, taking her down with him. A heartbeat later, she heard the deafening crack of a pistol firing and felt the whiz of a bullet by her ear.
Chapter 35
The acrid scent of gun smoke burned his nostrils as James dropped his pistol and rushed to Bella’s side. “Bella!”
Bella struggled to sit. “Thank God you came!”
He gathered her in his arms. “Are you hurt, darling?”
“No. I’m all right, but Gregory—”
Gregory writhed on the ground, clutching his arm and howling.
“I don’t care about him,” James said. He held Bella tightly to his chest, his breathing ragged. When he rode into the clearing and saw Gregory’s knife pressed against Bella’s throat, he’d never been more terrified in his life. Thank God he had reached her in time.
After discovering Rupert wasn’t responsible for the highwaymen’s attack, James had sprinted into the ballroom. Hearing from Lady Evelyn that she had last seen Bella leave with Gregory, James’s heart had dropped to his stomach. He had fetched Maximus and raced to follow the coach. James dared not think of what would have happened had he not learned of Gregory’s deception in time.
Jack now had his pistol pointed at Gregory’s accomplice while Anthony tied the man’s hands behind his back. They would take care of the criminal.
James brushed a gentle kiss across her lips.
Gregory cried out behind James. “You shot me!”
James lifted his head and narrowed his eyes at Gregory. The bullet had struck his arm, just below the elbow. James’s intent had been to disarm him of the knife, not kill him. “You’re lucky I’m a good shot, Gregory. I could have aimed for your skull.”
“You bastard!”
James rose, ready to finish the job with his fists. Bella’s touch on his chest halted him. “No, James! He’s injured.”
“He’s going to the gallows.”
“This can be handled quietly. A public scandal would devastate your grandmother,” Bella said.
“She can handle herself.”
“She’s dying.”
That stopped him. “It’s her heart,” she whispered. “I witnessed it myself.”
“Just like my father, the old duke?”
Bella nodded. “The family name is important to her. Let her keep its integrity.”
Gregory started wailing. “There’s so much blood.”
“He needs a doctor,” Bella said. “I don’t want my future husband and the father of my child to be tried for murder.”
Anthony and Jack jumped to attention. “You’re to be a father?” they asked in unison.
“We’ll talk later,” James said.
The pair bound Gregory’s arm and lifted him onto Jack’s horse. “The ball will be over by now; it should be safe to return to Park Street,” Anthony said. “I’ll ride ahead and call for a doctor.”
James lifted Bella onto Maximus and mounted behind her. They reached the house where the dowager came charging outside demanding to know where the guests of honor had run off to. She stopped short when she caught sight of Gregory cradling his bloody arm close to his chest.
Entering the house, James ushered all to the drawing room, where they told the dowager everything. After listening intently, she marched up to Gregory and slapped him full across the face.
“To murder your brother and his betrothed! How could you!”
“I couldn’t let them marry! The baby would be the next duke. The title is rightfully mine!”
“No,” she snapped. “It never was. And I’m thankful for that fact.”
“What do you want to do with him?” Jack asked.
James looked at the dowager. “It’s no secret Gregory’s a slave to the opium. There are facilities to help addicts. They are not pleasant, but the results can be positive and they’re confidential.”
“I’d rather rot in prison!” Gregory shouted.
“Don’t tempt me,” James said.
Anthony arrived with the doctor, and the dowager directed her footmen to carry Gregory upstairs and barricade him in one of the bedchambers.
“I think it best to avoid a scandal, Your Grace,” Bella said.
The dowager paused, her lips pursed. “Yes. Once Gregory is able to travel, he can be admitted into a facility under a doctor’s care. As for you two,” she said, glancing at James and Bella, “I shall tell everyone that you ran off to marry at the end of the ball. It will be the romantic gossip of the decade.”
“I’ll agree to that,” James said. “I want to marry now. I’ll not wait a minute longer to marry the woman I love.”
The dowager clasped her hands together as she hurried to the door. “I shall have to wake the priest.”
Finally alone, James found Bella staring up at him with wide, jade eyes.
“Did you mean what you said?” she whispered.
There was no reason to ask what she was talking about. He gently held her hands in his. “When I learned Gregory had taken you, I nearly lost my mind. And when I saw him holding a knife to your throat, my world came crashing down upon me, and the truth in my heart became clear. I love you. I’ve loved you for so long now, even before I woke up to find you by my bedside after I was shot. Looking back, I started to fall under your spell that very first night I stepped into Wyndmoor Manor and you came close to splitting my skull in two, then accused me of being a burglar. You were a fiery challenge who turned into a passionate, intelligent woman that I cannot live without.”
“Oh, James,” she breathed.
He kissed her forehead, both eyelids, and brushed his lips across hers. Her mouth was warm and sweet, and when he pulled back she breathed lightly between parted lips.
He cupped her cheek in his hand. “Forgive me for not speaking the words sooner, darling. I foolishly feared to love, to open my heart and risk rejection.”
Love meant bearing his soul, risking emotional pain, and he’d spent his entire adult life barricading himself from that danger. Since his family’s rejection, he had learned not to trust or to need, and he had looked back upon his lonely childhood years in the boarding school as a form of weakness. After becoming a successful barrister, he had sworn never to be weak again. As a result, he had buried his feelings for Bella. He had justified his actions of wanting to keep her close in order to protect her when he had been too frightened to admit the truth to himself. It was time to take a leap of faith.
“I love you with all my heart, Bella. Nothing else matters—not my career or the dukedom and all the fortune that comes along with it—if you are not by my side. I want to marry you, have children with you, and grow old with you. After all that’s happened tonight, will you still have me?”
Crying out with joy, she threw herself in his arms. “I love you too, James. Yes, I’ll have you today, tomorrow,
forever.”
forever.”
The dowager had been right. They did have to wake the priest. Father Stevenson entered the church, his collar askew, and tufts of white hair sticking up from his scalp in disarray. If he resented being dragged from his bed in the middle of the night to perform a marriage, one stern look from the dowager turned his frown into a welcoming smile. All traces of annoyance dissipated as he opened his worship book. Clearing his throat, he began the marriage ceremony.
Although the wedding was on short notice, it turned out to be a beautiful event. Lady Evelyn held Bella’s flowers and Brent stood as James’s best man. Harriet sat beside the dowager, and Jack and Anthony behind them.
After the vows were exchanged and the couple pronounced man and wife, James pulled Bella into his arms and kissed her. He was still kissing her when the priest departed, followed by Jack and Evelyn, arm in arm. Brent slapped Anthony on the back, and on their way out Brent said, “I told him so a long time ago.”
James would have kept kissing Bella, but she turned her head and blushed prettily. He followed her gaze and realized the dowager had remained behind and was watching them with a most uncharacteristic expression on her face. James could have sworn he saw a tear in her eye.
“We’re married now, Your Grace. It’s sanctioned by the church,” James said.
The dowager made a little huff and turned away, but before she departed, they heard her mutter, “True love. Who would have thought?”
Epilogue
Four years later
Bella’s pen flew across the paper, and a thrill of excitement hummed in her veins as the story unfolded before her. It was always this way when her thoughts flowed freely, and she had a solid block of time to write. An imminent deadline always helped.
Her editor at the
Times
had liked her proposal for her next piece, and Bella had eagerly accepted their generous offer.
Times
had liked her proposal for her next piece, and Bella had eagerly accepted their generous offer.
The door burst open.
“Mama! Mama!”
Bella looked up from her writing. Her four-year-old son, Alexander, and three-year-old daughter, Catherine, were standing in the doorway. James came up behind them.
“They want to kiss you before they go down for their nap.”
Bella scraped back her chair and gathered her children in her arms. “Would you like Mummy to read you a story first?”
“Yes!” they cried out in unison.
“You know your mother is working,” James said gently.
“I don’t mind.”
“You spoil them,” he teased.
“I enjoy it.” She hugged both children before glancing up at James. “The dowager wants to take them on a picnic tomorrow.”
“Can we, Mummy?” Bella smoothed her daughter’s red curls away from her face to reveal green eyes, the shade of which was identical to her own.
Alexander smiled. “She promised me chocolate!”
Bella’s lips trembled with the need to smile. No doubt the dowager had promised Alex chocolate. At four years old, Alex had his father’s dark hair, blue eyes, and lethal charm.
James rolled his eyes, and Bella let out a burst of laughter.
The dowager had lived to see her great-grandchildren after all. It was her stubborn will, James often said, but Bella knew he was shocked by her interest in the children. As for Gregory, he had been released from a facility and remained under a doctor’s care. He had struggled to overcome his need for the opium, but she was hopeful. James no longer wished his half brother dead or imprisoned, but neither did he trust him around Bella or the children.
The nanny came and James handed the children over. As soon as they were alone, James pulled Bella into his arms and nibbled the side of her neck. “Will you spoil me later?”
“James! You are incorrigible!”
“Yes, and you too from your behavior last night.”
“James!”
Bella fought the need to melt into him, then gave up entirely and did just that. “Oh, James.”
He brought his mouth to hers. “I’ve been thinking. Now that the children are older, it’s time for us to get away. Wyndmoor Manor is beautiful in the spring, remember?”
Oh, yes.
How could she forget? It was spring when they had first met there.
How could she forget? It was spring when they had first met there.
“Are you asking my permission?”
He chuckled. “Last I recall, Wyndmoor Manor belongs to you, and I feel obliged to ask permission from the owner.”
They had made a game of passing the deed back and forth between them for each wedding anniversary for the past four years. It was an unconventional symbol of their love.
She smiled a secret smile. “I do believe the billiard room is still there. You never did teach me how to play.”
He brought his mouth to her ear and whispered wickedly, “Your wish is my command, my duchess. I shall endeavor to teach you everything.”
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