by Eloisa James
“What did he give you?” Rose tilted her head back and looked up at him.
“You.” Thorn smiled down at her. “He gave me you. You were the most valuable thing that Will Summers ever owned in his entire life. He couldn’t stay with you, Rose. But he remembered his promise, and he mentioned it in the letter he sent to me.”
“Oh.” Her voice sounded terribly sad.
He put his cheek down on her soft hair, remembering Will and his stubborn, brave nature, seeing how beautifully it had come out in his daughter. “Now you are mine,” he told her, “by gift from your father. You mustn’t ever think that I would give you away, Rose. I am proud that you are mine.”
“But you put me in the dower house.” Her voice quavered. “And that lady said that I was hidden away, and she made it sound awful.”
Thorn had to unclench his back teeth before he shocked Rose with his opinion of Lady Rainsford. “I should never have agreed to it,” he said. “I will never do anything like that again.”
“But if you keep me as your ward, you can’t marry Miss Rainsford,” Rose said anxiously. “Her mother thinks that I am Lady Xenobia’s daughter.”
“I shall not marry Laetitia. I had already made up my mind about that.”
Rose nodded and began pleating his cravat with her small, nimble fingers. “Miss Rainsford wouldn’t have been able to read me bedtime stories.”
“Laetitia is quite intelligent,” Thorn said, stroking Rose’s hair. “I think she can’t see letters well enough. She probably needs spectacles.”
“Does that mean that Lady Xenobia isn’t really married to Lord Brody either?”
“Absolutely not.”
“Lady Xenobia can read.” The words hung in the air for a moment.
“That is true.” Thorn thought about India’s flamelike intelligence, the brilliant way she assessed problems before moving decisively to solve them.
Although he wished she hadn’t stepped forward and claimed to be Rose’s mother. She had made matters infinitely more difficult, though her claim was nothing compared to Vander’s. After all, once India and Thorn married, Rose truly would be her daughter. But she would never be Vander’s wife.
Rose dropped his cravat, hopped from his lap, and ran over to where her doll lay. “Will you tell Antigone and me stories about my papa over supper? Please?”
Thorn wanted to go to India immediately. He had to inform her that they were getting married, and to hell with what Lady Rainsford would think—though he was fairly certain the woman would never breathe a word about the afternoon. His father would ruin the Rainsford family without a second’s thought, and obviously she had understood that.
But Rose was at his side, Antigone clutched in her arms, her tears hardly dry. India would still be there after Rose went to sleep.
“Please?”
“Yes,” he said, standing up and taking her hand. “Shall we find Clara now?”
“You won’t leave while she is getting me ready for bed?”
That was just what Thorn had thought to do. He was desperate to find India and make love to her, this time as his affianced wife.
But Rose, who had been brave in so many circumstances, still looked haunted, and (for once) younger than her age. Her huge gray eyes were anxious. “I will be in the nursery waiting for you,” he promised. She smiled, and her dimple appeared.
Once Rose had been bathed and tucked in bed, Thorn set about plucking stories from thin air, stories about brave, intrepid mudlarks. Will starred as the bravest and best diver, the champion retriever of silver spoons and gold coins. Thorn said nothing of teeth, tin buttons, or rat skeletons.
Rose loved every detail. The pinched look in her face went away, and he could see that she was shaping a mythology around her father. That struck him as a good idea. When he had learned, at age twelve, that his mother was dead, he had been angry at her; it had felt like a second abandonment. Perhaps Rose would also feel anger at some point, but less so if she thought of Will as a hero.
Of course, Will’s death was entirely unlike that of Thorn’s mother. It was more like the death of India’s parents: tragically bad luck. He didn’t know why India’s parents were in London the day they died, but he’d bet anything that their trip had nothing to do with flight to the Bermudas. They might not have been attentive parents, but he couldn’t imagine them deserting her.
Hell, he couldn’t imagine anyone leaving her.
Including himself.
Now he had to make her understand that fact—and Vander as well. Thinking of Vander made his blood race. His jaw clenched, and a fresh wave of raw, uncontrolled possessiveness surged through him.
Losing control was unacceptable. But for the first time in years, he wasn’t sure he could keep his emotions in check.
It was twilight by the time Thorn strode into the house. He was tired and angry, worried about Rose and frustrated by the mess Vander had made of things. He nodded at Fleming and headed upstairs to find India, so focused that at first he didn’t even register a bedchamber door opening.
But the moment Vander stepped into the corridor, the tension that had coiled in Thorn’s gut for the last hours detonated. He literally saw red, lunging forward and slamming Vander against the wall. “What in the bloody hell did you think you were doing out there?”
“Do you mean when I saved the damsel in distress?” Vander retorted in a low, furious voice, jerking from his grasp. “I mean to marry India. It was simply a preemptive gesture.”
“I’ll be damned if you will!” Thorn exploded into motion and they came to blows with the force of a cannon firing, reeling back into Vander’s bedchamber.
They crashed to the floor, knocking over a small table, then rolled across the floor with undisciplined fury, the only sounds harsh breathing, occasional thuds as a blow landed, the slamming of the door when Vander’s foot caught it, a crash as another delicate table was upended. This one held a crystal decanter. It didn’t shatter, but its stopper came off, and pungent brandy poured out and soaked into the carpet.
“Why did you say you were married to India?” Thorn snarled, pinning Vander momentarily. Vander twisted from his grip, his shirt ripping away from its sleeve. Thorn slammed back into him, crushing him to the floorboards with his arm across his throat. “Damn you, answer me.”
“Because I am marrying her,” Vander shouted. With a violent lunge to the side, he freed himself again. “The whole household is buzzing with the fact that you have obtained a blank license in order to marry Lala; I’ll take that off your hands. I’m marrying India in the morning.”
Thorn’s answer was more a howl than a reply. Two minutes later, he had Vander pinned again. He hadn’t bested Vander at fisticuffs in years, but by God, he was winning this time. “India is mine,” he roared, knowing he was on the verge of losing his final shred of control, every lethal instinct honed in childhood loosed by fury.
“I safeguarded her reputation after you allowed it to be savaged by that harpy,” Vander bellowed back. “You can save Lala from a fate worse than death—living with her despicable mother—but I shall marry India. Because I was the one who stepped forward to protect her, you unmitigated bastard!”
Vander’s words struck with twice the force of his fists. Thorn’s hands loosened and Vander wrenched himself away, rolling to sit up, back to the wall.
Thorn’s right eye was swelling shut, and remnants of his shirt hung from his neck. He pulled his collar free and cast it aside. “You shall not marry her,” he said, his voice hoarse. “I don’t care what you announced: I am the only man who will ever marry India.”
“You slept with her,” Vander said flatly. “You cock-proud arse, you slept with the most desirable woman in England—don’t tell me you didn’t, because a blind man could see the way you look at her—and you didn’t ask for her hand? And when her reputation was trodden into the mud by the devil herself, you said nothing. Are you out of your bloody mind?” His voice had risen to a shout again.
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��That’s none of your business,” Thorn replied. Every inch of his body trembled with ferocity.
“Bullshit!” Vander leaned his head back against the wall, chest still heaving. “I’d marry her with or without Lady Rainsford’s provocation, you jackass. I made up my mind to propose after no more than one look at her and a single conversation, let alone a kiss. And you slept with her as if she were a mere doxy, and then let her reputation be smeared into the ground.”
“I asked her to marry me last night,” Thorn snarled. “She refused me, so I could hardly claim to be married to her. I planned to ask her again.”
“You asked her to be your wife after you slept with her? You thought that Lady Xenobia India St. Clair would marry you because you were gracious enough to offer your hand after bedding her? Why would she want to marry you?”
“She might have been carrying my child,” Thorn said tightly. But a bitter chill was sweeping through him. Vander was right. Why the hell would India want to marry him?
Vander made a guttural sound of disgust and spat his words. “You didn’t use a sheath? What in the hell were you thinking?” His eyes glittered at Thorn in the darkening room.
“I don’t think around her,” Thorn said, telling him the truth. “When I asked her to marry me, she refused. She said that she’d give me the child if we had one.” Vander—more than anyone else in the world—would know what that meant to him. The agony that her comment roused.
But Vander just snorted. “You believed her? Damn it, Thorn, you don’t really want her. You don’t even know her!”
“I didn’t realize she was lying to me until later,” Thorn said tightly.
“She baited a trap and you fell into it. You might have had a chance with her—after all, she took you into her bed—but that’s gone.”
Images tumbled through Thorn’s mind: Rose looking up at India as she read her a book, and India telling him about her parents’ desertion. Vander was right. She had tested him, and he had failed.
He stood up, slowly, knowing that he would be covered with bruises in a few hours. They had gone at each other like rabid animals.
Vander still sat against the wall, his arms on his knees. Without raising his head, he said, “She’s mine, Thorn, and the sooner you get used to it, the better. You treated her like a doxy, and you didn’t protect her when she needed it.”
Every word struck Thorn’s gut like another blow from a balled-up fist.
Then Vander looked up, pushing back hair soaked with sweat and brandy. “You had your shot, and you lost. I’m going to marry her. I’ll leave it to you whether we remain friends.” He got up, lurching slightly, one hand pressed against his side, and left without a backward glance.
Thorn walked into his own room reeking of spirits, with vision only in his left eye.
The hell with it. That dream was over. He’d had it for, what, half a day? The dream that India was his, that he could marry a woman like her: brilliant, glowing, beautiful . . . funny. As wild in bed as she was elsewhere, the kind of woman who lunged at life, fear be damned, and embraced it.
But Lady Xenobia India was a lady. And he was a bastard, who had behaved like a bastard. Of course she didn’t want him. She’d let him down kindly, in fact.
He sank into a steaming bath and forced himself to face the truth. He would offer his hand in marriage one more time, if only to prove to India that his proposal was motivated by far more than the possibility of a baby.
But it was a useless gesture. Daughters of marquesses didn’t marry bastards, not in any part of England that he’d heard of. India would marry Vander. She was meant to be a duchess. They would be happy together, shining, beautiful examples of England’s peerage.
He got out of the bath and dressed swiftly. If he was going to ask a future duchess to marry him, he would do it like the gentleman he wasn’t. Not by dragging her into an alcove and treating her like a whore. No, he would go on one knee, he decided, tying his cravat in a Gordian knot.
And once she rejected him, that would be that. He would lose his oldest and truest friend and the woman he loved in one blow. Suffocating darkness welled inside him at the thought.
By now it was nearly time for the evening meal; presumably India would be downstairs, sipping a sherry with the others. He briefly wondered if Lady Rainsford had departed for London or was still cowering in her room, then he discarded the thought. He didn’t give a damn what happened to the lady or, frankly, to her daughter.
He descended the stairs, planning to draw India to his study—respectfully—in order to request her hand in marriage. His father was waiting in the entry.
“I’m sorry, but I can’t speak now,” Thorn said, heading for the drawing room.
“Son.”
Something in Villiers’s voice made Thorn pause and turn back.
“You are looking somewhat the worse for wear.”
Thorn gestured impatiently. “Surely you heard the uproar.”
“Fleming did a fine job of keeping everyone on the ground floor.” The duke’s face was expressionless, but his eyes weren’t. “They took the special license, Tobias. If you leave now, you can catch them; they won’t be able to marry until morning. They went to Piggleston, where the parish church has a resident vicar.”
Thorn felt as if a hammer smashed into the back of his neck. The feelings that coursed through him had nothing to do with civilization and everything to do with carnage.
He was going to kill Vander. Murder him. Tear him limb from limb.
Blood began pounding through his limbs, and suddenly he knew, with absolute certainty, that he could murder his closest friend without turning a hair. The hell with being respectful to India. She was his, and no damn duke was going to have her, not if he had to rip her away from Vander at the altar and throw her into his carriage.
“Right,” he said, turning to the door, his mind churning. He had to get on the road, find them, kill Vander, and marry India.
Of course she left with Vander. What else could she do? Thorn had never claimed her, not really.
“My carriage is waiting,” his father said.
Indeed, the duke’s traveling coach stood in the drive, horses stamping their hooves and grooms standing at the ready.
Thorn nodded to his father, caught a flash of wicked amusement in his eyes—yet another sign of the duke’s warped paternal instincts—and climbed into the carriage, directing the coachman to the largest inn in Piggleston. He spent the next few hours alternating between berating himself and suppressing stifling waves of anger at Vander. Finally, the horses trotted off the post road and moved onto cobbled streets.
When they pulled into the courtyard of the Coach and Horn, Thorn leapt down and roused the innkeeper. But though he handed out five-pound notes as if they were ha’pennies, every man he talked to, at all three inns in Piggleston, swore up and down that no couples resembling Vander and India had been seen. By that point a muscle was jumping in Thorn’s jaw, and his face was apparently so distorted by rage—not to mention his black eye—that men fell back as he approached.
There was nothing more he could do. He’d marked the location of the church, and he would be there in the morning to stop the wedding.
India would not marry Vander, if Thorn had to assault the vicar at the altar.
He took a room, but he couldn’t lie down. Every time he pictured Vander and India on a bed together, scorching pain shot through him. The memory of her face when she lied to him and he believed her . . . the scorn on her face when she told him that she’d been a virgin, though he hadn’t noticed.
That was why she would marry Vander. He had broken what they had . . . in fact, he was afraid that he had broken her.
She hadn’t fought back against Lady Rainsford’s ugly insults. She hadn’t said another word after coming forward to claim Rose as her own. That wasn’t like her.
He stared into the dark, waiting.
Planning.
Chapter Thirty-one
India lay on
her back, staring up at the bed canopy. She felt like the ice princess in the fairy story, the one with a frozen heart. Someone had carved out the inside of her body and replaced her heart with ice.
Evidence of that? Next to her was a valiant and handsome lord, a fairy-tale prince. She should have been indescribably happy at this moment.
Vander was on his side, head propped on one hand, watching her. She knew he had a sweet expression, because she’d glanced at him. She also knew that he was able to keep his mouth shut, because he wasn’t saying anything. And she knew his body was as muscled as any medieval knight, because there it was, albeit clothed, next to her on the bed.
There was no unmarried woman in all England who wouldn’t secretly want to lie next to a future duke while he gazed at her with that expression. It was scandalous to invite him to do so, of course, but she was determined to erase the memory of Thorn lying beside her. Not that Thorn had ever given her a worshipful glance, because he hadn’t.
Vander must have gotten tired of waiting for her to speak, because he reached out and gently put a hand on her wrist. It was a large hand, but she didn’t think it was quite as large as Thorn’s.
Thorn’s body was traced all over with scars. Like a warrior’s.
Again she reminded herself that Thorn had never looked at her the way Vander was now. Vander seemed to think she was wonderful.
Thorn looked at her as if she were mad, and sometimes, as if she made him laugh. The rest of the time he looked at her with such raw desire that he seemed ready to throw her to the ground.
Well, he’d done that, hadn’t he? He had taken her like a sluttish housemaid, downstairs, where anyone could have caught them. She couldn’t have been the first woman to fall into Mr. Dautry’s snare. She was sure of it. There were probably broken hearts strewn all over England.
“India,” Vander said quietly. He began tracing a soothing pattern on her arm.
She glanced at him again, just to confirm that he was as handsome as she thought. He was. Many English gentlemen had jaws and chins that receded in a steady slope right down to their necks. Vander looked like one of those Greek statues she’d put in Thorn’s attic. They would have beautiful children together.