When he looked up at Annabel, he was just a man, looking at a woman, hoping and praying that she loved him the way he loved her.
He brought her hand to his lips. “Will you do me the very great honor of becoming my wife?”
Her lips trembled, and she whispered, “Yes.” And then, more loudly, “Yes!”
He rose to his feet and swept her into his arms. All around him people were cheering. Not everyone, but enough to make the moment a little bit theatrical. Which Seb belatedly realized wasn’t what he wanted. He did not deny a little burst of joy at having so publicly bested his uncle (he’d never be so pure of heart that he could deny that), but as he held Annabel, smiling into her hair, several people began to chant, “Kiss! Kiss!” and he realized that he didn’t want to do this in front of an audience.
This moment was sacred. It was theirs, and theirs alone, and he did not want to share it.
They would have their moment again, he vowed, even as he released Annabel and smiled cheerfully at Edward and Louisa and all the rest of Lady Challis’s guests.
Later. They would have their moment later. Alone.
If he were writing the story, Sebastian decided, that was how he’d do it.
Chapter Twenty-four
Someone was in her room.
Annabel froze, barely breathing beneath the blankets on her bed. She’d had a terrible time falling asleep; her mind had been racing, and she was far too excited and giddy at having finally decided to throw caution to the wind and marry Sebastian. But sheer determination—and her trick of keeping her eyes closed at all times—had finally won out, and she’d fallen asleep.
But it must not have been a very deep sleep, or maybe it was just that it had only been a few minutes since she’d drifted off. Because something had woken her. A noise, maybe. Perhaps just the movement in the room. But someone was definitely there.
Maybe it was a thief. If that was the case, she’d do best to stay utterly still. She had nothing of value; all her earbobs were paste, and even her copy of Miss Sainsbury and the Mysterious Colonel was a third edition.
If it was a thief, he’d realize this and move on.
If it wasn’t a thief—Bloody hell, then she was in very dire straits. She’d need a weapon, and all she had within arm’s reach was a pillow, a blanket, and a book.
Miss Sainsbury again. Somehow Annabel didn’t think it was going to save her.
If it wasn’t a thief, should she try to sneak out of bed? Hide? See if she could make it to the door? Should she do anything? Should she? Should she? What if—? But maybe—
She squeezed her eyes shut, just for a moment, just to try to calm herself. Her heart was racing, and it was taking every ounce of her will to keep her breathing quiet and under control. She had to think. Keep her head. The room was dark, very much so. The curtains were thick, and they covered the windows completely. Even on a full-moon night—which this was not—barely a glimmer of light would sneak in around the edges. She couldn’t even see the outline of the intruder. The only clues she had as to his location were the soft sounds of his feet on the carpet, the occasional tiny creak of the floor underneath.
He was moving slowly. Whoever was in the room was moving slowly. Slowly, but…
Closer.
Annabel’s heart began to pound so loudly she thought the bed might shake. The intruder was moving closer. He was definitely approaching the bed. This was no thief, this was someone out to cause mischief, or malice, or pain, or good God, it didn’t matter—she just had to get out of there.
Praying that the intruder was as blind in the dark as she was, she slid slowly across the bed, hoping he would not hear her movement. He was approaching on the right, so she moved left, carefully swinging her legs over the side and—
She screamed. But she didn’t. There was a hand over her mouth, and an arm around her neck and any sound she might have made was lost in a terrified choking sob.
“If you know what’s good for you, you’ll be quiet.”
Annabel’s eyes flew open with terror. It was the Earl of Newbury. She knew his voice, and even his smell, that awful sweaty odor, flavored with brandy and fish.
“If you scream,” he said, sounding almost amused, “someone will come running in. Your grandmother, perhaps, or your cousin. Isn’t one of them right in the next room?”
Annabel nodded, the motion bringing her chin up and down over his beefy forearm. He was wearing a shirt, but still, he felt sticky. And she felt sick.
“Imagine that,” he said with a malicious chuckle. “In comes the respectable and pure Lady Louisa. She would scream, too. A man between a woman’s legs…Surely she’d be shocked.”
Annabel said nothing. She couldn’t have, anyway, with his hand over her mouth.
“Then the whole house would come running. What a scandal that would be. You’d be ruined. Your little idiot of a fiancé wouldn’t have you, then, now, would he?”
That wasn’t true. Sebastian would not abandon her. Annabel knew that he would not.
“You’d be a fallen woman,” Newbury went on, clearly relishing his tale. He slid his arm down just far enough to palm her breast and squeeze. “Of course, you’ve always looked the part.”
Annabel let out a little moan of distress.
“You like that, do you?” he chuckled, squeezing harder.
“No,” she tried to say, but his hand blocked her.
“Some would say you’d have to marry me,” Newbury continued, idly patting her breast, “but I wonder, would anyone think I had to marry you? I could just say you weren’t a virgin, that you’d been playing uncle and nephew against each other. What a crafty woman you must be.”
Unable to take it anymore, Annabel jerked her head to one side, then the next, trying to dislodge his hand. Finally, with a little laugh, he lifted it away. “Remember,” he said, bringing his flabby lips close to her ear, “don’t make too much noise.”
“You know it isn’t true,” Annabel whispered roughly.
“Which bit? About your virginity? Are you saying you’re not a virgin?” He whipped the covers away and flipped her onto her back, straddling her roughly. Each of his hands landed hard against her shoulders, pinning her down. “My, my, that changes everything.”
“No,” she cried softly. “About my playing—” Oh, what was the use? There could be no reasoning with him. He was out for revenge. On her, on Sebastian, probably on the whole world. He’d been made a fool of that night, in front of more than a score of his peers.
He was not the sort of man who could brush that off.
“You’re a foolish, foolish girl,” he said, shaking his head. “You could have been a countess. What were you thinking?”
Annabel held still, conserving her energy. She couldn’t possibly break free while he had his full weight on her. She needed to wait until he moved, until she could catch him off balance. Even then, she would need all of her strength.
“I was so sure I’d found just the right woman.”
Annabel stared at him in disbelief. He sounded almost regretful.
“All I wanted was an heir. Just one measly little son so that that moronic nephew of mine does not inherit.”
She wanted to protest, to tell him all the ways she thought Sebastian was utterly brilliant. He had an amazing imagination, and he was marvelously clever in conversation. No one could outwit him. No one. And he was funny. Dear heavens, he could make her laugh like no one in the world.
He was perceptive, too. And observant. He saw everything, noticed everyone. He understood people, not just their hopes and dreams, but how they hoped and dreamed.
If that wasn’t brilliance, she didn’t know what was.
“Why do you hate him so much?” she whispered.
“Because he’s an ass,” Lord Newbury said dismissively.
That’s not an answer, Annabel wanted to say.
“It doesn’t matter, anyway,” he continued. “He flatters himself if he thinks I sought a wife just to thwart his ambi
tions. Is it so wrong for a man to want his title and home to go to his own son?”
“No,” Annabel said softly. Because maybe if she acted like his friend, he wouldn’t hurt her. And because it wasn’t so wrong to want what he wanted. The wrongness came in the way he went about it. “How did he die?”
Lord Newbury went still.
“Your son,” she clarified.
“A fever,” he said curtly. “He cut his leg.”
Annabel nodded. She’d known several people who had got fevers the same way. A deep cut always provoked vigilance. Did it fester? Turn red? Hot? A wound that did not heal properly usually led to a fever, and a fever led all too often to death. Annabel had often wondered why some wounds healed neatly and quick, and others did not. There seemed no rhyme or reason to it, just an unfair, capricious hand of fate.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
For a moment she thought he believed her. His hands, hard and firm at her shoulders, slackened ever so slightly. And his eyes—it might have been a trick of the dim light, but she thought they might have softened. But then he snorted and said, “No you’re not.”
The irony was, she was, or at least she had been. She’d had some sympathy for him, but that was banished when his hands moved to her throat.
“This is what he did to me,” Lord Newbury said, his words coming out like steam between his teeth. “In front of everyone.”
Dear God, was he going to strangle her? Annabel’s breathing quickened, and every nerve in her body felt primed for flight. But Lord Newbury had to be twice as heavy as she was, and no amount of panic-driven strength was going to help her to topple him.
“I’ll marry you!” she blurted out, just as his fingers tightened over her windpipe.
“What?”
Annabel choked and gasped, unable to speak, and he loosened his grip.
“I’ll marry you,” she pleaded. “I’ll jilt him. And I’ll marry you. Please just don’t kill me.”
Lord Newbury let out a loud laugh, and Annabel shot a panicked look to the door. He was going to wake everyone, just as he’d warned her not to.
“Did you think I was going to kill you?” he asked, actually lifting one of his hands from her throat so that he could wipe a tear from his eye. “Oh, that’s funny.”
He was mad. That was all Annabel could think, except that she knew he wasn’t mad.
“I won’t kill you,” he said, still sounding terribly amused. “I would be the first anyone would suspect, and while I doubt I’d be punished, it would be so inconvenient.”
Inconvenient. Murder. Maybe he was mad.
“Not to mention it might give other young ladies pause. You’re not the only one I’ve had my eye on. Stinson’s youngest is a bit lacking up top, but her hips look healthy enough for childbearing. And she doesn’t speak unless spoken to.”
Because she’s fifteen, Annabel thought wildly. Good Lord, he wanted to marry a baby.
“She wouldn’t be as much fun to plow as you, but I don’t need a wife for that.” He leaned down, his eyes unnaturally bright in the dim light. “Maybe I’ll even have you.”
“No,” Annabel whimpered, before she could stop herself. And sure enough, he smiled, taking great pleasure in her distress. He hated her, she realized. He hated her now like he hated Sebastian. Blindly, irrationally.
Dangerously.
But as he leaned toward her, his face coming closer to hers, he lifted his body from her hips and belly. Annabel took a deep, quick gasp at the decompression, and then, realizing instinctively that this might be her only chance, she yanked one of her legs up, bending at the knee. She caught him hard between the legs, and he howled in pain. It wasn’t quite enough to completely disable him, though, and so she did it again, even harder, then brought her arms up and shoved. Lord Newbury let out an awful cry, but Annabel brought her knee up again, this time to use her legs to push against him, and finally she threw him off of her and ran from the bed.
He hit the carpet with a thud and a curse. Annabel ran for the door but he caught her by the ankle.
“Let…go of me,” she ground out.
His response was: “You little bitch.”
Annabel tugged and yanked, but he wrapped a second hand around her calf and held firm, pulling against her in an effort to bring his unwieldy body upright.
“Let go!” she cried out. If she could just break loose, she knew she was safe. If she could outrun a turkey, damn it, she could outrun, in the words of her grandmother, an overweight nobleman.
She pulled hard, almost breaking free. They both lurched forward, Lord Newbury sliding along the carpet like some horrible beached monster. Annabel nearly toppled forward; luckily she was close enough to a wall to throw out her arms and stop herself from going down. That was when she realized she was near the fireplace. With one arm braced, she reached out blindly with the other, nearly crying out in triumph when her hand connected with the hard iron handle of the poker.
Quickly moving it to a two-hand grasp, she twisted around so that she was facing him again. He was trying to rise, not an easy task with both hands around her left ankle.
“Let go of me,” she growled, raising the poker above her head. “Let go of me or I swear I’ll—”
His hand went slack.
Annabel jumped back, edging along the wall toward the door, but Lord Newbury wasn’t moving.
At all.
“Oh my God,” she breathed. “Oh my God.”
And then she said it again, because she didn’t know what else to say. Or do.
“Oh my God.”
Sebastian moved quietly through the house, making his way toward Annabel’s room on the second floor. He was an expert in the art of late night assignations, a skill he happily realized he would no longer need.
It was, he supposed, a science as well as an art. One needed to do one’s research ahead of time—determining the location of the room, ascertaining the identity of its neighbors’ occupants, and of course, traveling the route ahead of time to test the floor for squeaks or bumps.
Sebastian did like to be prepared.
He hadn’t been able to do his usual route rehearsal; there hadn’t been any appropriate time to do so after he proposed to Annabel. But he did know which room she was in, and he knew that her grandmother was sleeping to the north and her cousin to the south.
Across the hall was Lady Millicent, certainly a stroke of good luck. She wouldn’t hear him unless he exploded a cannon outside her door.
The only thing he didn’t know was whether there were any connecting doors between the trio of bedrooms. But this did not worry him. It was an important detail, but nothing he needed to learn ahead of time. It would be easy enough to check once he was inside.
Stonecross’s floors were well maintained, and Sebastian made not a sound as he approached Annabel’s door. He put his hand to the knob. It felt slightly damp. Curious. He shook his head. At what hour did Lady Challis have her maids polishing?
He turned the knob very slowly, vigilant for squeaks. Like everything else in the house, it worked perfectly, moving clockwise without a sound. He pushed the door open, preparing to slip in through the barest of cracks and then nudge it closed behind him.
But when he stepped inside, it took less than a second to know that something was not right. The breathing was not that of gentle sleep. It was harsh, and labored, and—
He pushed the door open wider to let more light in.
“Annabel?”
She was standing not far from the fireplace, a poker raised clutched in her hands. On the floor was Lord Newbury, utterly still.
“Annabel?” he said again. She looked to be in shock. She did not turn to him, did not acknowledge his arrival in any way.
He rushed to her side, carefully taking the poker from her fingers.
“I didn’t hit him,” she said, never once taking her eyes from the body from the floor. “I didn’t even hit him.”
“What happened?” He looked at the poker d
espite her statements. There was no blood on it, nothing to indicate a blow.
“I think he’s dead,” she said, still in that strange monotone whisper. “He was holding my ankle. I was going to hit him if he didn’t let go, but then he let go, and—”
“His heart,” Sebastian said, cutting her off so she did not have to say more. “It was probably his heart.” He set the poker down, carefully placing it in its spot in the tool stand. The metal clinked together, but the sound was muted, and he did not think it would attract attention.
Moving back to Annabel, he took her hand, then touched her face. “Are you all right?” he asked carefully. “Did he hurt you?” He was terrified for the answer, but he had to ask. He had to know what had happened if he was going to help her.
“He was—he came in and—” But she could barely choke out the words, and when he wrapped his arms around her, she collapsed instantly, all the strength pouring from her before he could blink.
“Shh…” he crooned, cradling her lovingly. “It’s all right. I’m here. I’m here now.”
She nodded against his chest, but she didn’t cry. She trembled, and she gasped for air, but she didn’t cry. “He didn’t—he didn’t get to—I got away before—”
Thank God, Sebastian silently prayed. If his uncle had raped her…by God he would have brought him back from the dead just so that he could kill him again. Sebastian had seen rape in the war, not directly, but he’d seen the eyes of the women who had been brutalized. They had looked dead inside, and Sebastian had realized that in a way, they, too, had been killed, just like the men who’d gone off to battle. It was worse for the women. Their bodies lived on, with dead souls inside.
“What are we going to do?” she asked.
“I don’t know,” he admitted. “I’ll think of something.” But what? He knew how to handle himself in almost any situation, but this…the dead body of his uncle in the room of his fiancée…
Good God. This was beyond even him.
Think. He had to think. If he were writing this…