A Heart for the Taking

by Shirlee Busbee

  An arrested expression on his face, he stared at her, the terrible suspicion suddenly writhing through his brain that Jonathan had played him for a perfect fool. Lost in his own painful jealousy, he had taken Jonathan’s words as if they had been cast in stone and had believed the vilest things about Ellen. Things, he realized with bitter insight, that could not possibly be true—not of the beguiling, sweet creature he had grown to love so very much over the past several weeks.

  There was nothing sweet and beguiling about Ellen at the moment as she glared up at him, anger and hurt fairly vibrating through her small frame, but Hugh felt his spirits suddenly soar. It did not matter if she was furious with him, he thought almost light-headedly. He deserved it for having believed Jonathan’s spiteful words for even one second. All that mattered was that he had been a gullible dolt and that, reveling in his own misery, he had hurt one of the gentlest creatures he had ever known. He brightened instantly as a thought struck him, all of his bleak unhappiness these past days vanishing. Weren’t Jonathan’s actions an obvious indication that he had believed that Ellen had deep feelings for him? Why else would his cousin have tried to poison his mind against her? And wasn’t Ellen’s profound distress with the estrangement that presently existed between them indicative that she cared a great deal for him and his good opinion of her? Why else would she have been so upset with his cold manner toward her? Could it be that, perhaps, she . . . loved him . . . as he loved her? His heart began to beat swiftly.

  Suddenly confident of his ground, he took a step nearer her, his features softening. He reached out and caught one of her hands in his. “I must offer you my deepest, sincerest apologies, Ellie.” He smiled ruefully. “It would appear that I have been a great, silly jackanapes, and I am very sorry for it. If I had not been half-mad with jealousy that afternoon, I would have realized immediately that Jonathan was trying to keep us apart.” His voice deepened. “Anyone but a blind fool like myself would have known that someone as sweet and gentle as you are would never act in the foul manner Jonathan claimed. I am indeed sorry if I caused you pain.”

  Ellen’s tender heart fairly melted at the warmth in Hugh’s gaze and tone. But reminding herself how hurtfully he had wounded her, she resisted the powerful impulse to fling herself into his arms and tell him that she had forgiven him. He was not, she decided with uncharacteristic resentment, going to charm his way into her good graces that easily. He had hurt her. Her chin held at an imperious angle, she said tartly, “But not as sorry as you are going to be, if you think that a mere apology will undo the misery you have caused me.”

  A smugly masculine gleam in his blue eyes, Hugh pulled her closer to him. “Have my actions truly made you miserable?” he asked huskily. “Do you care so very much what I think of you, sweetheart?”

  Realizing with dismay that she was only a second away from total capitulation, Ellen jerked her hand from his grasp and said gruffly, “Do not put great store in the fact that I have not been happy with you thinking ill of me. No one wishes for their reputation to be unfairly tarnished.” Putting more distance between them, she took a deep, steadying breath and said prosaically, “I am glad that we have had this moment to talk privately. We can now put this unfortunate misunderstanding behind us and be comfortable with each other.” She tipped her head to the side. “We shall be dear friends once more.”

  Since being “comfortable” or “dear friends” with Ellen was the last thing on Hugh’s mind, he wasn’t best pleased by her words. Some of his satisfaction with the situation fading, he asked, “Is that all you have to say?”

  Ellen opened her eyes very wide. “Why, sir, what else would there be for us to discuss?”

  Hugh scowled at her, suddenly not so certain of his ground. “Ellie, I am warning you, do not toy with me.”

  “Oh, la, sir, I would not dare,” she murmured, her eyes dropping demurely. Spinning on her heels, she gave a saucy toss of her blond curls and skipped gracefully from the shadows of the barn into the bright sunlight outside, leaving Hugh, his expression frustrated and baffled, to stare after her.

  Women, he decided caustically, were the very devil! There was simply no understanding them.

  When Chance found him shortly thereafter, Hugh was frowning and muttering to himself as he grimly brushed the already shiny coat of a long-legged bay mare. Having passed a sunnily smiling Ellen just a few moments previously, he had expected to see the same expression on Hugh’s face, but it seemed that he had misjudged the situation.

  Picking up a curry comb from the box of grooming equipment on the floor in the middle aisle, Chance entered the roomy stall where Hugh worked and, beginning to curry on the opposite side of the contented mare, asked quietly, “Is something wrong? You do not look very happy.”

  “I am not,” Hugh answered tightly. “And I am undecided whether to strangle Ellen first and then go challenge that bastard Jonathan to a duel, or kill him first and then strangle Ellen.”

  “Would you care to explain?”

  Hugh snorted. “No, I would not, but I will.” He looked over the mare’s back at Chance. “You have to know first that I am the biggest fool in nature. I listened to our dear cousin Jonathan tell me the blackest pack of vicious lies in creation about Ellen and then, having made the mistake of hearing him out, I believed him.”

  Chance’s eyes narrowed. “He vilified Ellen?”

  Suddenly wary of the dangerous glitter in Chance’s gaze, Hugh glanced away. “No one else knows about it.” He smiled bitterly. “In fact, I suspect that I am the only person who would have been cork brained enough to listen to him without planting him a facer then and there.”

  If Hugh was attempting to deflect Chance’s anger, he was not successful. “What did he say?” Chance asked in ominous tones.

  Hugh shook his head, a stubborn slant to his mouth. “If anyone is going to face Jonathan on the dueling field, it is going to be me. ’Tis my woman he insulted.”

  In a lightning swift change of mood, Chance grinned at him. “Oh, and does Ellen know of this fascinating fact?”

  A scowl crossed Hugh’s face. “No. She says we are to be ‘friends.’ ”

  There was such disgust in Hugh’s voice that Chance laughed. “I would not despair, my friend. If she did not care for you, she would not have been so determined to clear her reputation with you. Knowing the feminine sex as I do, I would wager that our Ellen intends to punish you just a trifle before relenting and telling you what is really in her heart.”

  Hugh nodded glumly. “ ’Tis what I feared.”

  Unaware that Fancy had entered the barn and was approaching the stall where they worked, Chance said darkly, “And as for Jonathan . . . I am afraid that you will have to wait until after I have taken my own revenge before you will be allowed to take yours.”

  Suddenly concentrating on the motions of his brush, Hugh said idly, “I had wondered if, after all this time, you still truly blame him for Jenny’s death. Or if hating Jonathan had merely become a habit.”

  “ ’Tis not a habit, Hugh. I do blame him,” Chance said flatly. “I just have not been able to decide upon an effective way of painfully teaching him that seducing other men’s wives and then leaving them to their fate cannot be done with impunity. That there is a high price, a very high price, to be paid for carelessly destroying lives.”

  “It happened a long time ago, Chance,” Hugh murmured. “Jenny has lain moldering in her grave for over seven years now. Perhaps ’tis time for you to forget the thought of vengeance and put the past behind you. Killing Jonathan will not bring Jenny back. You have a new wife now and a new life. Why risk destroying it to take vengeance for a long-ago deed?”

  Chance gave an ugly laugh. “I do not want to kill Jonathan, my friend. If it were that simple, I could have done that years ago.” He shook his head. “No, I do not want to kill him. Death would be too swift and kind. I want the selfish bastard to suffer for a long time, a lifetime. I will not be satisfied until he learns what it is to lose foreve
r something precious and irreplaceable and,” Chance said grimly, “to live, as I had to live all these years, every day regretting and mourning his enormous loss.”

  The smile of greeting that had been on her lips vanished, and Fancy stood frozen in the center of the aisle, Chance’s words ringing in her ears. All the uncertainties about her marriage to him suddenly bloomed into full flower once more, and she wished violently that she had chosen a different time to go exploring. Or that her entrance into the stables would have made enough noise to alert the two men to the fact that they were no longer alone and that their every word could be overheard with painful clarity. Of course, she thought miserably, she could slip away before she heard any more of their private conversation, but her feet seemed to have rooted to the spot where she stood and she could not move.

  “And how do you plan to arrange that?” Hugh asked, his voice troubled.

  “By taking away something that means a great deal to him . . . and letting him live, knowing that I hold his dearest possession firmly in my hand.”

  His words sank like a knife into Fancy. It had been obvious from the beginning that Chance had believed that she was the Merrivale sister Jonathan had intended to marry, and if she had needed confirmation that she had merely been a pawn in Chance’s desire for revenge against Jonathan, he had just given it to her. All along she had tried to convince herself that she had been wrong about him and his motives for marrying her, but it seemed that she had not been wrong at all. She had been all too right, and the gently burgeoning hope in her breast that their marriage might prove to be a joy to both of them, that she had somehow misjudged him, disappeared instantly. Bitterly aware that she had again allowed herself to be lulled by his dark charm and her own treacherous emotions into a false feeling of happiness, she felt a dull weight settle in her chest.

  Wounded and full of angry remorse that she had not followed her first inclination and faced the scandal an annulment would have caused, Fancy turned and quietly left the barn. She had been a fool. And she had no one to blame but herself—that and her equally foolish heart. Because the unpleasant fact still remained that she was married to a conniving rogue and that, unfortunately, she was hopelessly in love with him.

  Alone in her bedchamber, Fancy paced the floor, wondering unhappily what she was going to do. Leaving was out of the question. She was married to the man and, despite all the reasons not to be, she was in love with him. It was a bitter, bitter admission, but she could think of no other reason to explain her incomprehensible actions. He had only to look at her, smile, and put out his hand, and like a fawning bitch at the heels of her master, she followed wherever he led. Not only was she in love with this man she had married, but he was outrageously charming and just the slightest brush of his body against hers whipped her own into a frenzy of yearning. She should have been elated to be married to a man she loved and whose mere presence gave her pleasure. But she most definitely was not.

  Since the wedding, she had managed to push away many of her doubts and uncertainties. Chance, with his laughing eyes and teasing mouth, had made it fatally easy to forget that their marriage had not come about in normal circumstances. The fact remained, however, that she didn’t know her new husband very well and that there were certain events surrounding their marriage in which he more resembled a scoundrel than an honorable gentleman. His changeability kept her confused and in a turmoil. One minute he boldly compromised her, compelling her to marry him. Then the next he agreed not to force his conjugal rights upon her . . . for a month. A tremor went through her. A month that would fly swiftly by.

  She closed her eyes in anguish, her hands clenched at her sides. What was she to do? Pretend she had never overheard that damning conversation? She knew she wouldn’t be able to do that—no matter how often she pushed it away, the question would rise again and again in her brain and devil her mercilessly. She had to know the truth. Though her heart quailed at what she might learn, she was determined to find out if Chance had married her only because it had been a way of taking revenge upon Jonathan or if there had been some other reason. Some other reason that would lessen this terrible pain in her breast.

  The evening meal that night was not an overwhelming success. It should have been. The heat and humidity of the day had lessened somewhat; the dining room was large and elegantly appointed; the food was, no doubt, delicious; and Jed and Maryanne were expert at serving the table. But Fancy might as well have been eating weevil-filled biscuits in some cold and dank cellar for all the pleasure she took in her food. She wasn’t so lost in her own misery that she didn’t notice that Hugh spent most of the meal scowling across the table at Ellen or that Ellen seemed to be unusually gay and sunny, if the smiles and snippets of conversation she shared with Chance were any indication. Annie Clemmons, despite Fancy’s warm manner toward her, was still feeling uncomfortable with the situation in which she found herself and kept to herself, replying politely to any conversation sent her way but for the most part keeping silent.

  While enjoying Ellen’s innocent flirtation with him, Chance wasn’t entirely oblivious of Fancy’s lack of appetite or subdued air. More than once during the meal he sent her a speculative glance. The tour of the house and grounds earlier in the day had gone rather well, he had thought, and when he had last seen his bride, she had been smiling and apparently happy with her new home. What had happened in the hours since?

  It wasn’t until everyone had retired for the night that Chance had an opportunity for private speech with Fancy. He and Hugh had drunk a few snifters of brandy after the ladies had gone upstairs to bed. When he entered his rooms some time later, he was surprised to find his wife still dressed as she had been at dinner, waiting for him. She was sitting in one of the maroon leather chairs, her hands folded in her lap, the expression on her lovely face hard to define. Angry? Hurt? Resigned? Perhaps all three, he thought slowly.

  Shrugging out of his jacket and undoing the stock around his neck as he walked across the room toward her, he said, “I did not expect to find you here.”

  “Since you have ordered that I am to sleep in your bed, where else should I be?”

  There was a note in her voice that was also hard to define, and the first faint chill of unease stirred within him. Giving himself time to consider the situation, he sat on the bed and swiftly removed his boots. Something had obviously disturbed her, but try as he might, he could not fathom a reason for the change in her manner toward him.

  Leaving the bed and standing in front of her, his hands on his hips, he said carefully, “I am flattered that you remembered my, er, orders, but you are not garbed for bed. Unless, of course, you intend to sleep in what you are wearing right now.”

  Fancy looked up at him, and something in that searching topaz gaze made his feeling of unease sharpen. He leaned forward and, resting his hands on the arms of the chair, his face mere inches from hers, asked quietly, “What is it, Fancy? What has happened to make you look at me so?”

  Fancy took a deep breath, her gaze locked with his. “Why did you marry me, Chance?” she asked abruptly. “Why did you create the situation that made our marriage imperative?”

  Chance stiffened. Standing upright, he took a step away from her. Looking back at her over his shoulder, he said dryly, “I am sure that you have drawn your own conclusions about it.”

  She nodded slowly. “Yes, I have, but I would like to hear your explanation. Why?”

  “Why?” he asked lightly, feeling his ground as he went. “Why else, madame, but that I found you so fetching that I could not help myself?”

  “Do not jest. I deserve an answer. Why did you marry me?”

  Since he didn’t know that answer himself and since it was painfully apparent that much rested on his next words, he moved idly around the room, trying to figure out what was going on. Why did she want to know now? Why was she so insistent upon it? And what the hell had happened to the beguiling companion he had escorted around earlier in the day?

  “Why is i
t so important to you? My reasons would change little. We are married and the marriage has been consummated. What difference does it make why I compromised you? The deed is done.”

  “Yes, and we have to live with it for the rest of our lives. But that does not change my right to know why the deed was committed in the first place.” Her voice shook a little. “You deliberately compromised me. Why?”

  Chance shot her a dark glance. She wasn’t going to budge, and no matter how he tried to deflect her course, she came right back to the original question. Why had he sought out her bed that morning and allowed them to be found in such a scandalous manner? Damned if he knew! Except, he thought irritably, it had made tremendous sense to him at that time. He’d have his revenge against Jonathan and give himself something that he desperately wanted—Fancy for his own. But he could hardly tell her that. Knowing how badly he wanted her and to what enormous lengths he was willing to go to get her would give her a weapon against him. His mouth twisted. And she certainly wouldn’t like learning that an emotion as base and petty as revenge had partly initiated his actions. He realized suddenly with a sinking feeling in his stomach that vengeance against Jonathan had merely been an excuse, that if Jonathan’s bride had been any woman other than Fancy, he never would have hit upon the scheme that he had.

  Moodily he looked away from her. Trying to explain his own ambiguity about his deepest feelings for her would only lead him to deep, dangerous water, where he was liable to lose his head and blurt out something foolish . . . such as, I am half in love with you and have been since I first laid eyes on you. I want you, that I have only to think of you, of your soft mouth and sweet body, and I am on fire for you. That when I am with you ’tis springtime even if snow o’erspreads the ground. Which, of course, was all utter nonsense. Hadn’t he sworn upon Jenny’s death never to let himself love again? Never to let a mere woman be the sum of his happiness?