The Runner's Enticement (Men of Circumstance Book 2)

by Addie Jo Ryleigh

  Gabe didn’t speak. Instead, he muscled Nate into a quick hug that ended with a solid pat on Nate’s back before he stepped away.

  Clearly not interested in letting the slight awkwardness dissipate, Foxmoore spoke from his position close to the door. “With all the feelings floating around the room, I’m of a mind to get the two of you fitted for matching gowns.”

  The easy teasing held no sting of insult, so Nate did the only thing he could. He laughed it off.

  Gabe, on the other hand, told his friend exactly what was on his mind. “Piss off, Marcus.” Just as with Foxmoore, there was no mistaking his good-natured humor. Until his face drew serious. “With that out of the way, will someone please inform me exactly who Rollins is—or should I say, was—and why the bloody hell I should give a damn?”

  Chapter 43

  It had taken some time, and a few choice words on Gabe’s part, but Nate finally had the story of Rollins wrapped up rather nicely. All he needed was a bow on top to make it complete.

  When The Viper had killed Rollins, he’d destroyed any possibility Nate had of deciphering what had sent the man after Gabe and subsequently Nate. Nate knew his father had been horrible—even criminal—but no other Wesbrook bastard set a course for revenge.

  With Johnstone, Jarvis, and Rollins all dead, there was nowhere to face but forward. Which was fortunate since Nate had no desire to look back.

  Or he wouldn’t once Anna opened her lovely eyes and he could be certain she would survive.

  As it was, two days had passed since the botched plan in the folly. She had yet to wake. Since her earlier fever broke that morning, the doctor claimed she simply needed time to build her strength. The reassurance hadn’t allowed Nate to relax. And he wouldn’t. Not until her clear turquoise eyes looked into his.

  Until then, he’d settled for holding her hand as she slept, and whispering how much he loved her. Needed her.

  Sitting next to her bed, his eyes devoured her sleeping form. He still panicked to think about how she’d sacrificed her body for him. He’d trade his soul to be the one who’d taken the bullet. The bullet Jarvis had meant for him.

  “Why the hell did you do it?” he mumbled into the quiet room. “You never listen to me. This only proves why you should.”

  Against the creaminess of her pale skin, the pink of her lips seemed rosier and he would give anything for those lips to move—even if to chide him with her lofty tone.

  “Any change?” Foxmoore’s quiet question pulled Nate from his thoughts.

  “No. The doctor was here earlier and said she needs more time. Thankfully, the fever didn't last long. The bullet missed anything vital and the wound seems to be healing. So now we wait.” Frustration laced Nate’s voice but he didn’t care. All he wanted—no, all he needed—was for her to wake. Even if they had no future, he needed to know she was out there somewhere, living.

  Foxmoore’s hand clasped Nate’s shoulder. “From what I’ve seen, she is a fighter. She will pull through.”

  Nate hoped he was right. “Is Gabe gone?”

  “He left early this morning. Not long after he said his goodbyes.”

  “I’m surprised he stayed as long as he did.”

  Foxmoore gave Nate’s shoulder a quick squeeze before withdrawing to the foot of the bed. “He would have stayed longer, until Lady Annabel roused, but he needed to get back to Frenton Hall. Lizzy would have his head if didn’t return with news soon.”

  Nate chuckled, the first in days. “I never thought I’d see the day when Gabriel St. James, Duke of Wesbrook, would be at the beck and call of a woman.”

  Foxmoore’s brief laughter joined Nate’s. “Better him than me.”

  His eyes locked on Anna’s pale face, Nate whispered, “It isn’t so bad.”

  After a short silence, Foxmoore murmured, “Let me know if you need anything,” before he slipped from the room.

  Alone once again, Nate folded her hand between his larger palms and brought her fingers to his lips. “Please, Anna, you have to wake. I need you. I have things to tell you, the least of which being that I love you.”

  Her hand still secured within his, as he slept with his head on the mattress next to her, was how Brodford found him hours later.

  “Son, go get some rest.” Nate awoke to the man’s voice. “The last thing she needs is for you to become ill.”

  Nate sat up and scrubbed the sleep from his eyes. “I’m fine. I want to be here when she wakes.”

  “I know you do, but we have no way of knowing when that will be. You need food and you need to sleep in a proper bed. Once done, you may return.”

  The earl didn’t exactly phrase it as an order but Nate took it for what it was. With his free hand, he fingered the strands of dark auburn hair resting over her forehead, all too aware her father stood a few feet from him. Perhaps it had been Nate’s deep-seated fright when he’d carried Anna’s motionless body into the house after she’d been shot, but Brodford had seemed to have discerned there was more to Nate’s relationship with Anna than bodyguard and subject.

  Whatever the earl might think, it only mattered Nate be allowed vigil at Anna’s side. He’d hate to have to push a respected member of the gentry to the floor to gain entry to her bedchamber.

  “I’ll stay with her until you return,” Brodford urged gently.

  Unsure whether Brodford would bar him from her room entirely, Nate reluctantly stood. As her hand slipped from his, emptiness seemed to encircle his heart. If he could have shared this moment alone with her, he would have placed a kiss against her lips before he left. Instead, he settled for a lingering gaze upon her sleeping face.

  When he started to brush by Brodford, the gentleman grabbed his arm. Being taller, Nate had to look down to meet his eyes.

  “I wouldn’t be doing my duty as her father if I didn’t say something,” Brodford began.

  Nate tensed. Now was the moment he had been expecting for the past two days. The moment Brodford would explain how Anna was above him in all ways. Confirming something Nate already knew. He could hardly blame the man. No father would want his gently raised daughter linked to a bastard Runner.

  Nate fought the urge to run as Brodford continued, “Wipe that look from your face. I can already see where you think this is headed and you couldn’t be more wrong. My duty as her father is to see her happy and safe. I’ve spent my life doing so, or at least attempting to.”

  He cast a loving glance to his daughter before retraining his aging eyes on Nate. “You are a good man. You don’t need a title attached to your name to prove your worth to me. I’ve watched you, and not just these last few days. I would be proud to have you care for my daughter. Even without her suffering a bullet in your place, something tells me Anna would feel the same.”

  Nate didn’t know how to respond. No doubt he stood before Brodford with his mouth gaping open.

  Thankfully, he didn’t have to dig for the words since Brodford spoke before he could manage the feat himself. “Go. Get some rest. My daughter would never forgive me if I allowed you to fall ill.”

  Nate somehow navigated through the misty haze clogging his head and managed to exit Anna’s bedchamber without falling on his face. As he trudged to his room, his mind kept replaying Brodford’s declaration. Over and over.

  The man’s message had been delivered simply and clearly. It shouldn’t be so hard for him to process the words. However, since they were in complete contrast to what his own father had told him—repeatedly—Nate found them hard to believe. It was opposite to what most of those in an exalted position had told him through the years, Diana included. One of many, her snub had just managed to prick deeper than the rest.

  A future with Anna. Is it possible?

  The thought had been on his mind for some time. He wasn’t in the habit of ruining respe
ctable ladies without desiring to do the honorable thing. Truthfully, before Anna, he’d never taken an innocent lady to bed. Despite her protests to the contrary, Diana hadn’t been as pure as everyone assumed.

  Though he’d longed to claim Anna as his before the entire world, he hadn’t allowed himself to believe it would ever happen. Not with the difference in their stations. A bastard Runner was not proper husband material for the daughter of an earl.

  Even if Brodford—and Anna—felt differently, could he tie her to him for the rest of her life? Submit her to the inevitable condescension from her peers?

  Knowing there would be no rest until he silenced the thoughts in his head, he detoured from his course and turned for Brodford’s parlor.

  If Gabe hadn’t returned to Elizabeth and the children, Nate would have gone to his brother for some advice. Instead, he searched out the next best option . . . Foxmoore. Other than the contrast between Gabe’s former reckless behavior and Marcus’ restraint, the men could be brothers themselves. Gabe’s trust in Foxmoore was all Nate needed.

  When he entered the room, Foxmoore greeted him. “I wasn’t sure the old man had it in him to persuade you to leave her side.”

  A quick survey of the room confirmed they were alone. Nate didn’t know where Thomas had gone and he didn’t particularly care.

  “He almost hadn’t. Without knocking me off my feet with a certain admission, he probably wouldn’t have.”

  Surrounded by artifacts, Foxmoore quirked an eyebrow inquiringly from his perch on the sofa, but Nate chose to put off clarification, at least for the moment.

  Instead, he studied the items closest to the earl. If it weren’t for the fact those particular pieces held significant importance, Nate would give anything to never see another Egyptian relic as long as he lived.

  Since they meant a great deal to Brodford and would mean even more to Anna, Nate moved closer to the clot of antiquities. “Is this all of them?”

  “Yes, all accounted for.”

  Nate fingered what he assumed was the Shabti Brodford had gone on and on about during his first visit with the man. “Was there any trouble retrieving them?”

  “No. Grant and your men were able to uncover Rollins’ residence now that we know who the man actually is. Er, was. The relics were all there along with some other evidence connecting him to Johnstone and The Viper. That evidence also confirms Wesbrook was his father.”

  Of everything Foxmoore shared, the last revelation was the least shocking. Nate’s father had been quite proficient at spreading his seed far and wide. Nate’s mother had been only one of many who’d fallen for his false charms. Proving his virility by littering England with his bastards had seemed a personal goal for Wesbrook.

  Nate pushed away those dark thoughts. “Did Brodford question anything?”

  Foxmoore shook his head. “No. We kept the story simple. Essentially the truth without exposing Lady Annabel’s connection. The two of us, and Gabe, are the only ones who know how the items had ended up in Rollins’ hands. As bad as it is to say, Jarvis finishing Rollins off might have been a good thing.”

  “Since the man would have probably celebrated putting a bullet in my chest, I’m not losing sleep over it. He’d caused enough damage to my family. He deserved his fate. You play with the devil and you are going to pay.”

  Foxmoore picked up a statue and inspected it for any damage before asking, “What is the real reason you ventured down here? Could it have anything to do with Brodford accepting your pursuit of his daughter?”

  Nate felt as if he faced Gabe instead of Foxmoore; the men were that eerily similar in their demeanors. “How did you know?”

  “First, a man would have to be an idiot to not rightly interpret your attentions to Lady Annabel. For a while there, we thought we’d have to use force to get you to vanquish your hold on her hand so the doctor could periodically see to her wound. From what I can tell, Brodford is not an idiot.”

  Nate felt his face redden knowing Foxmoore was right.

  “Secondly,” his friend continued, “as much as the old man isn’t an idiot, he’s also not a fool. He knows how to value a person and your station in life is not something he would place before your character.”

  As Foxmoore fell silent, Nate digested what he’d said. From the very moment he’d met Brodford, Nate could see the man held more integrity than the majority of the ton. That alone meant something. What it didn’t mean was whether the earl could welcome a Wesbrook bastard into his world. Or how Nate might ignore the repercussions facing Anna should she attach herself to him.

  He didn’t even know how she felt. All this could be a nonissue. He’d like to hope their moments together—in and out of bed—had been more than her exploration of a forbidden adventure. Absorbed in his mental debate, he failed to notice Foxmoore had vacated his spot on the sofa until a glass of brandy appeared over his shoulder.

  “I have a feeling you could use this.”

  Nate acknowledged the truth of the offer with a snort as he accepted the glass from Foxmoore’s outstretched hand and lifted it to his lips.

  Foxmoore eyed him as he drank. “Nate, you need to ease up on yourself. Just as Gabe isn’t your father, neither are you. A title and a place among the ton doesn’t define you as a man. The things you’ve done in your short life have been far greater than even the most exalted duke could have accomplished. Don’t share that with your brother, by the way.” Nate snorted as Foxmoore insisted, “You’ve saved people. You’ve placed the lives of strangers before your own. Don’t devalue your character because of what a few fluff-headed nobles whisper.”

  “I—” Nate began, but Foxmoore wasn’t finished.

  “Don’t forget about your mother.”

  That snagged Nate’s attention like nothing else.

  “Think of all she’d sacrificed for you,” Foxmoore urged. “She could have abandoned you to make her life easier. But she didn’t. Don’t disgrace all she’d done because of who your father is and how he placed you on the fringe of society. Use who you are and what you have become to spite your father. The man constantly told you what you weren’t. A part of you believed him. If there ever was a fool and an idiot, it was your father.”

  Stepping before Nate, Foxmoore stared him directly in the eye. “Why can you feverishly defend Gabe for the man he is and not the man your father wanted him to be, but you’re unable to use the same reasoning on yourself?”

  Somehow during the conversation, Marcus had transitioned from Gabe’s friend to one of Nate’s own.

  With a decisive nod, Foxmoore turned back to the items scattered on the low table.

  His own thoughts reeling, Nate finished off the remaining brandy in his glass. Why was it so hard for him to think better of himself? Could it be the countless times his father had dismissed him as nothing more than a nuisance with about as much importance as the mud on the bottom of his boot? Or possibly that he’d been good enough for the daughter of a lord to bed but nothing more?

  Whatever the reason, he needed to figure out exactly who he was and what he had to offer. Because he wanted nothing more than to find a way to have Anna as his wife. Beyond that, he had no answers.

  Nate set down his glass. Time to search for the rest of myself.

  Chapter 44

  Anna seemed to be floating in an endless fog. As the haze slowly lifted, a deep pain resonating from her shoulder became her focus. It hurt . . . badly. Actually, worse. Was there something worse than bad? Obviously, yes, because she felt it.

  Remaining still as possible, in hopes the horrid feeling would ease, she blinked heavy lids which fought against opening. When the lights from the room hit her eyes, they watered, protesting the bright blaze. What was wrong with her?

  After a few more labored blinks, the light no longer tortured her and she managed to keep
her eyes open long enough to take in her surroundings. Focusing on the blur of movement around her proved difficult. Someone was in the room with her.

  More solid blinks and the blurs started to form definite shapes. She released a shaky breath of relief and concentrated on bringing the world around her into focus. With increased clarity, the cloudiness of her mind dissipated and sounds started to buzz around her. She strained to discern the muffled words.

  Oh God, was she drunk? Had she unthinkingly indulged too much? She rarely, if ever, imbibed, though she doubted inebriation would be cause for people to take up vigil in her bedchamber. The haze had lifted enough to recognize her own bed if not much else.

  The rest remained a mystery.

  Someone lifted her hand—thankfully on the side not screaming pain at her—and squeezed it between two strong, very familiar palms. It would take more than a foggy head and blurry vision for her body to not recognize Nate’s touch.

  She turned her head to his blurry outline. Slowly and carefully, since she had yet to determine what would set off the unrelenting, worse-than-bad feeling in her shoulder.

  As she focused on him, his features emerged and his deep voice broke through the haze. “Anna, love, can you hear me? Anna?”

  She couldn’t seem to answer. Try as she might, the words clogged in her throat and died on her lips. They either wouldn’t form or wouldn’t move. Her mouth felt like she hadn’t taken in liquid for weeks.

  Her eyes, gaining clarity, flickered from Nate to the glass of water sitting by the bed. Nothing had ever looked so tempting—discounting the handsome man sitting at her bedside.

  In a silent plea, she shifted her eyes to him then back to the glass. Thank God the glorious man understood her needs and didn’t hesitate before bringing the glass to her lips. She managed to get most of the water down her dry throat and not over her chin.