by Marie Force
“There has been news from Westwood Hall.”
“What kind of news?”
“I’m afraid I must tell you that your nephew was married in Gretna Green one week ago. John Coachman saw the registry with his own eyes.”
Anthony was rarely speechless, but he had no words. Once again, his birthright had been snatched out of his hands. Filled with fury that threatened to consume him, Anthony cleared his throat. “Who?”
“My lord?”
“Who did he marry?”
“Lady Catherine McCabe, the daughter of the Earl of Brisbane. She had been missing these last weeks.”
“Missing?”
“From what I heard from the earl’s groom, the earl lost a steep wager to Lord Lindsey, and betrothed his eldest daughter to the viscount. She ran away rather than marry the man.”
“I can’t say I blame her, but how did she end up married to my nephew?”
“Apparently, he encountered her on his property and took her in. I haven’t heard the particulars of how they came to meet, but when Lindsey went to collect her, the duke immediately took her to Scotland.”
“He ran off with another peer’s fiancée?” Anthony asked, his wheels turning. If he had his nephew brought up on charges in the House of Lords, perhaps the marriage could be discredited.
“From what I was told, she never accepted Lord Lindsey’s proposal and refused her father’s directive that she marry the viscount.”
The case would be difficult to make, but it was something. Anthony should’ve broken the boy’s neck and left him under a tree to make it look like an accident when he’d had the chance. If he’d done that, he wouldn’t be once again on the outside looking in as his brother’s family took what was rightfully his. Even from the grave, his brother was still winning.
Anthony wouldn’t stand for it. It was time to end this madness once and for all.
“That’ll be all, James.”
“Good evening, my lord.”
For a long time after James left the room, closing the door behind him, Anthony didn’t move. He barely breathed as he considered his options.
Then he walked over to the decanter that contained his whiskey of choice, poured several fingers and took a healthy sip, letting the heat of the liquor burn the bile that had settled in his throat. He wrapped his hand around the neck of the decanter.
Imagining his nephew’s smug, satisfied face made Anthony see red.
Tightening his hand on the crystal, he picked it up and hurled it into the stone fireplace, watching with satisfaction as it shattered into a million pieces.
By the time Anthony was finished with him, his nephew’s life would resemble that shattered decanter.
Chapter Fifteen
After they’d dined by candlelight and devoured the small cake Catherine had baked for his birthday, Jack held her close to him in their bed. Catherine could honestly say that she’d never in her life imagined that such contentment was possible. After she had lost Ian, she hadn’t expected to find love again. And if she were being honest with herself, the love she’d felt for her dear, sweet Ian paled in comparison to the fiery passion she shared with her handsome husband.
He was everything she’d ever wanted in a mate: generous, loving, affectionate, passionate and interested in that which interested her. He made her laugh, and he made her think. In the dark of night—and every other time of day, for that matter—he made her scream with the intensity of the releases he coaxed from her body.
Just thinking of their intense connection made her want him again. She slid her leg between both of his and caressed his chest. He’d taught her how to tell him without words what she wanted from him.
His arms tightened around her, infusing her with a feeling of safety and security.
Her hand took a lazy journey from his chest to his belly and below. When her fingers closed around his manhood, he released a long, tortured breath. Since she’d been unable to shower him with gifts for his birthday, she decided to give him something far more special and intimate than any gift she could have purchased for him.
Raising herself up, she kissed his chest, focusing her attention on the flat nipples that jumped to attention under her ministrations.
Jack combed his fingers through her hair.
Kissing her way to his belly, Catherine kept up the gentle strokes of her hand over his member. He had shown her how he liked to be touched, and she reveled in the short gasps she drew from him.
“Cat,” he whispered, his hips lifting off the bed, seeking. “Come up here.”
“Not yet.” Continuing to caress him, she bent her head and touched her tongue to the sensitive crown.
Jack sucked in a sharp, deep breath.
Encouraged by his response, she took him into her mouth. She wasn’t sure if she was doing it right, but judging by his rapid breathing and the tightening of his fingers in her hair, she sensed he was enjoying it. Running her tongue along his length, she kept up the steady movement of her hand.
“Cat, honey.”
She heard the note of warning in his voice and knew what he was trying to tell her, but she continued undeterred. Opening her mouth wider, she took as much of him as she could, but he was so big.
Jack groaned, and his hips surged. When a tremble rippled through his body, Catherine glanced up at him and found his face tight with tension, his eyes blazing as he watched her every move. Taking him deep one more time, she lashed him with her tongue and sent him into release.
His seed filled her mouth. She swallowed frantically, but some still escaped from the corner of her lips. She wiped it away and stretched out on top of him. His eyes were closed, his breathing ragged, his face damp with sweat.
Catherine brushed her lips over his. “Happy birthday.”
A sound that was half grunt, half laugh escaped from him. His arms encircled her, and he settled her head on his shoulder. “Best birthday ever.”
“Did I do it right?” she asked softly.
“So right. Any better and you might’ve stopped my heart.”
Smiling, Catherine closed her eyes and began to drift off to sleep.
A shotgun blast shattered the peaceful night.
Jack startled and eased her off him so he could sit up.
Catherine sat up, too, and tugged the sheet over her breasts. “Jack?”
He listened intently. “Shh.”
“Westwood!” A voice called from the yard. “Show yourself !”
Something about that voice was familiar to Catherine, and a ripple of fear traveled through her.
Jack reached for his breeches.
“Where are you going?” she whispered. “He’s not looking for you. He wants the duke, and he has a gun!”
He pulled on his shirt and bent to kiss her. “No matter what happens tonight, never forget how much I love you.”
“Jack!”
Another gunshot. “Westwood! Show yourself before I come in after you.”
Catherine got out of bed and fumbled her way into a wrapper.
“Stay here,” Jack said as he left the bedroom. “I’ll be back.”
“Jack!”
He turned, and the hard expression on his face stopped her cold. “Stay here, Catherine.”
Her heart raced with fear and dread. If she lost him now . . . Even though he’d told her to stay in the bedroom, she moved to the front room to better hear and watch the proceedings in the yard. Through a crack in the curtains she could see three men on horseback illuminated by the full moon.
“You have something that belongs to me, Westwood.”
That low, sinister voice sent shock waves through her. Oh God, Lindsey! And why was he calling Jack Westwood?
“I have nothing of yours, Lindsey. You would do well to remove yourself from my property.”
His property? Whatever was he saying? He would lose his position when the duke found out.
“Where is Lady Catherine?” Lindsey asked as he dismounted from his horse.
“That is no bu
siness of yours.”
“She is my fiancée!”
“Not anymore she isn’t.”
The look on Lindsey’s face sent a shiver of fear through Catherine. “Explain yourself.”
“Lady Catherine is my wife.”
“That’s impossible!” Lindsey roared. “She’s mine! She belongs to me!”
“She never belonged to you.”
Catherine watched, horrified, as Lindsey reached for his sidearm. “No!” she cried, rushing through the door. Blinded by fear, she threw herself at Jack, ready to take the bullet for him.
“Catherine, I told you to stay inside,” he said tightly, as he drew her in close to him. “I’ll handle this.”
“I won’t let him kill you.”
“He wouldn’t dare kill me.”
Lindsey glared at Jack. “Don’t be so certain, Westwood.”
Clinging to her husband, Catherine glanced up to find his face taut with tension.
“Why does he keep calling you that, Jack?”
Ignoring the question, Jack addressed Lindsey once more. “I’m not going to tell you again to remove yourself at once. You are trespassing on private property.”
Lindsey sent his eyes on a lascivious journey over Catherine’s barely clad body.
“As are you.”
“Take your eyes off my wife this instant, or I shall see you at dawn.”
Lindsey snorted. “Your wife doesn’t seem to know who exactly she married. Is it possible that you deceived her?”
“You have no idea what you’re talking about, Lindsey,” Catherine said. “You’re an evil, reprehensible man, and I’d rather be married to a toad than to you.”
Lindsey’s expression went from arrogantly amused to dark and sinister in the blink of an eye. “For someone who claimed such disdain for the aristocracy, you’ve certainly settled into your new role as a duchess rather quickly, Your Grace.”
The words sent a jolt of shock through Catherine. “Why is he calling me that, Jack? What is he saying?”
Jack’s posture was rigid. As if she hadn’t spoken, he kept his attention fixed on Lindsey. “Get out of here,” he said in a low, menacing tone she wouldn’t have thought him capable of.
Lindsey stared him down for a long, breathless moment before he turned and remounted his horse. “I’ll go, but only because there’s nothing here that interests me any longer.”
Catherine released the breath she hadn’t realized she was holding and felt some of the rigidity leave Jack’s posture as well.
“I’ll be on my way to meet with your father, Lady Catherine. He’ll honor our agreement one way or the other. From the way he was speaking last week at White’s, it doesn’t much matter to him if it’s you or your luscious sister Madeleine who becomes my bride. I hear that Madeleine is the amenable sister, which is much more to my liking anyway. Not to mention, she’s untouched. I prefer an obedient, docile, chaste woman to a shrew like you.”
An almost inhuman growl erupted from Catherine at the thought of her lovely, precious sister married to that beast. When she would’ve run after Lindsey, Jack held her back.
With an evil laugh, Lindsey spun his big horse around and galloped out of the yard. His men followed, leaving a cloud of dust in their wake.
Catherine struggled against Jack’s tight hold. “We have to stop him. We can’t let him near Madeleine. She’ll never be able to fight him off the way I did. We have to do something!” Catherine knew she was on the verge of hysteria, but the thought of that evil monster touching her sister had caused something inside her to snap.
“We will go after him, Cat. I promise you, he won’t lay a hand on your sister. But before we go, there is something I must tell you.”
Chapter Sixteen
Catherine sat very still on the sofa in the cottage’s sitting room. The man she had loved with her whole heart and soul stood before her as a stranger. Snippets of conversations raced through her mind.
I’m certain the duke won’t mind if we borrow his grandmother’s clothing.
I think I’ll like this duke of yours.
I’m quite counting on it.
Oh God, she thought as she began to tremble beneath the thin layer of silk covering her.
“Cat, please. Say something.”
“My name is Catherine,” she said, her tone frosty. “I don’t even know yours.”
“It’s Derek.” He knelt before her and reached for her hands. “Derek Eagan.”
She pulled back her hands. “Don’t touch me.”
His face twisted into an expression of agony that might’ve broken her heart if it hadn’t already been shattered beyond repair. He’d lied about everything. The days since she met him, the most blissful days of her life, had been built upon so many lies she wondered how she’d ever believe anything he said to her again.
“I did it to protect you from Lindsey. If you’d known who I was, you wouldn’t have married me. You would’ve left that first day, and God knows what might’ve happened to you. I couldn’t let him get to you. I had to protect you.”
She stared at him. “And there was nothing in it for you?”
“I love you. I have never lied to you about that. I’ve loved you from the first night I held you in my arms, when you were ablaze with fever. If you’d known the truth, you never would’ve given me the chance to show you what we could have together. You wouldn’t have allowed me to protect you.”
“So you lied to me and tricked me into marrying you?” An appalling thought occurred to her, sucking the breath from her lungs. “Is our marriage even legal?”
“Yes,” he said, tightly. “I signed my real name in the register. It’s legal.”
“Excellent. I am legally married to a man who has lied to me every minute since the day I met him.”
“You are legally married to a man who has loved you every day since the first instant he laid eyes on you.”
“When I was dirty and smelly and feverish?”
“The first instant.”
She stood abruptly. She had to get away from him and that face, those eyes, that persuasive voice.
“Cat,” he said. “I mean Catherine, we need to go home. To the manor. There are things I must see to there before we set out to find your sister.”
“And here I thought we were home.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I don’t wish to go with you. Sunny and I will leave for London in the morning.”
A nerve in his cheek pulsed with tension. “I can’t leave you here alone with Lindsey in the area.”
“Post some of your footmen, Your Grace.”
He winced. “For better or worse, you are my wife and my duchess, and I won’t leave you here unprotected, nor will I allow you to travel unaccompanied.”
Duchess. If she hadn’t been so devastated by his deceit she might’ve laughed at the title. Had anything ever been more preposterous?
“Do you wish to get dressed before we set out for home?” They engaged in a silent battle of wills that ended when she stepped around him and went into the bedroom, slamming the door behind her. Fuming, she grabbed a chemise and one of the day dresses the seamstress had made for her. She removed her wrapper and gasped when the bedroom door opened. Catherine scrambled to cover her naked body.
“A bit late for modesty, isn’t it?” he drawled.
“A bit late for the truth, isn’t it?”
Taken aback by her retort, he stared at her. Clearly, the duke wasn’t used to being spoken to so harshly. Well, he’d better get used to it.
Trying to dress while keeping all the important parts covered turned out to be more complicated than she’d expected. When she was finally clothed, she waited for him to tell her what he expected her to do next. If she had her way, she’d take her meager belongings and be gone. But the fact that they were legally wed gave him the right to tell her what to do. She wondered if it were still possible to request an annulment.
While she stood rigidly still, he jammed her
clothing into a carpetbag he unearthed from the closet. Holding out his hand to her, he said, “Please come.”
Catherine folded her arms.
“If I have to toss you over my shoulder, I’ll do it. Either you can walk out of here under your own power or under mine, but I am not leaving you here. What will it be?”
Blinking back tears, she let her eyes wander to the rumpled bed they’d so recently occupied. In this tiny house, she’d known true happiness for the first time in so many years. Until it had been yanked away from her, exposed as a lie of such epic proportions she might never fully understand it or how she’d been such a gullible fool. A glance at his handsome, intractable face reminded her of how she’d been so easily swept away by him.
She stalked past him through the living area and into the yard. He followed and walked over to Hercules, who waited patiently for his master. Sunny had been delivered to the stables earlier in the day to get the older horse out of the heat. Before Catherine had the presence of mind to object, her husband took her by the waist and lifted her onto the horse.
“What do you think you’re doing?” Catherine sputtered.
He swung up behind her, hooked an arm around her and drew her in close to him. “Taking my wife home.”
Catherine struggled against his tight hold and nearly unseated them both.
“Sit still,” he growled.
The heat of his large body seeped through her clothing, making her skin tingle with awareness. That he still had such power over her, in every possible way, rankled and appalled her. He’d played her for a fool from the day they met. She refused to allow him to play her anymore.
* * *
Derek’s heart and mind raced with worry and fear. He’d expected her to be angry, but deep inside he’d hoped and prayed she’d understand that he’d done it for her, to protect her. However, judging by the rigid way she tried to hold herself apart from him, it was clear that she’d rather be anywhere else than in his arms, stealing through the dark of night on the back of his horse.
To think, just an hour ago, she’d brought him such overwhelming pleasure with her mouth and tongue. Remembering it sent a surge of lust straight to his cock, which thrust against the confines of his breeches.
