Quinton sat in one of the leather reading chairs in the library and stared at the walls of books surrounding him. Through the tall windows, the morning sun inched higher over the mountains in the distance, lighting the large room that Belle loved so much.
Books…books…everywhere he looked. And not one answer to be found in any of them.
Blowing out a hard breath, he leaned forward in the chair, knees on elbows. The confusion that had clawed at his insides since he left Belle’s room last night pulsed inside him as fiercely as ever.
Good Lord. The Bluebell loved him.
She was mistaken, that was all. Confused. God knew he’d been plagued with enough confusion of his own since the moment she’d shattered in his arms. No—since long before that. Since the moment he first kissed her six years ago.
She drew him the way no other woman ever had. Nor most likely ever would again. One of her smiles sent his heart racing, and her needling criticisms only made him want her even more. And would he ever be able to enter a library again without thinking of her and all the things about men and women she’d learned by reading? The alluring, delectable way she looked, whether in silk gowns or men’s work clothes, had him half-hard right now just thinking about how that caramel hair of hers fell around her shoulders, how those honey-amber eyes melted into him. Never had he wanted a woman as much as he did Annabelle.
Yet his attraction wasn’t only lust. Which was the most bewildering of all.
He’d found himself enjoying her company and looking forward to spending time with her, even if only to argue over the newspaper at breakfast or to battle over a chess game. Her laughter was like music, and whenever she looked at him, her eyes shining, a warmth filled his chest. Happy. Energized. He cared about her and liked spending time with her, he would admit to that. He’d been happier here in the borderlands with her in the last few weeks than he’d been in the last several years.
But she wanted love. Would he ever be ready for that?
So he’d come here, to the one place she loved most in all the world, in a desperate attempt to understand her. He stared at the room around him as if it were a puzzle to be solved. But he couldn’t find the answer.
“What on earth are you doing in here?” his aunt asked, dumbfounded, as she stopped short in the doorway.
Quinn glanced up quickly, only to be struck by a pang of disappointment that Belle wasn’t with her. “Why shouldn’t I be here?”
“Because it’s the library,” she explained as she came forward into the room.
He rolled his eyes as he grumbled beneath his breath, “I studied at Oxford, you know.” Why wouldn’t anyone believe that?
She added quietly, “It’s also Annabelle’s favorite room.” She paused. “Were you hoping to find her here?”
Exactly that. In more ways than his aunt realized. But admitting that would make him sound exactly like the kind of lovesick pup he wasn’t.
He shoved himself out of the chair and stalked across the room to the shelf that held the Bibles and reached behind them for the Bowmore. He held up the bottle in silent offer.
“Awfully early for a drink,” she commented. When Quinn arched a brow at that, she added, “Well, someone had to say it, for propriety’s sake.” She pointed at the row of hymnals on the next shelf. “We keep the glasses there. Don’t be stingy on my pour.”
“Of course.” He splashed the golden liquid into two glasses and carried one to her.
“If you’re waiting for Annabelle, I’m afraid you’ve missed her.” She accepted her glass. “Angus Burns sent a message to the house, just after dawn. There was a problem in the fields last night.”
He paused with the glass halfway to his lips, his gut twisting with dread. There hadn’t been any trouble in the past fortnight. He’d hoped the barn fire had been the last of it. “What kind of problem?”
“One of the gates was accidentally left open, most likely by a departing party guest, and the sheep wandered out of their pasture. They’ve strayed all over Kinnybroch, and the men have set to rounding them up.”
Suspicion prickled at the back of his neck. That was no accident. “Where’s Belle?”
“She’s gone out with Mr. Burns and the others. That’s why I was surprised to find you here.” She studied him over the rim of her glass. “I was certain you’d be out in the fields with her.”
He carefully kept his face inscrutable as he pretended to take interest in the whisky swirling in his glass. “Why would I do that?”
“Because in the month that you’ve been here, you’ve come to care about this place as much as she does. And to care about Belle as much as she cares about you.” Her old eyes softened on him. “You two belong together. I’ve known that since you were children.” She slowly shook her head. “Six years ago, though, you very nearly ruined everything. She hated you for such a long time after that.”
And deservedly so. He was only now beginning to realize—and accept—all the wrongs done to her that night.
Dear God, the stupid, silly things he’d done in his past! Had he really been so immature and naïve to think that he could keep slipping through life by solving all his problems with fisticuffs? Or that he could avoid all responsibilities of the heart and emotional attachments with only a grin? A fine mess all that had gotten him into. Fate had twisted everything into a knot until the one woman he should never have cared anything about was now the only woman he wanted to marry.
But not love.
He wouldn’t put himself into a position to be wounded the same way his mother had, and something deep in his heart whispered that loving Belle would do exactly that.
She sighed. “I had hoped that this time around would be different.”
“It is.” Frowning into his glass, he quietly admitted, “Annabelle loves me.”
His aunt froze, except for her eyes, which widened like saucers. “She…said that?”
“Yes,” he whispered. He would have puffed out his chest in arrogant pride if Belle hadn’t made it sound like a prison sentence.
Or expected him to love her back.
“Yet she refused to marry you?” she breathed out, still staring wide-eyed. If he’d sprouted a second head, his aunt couldn’t have been more surprised.
“She did.” He tossed back the rest of the whisky.
Her face fell, and she blinked, utterly bewildered. “Why on earth did she do that?”
He stared at the empty glass. “She doesn’t want a loveless marriage.”
“But it wouldn’t be loveless. If you both—” She narrowed her eyes knowingly on him. “You did tell her that you love her, too, did you not?”
“No.” That familiar pang of uncertainty returned to his chest in full force.
She gaped at him. “For heaven’s sake, why not?”
“I won’t start my marriage with a lie.”
“My dear boy, you won’t start your marriage at all at this rate.” Her eyes swept over him, as if desperate to notice something important that she’d missed before. “You don’t love Annabelle?”
The quiet question was a punch to his gut. “Annabelle is wonderful.”
Amazing. Beautiful. Free-spirited and kindhearted. The only woman who had him longing to hear her laugh and see one of her smiles, who had him rereading Don Quixote, for God’s sake. Who had him looking forward to a long lifetime of morning swims in the pond, afternoons working on the estate, and quiet evenings spent together in front of the fire. Who had him wondering what she would be like as a mother, if their daughters would have the same caramel-colored hair and warm honey eyes, if their sons would be wild handfuls like him or quiet scholars like her. Their family and future. Right here in the place she loved, the place he was coming to appreciate just as much.
And yet…“But I don’t want to love her.”
Aunt Agatha grimly shook her head. “From what I’ve seen of love, you don’t get a choice in the matter.”
He clenched his teeth, his frustration rising. “And I’ve seen enough of love to know that I want no part of it.”
“You’ve seen nothing,” she shot back, suddenly angry, her eyes blazing. “To be so foolish as to reject someone’s love.”
He forced out through gritted teeth, “It isn’t love that’s the problem.”
“Then what is?” she demanded.
“When love ends!” He raked his shaking fingers through his hair, the frustration nearly unbearable. “It always ends. And the more you love someone, the worse it is when it does.”
Her lips parted at his outburst, and she involuntarily stepped away, as if knocked back by the force of a physical blow. With wide eyes, she stared silently at him, as if trying to see down into his soul.
Then her expression softened, as if she’d found what she’d searched for in him. The look of understanding she sent him pierced him even more painfully than her angry accusation of only moments before.
“Yes, it does,” she agreed softly, lowering her face. “Which makes the love before it ends even more precious.”
Her eyes glistened as she reached for the locket she wore around her neck. With a flick of the tiny clasp, she opened it.
“I understand your reluctance to love,” she said quietly as she gazed down at the locket, her features softening with a mixture of love and grief. “It isn’t always happy and wonderful.”
She showed him the locket and the miniature inside of his uncle. Understanding struck him then of why she always wore it, to keep her late husband close to her heart. But wasn’t this exactly what Quinn wanted to avoid, the sorrow of losing someone he loved? Whatever lesson she was hoping to impart about the blessings of love, she’d failed, because her locket only exemplified the pain that struck when love ended.
“When my Ainsley died, I thought my own life was over,” she whispered. “I couldn’t imagine living on without him. For a time, I didn’t want to. I wanted to join him.”
She touched a trembling finger to the portrait, and Quinn tightened his jaw at the gesture. He didn’t need a lesson in the grief that came of love. He’d witnessed it firsthand with his parents.
“It hurt so terribly, not having him with me. Not only an emotional pain but a physical ache, as well. It was torture to breathe, to keep feeling my heart beating, to simply crawl out of bed and face the dawn…to suffer the hours of dark night alone in an empty bed.”
“But you kept living and made it through,” he drawled, unable to keep the cynicism from his voice. He didn’t need platitudes. “Is that your point?”
“Not at all.”
Surprising him with that, she snapped the locket shut, but she closed her hand around it. To protect it in her grasp.
“My point is that even with the grief and all the agony and desolation I suffered, I would not trade away the love we shared. I would never deny myself a single day with my Ainsley nor sacrifice a single minute that I spent in his presence, just to protect my heart from being pained. Not one smile, not one laugh.” She squeezed her eyes closed, as if she didn’t trust herself not to cry. “What I wouldn’t give to have just one more argument with him! To have him infuriate me to no end just once more. To have back those silly days when we were so angry at each other that we didn’t speak.” She choked on the words, and her voice softened to a hoarse whisper. “To hear him say just one more time that he loves me.”
The same words he couldn’t bring himself to say to Belle.
Quinn’s heart thudded, each beat a jarring jolt in his hollow chest. “Even knowing how much pain his death caused you…” He sucked in a deep breath as his gut twisted into hard knots. “You’d still want that?”
When she opened her eyes and looked at him, they shined with unshed tears. “I’d give everything I possess for that. And I’m certain your mother feels the same.” She gave him a faint, bittersweet smile and looked down at the locket in her hand. “All the days and weeks of anguish and grief can never triumph over a lifetime of love. Or even one moment of it.”
Belle had said nearly the same thing last night. At the time, he’d thought she was simply being melodramatic, too optimistic for her own good. A bluestocking who believed in the happy endings found in her books. But now…“And if it doesn’t? If there’s not enough love, or—” he rasped out, his voice suddenly thick and hoarse. “Or if the grief is unbearable?”
“Then you rely on the love you had to give you the strength to continue. Because that kind of love will always live on in your heart.” She tenderly rested her hand against his cheek. “That’s the kind of love you share with Belle, isn’t it?”
A long, ragged breath tore from him. He shook his head as he put voice to his deepest fears. “I can’t take that kind of risk.” Too much was at stake, too much to lose—too much pain and grief to survive. “Especially with Belle.”
“If you love her, then it won’t—”
“Not her,” he bit out. “Her love for me. If she ever loves me as much as my mother loved my father, the grief and pain she suffered when he died—if something happens to me—”
He choked off, unable to continue as he looked away, his eyes burning. He shook his head as a wave of guilt crashed through him just imagining Belle in that kind of relentless suffering.
He sucked in a deep, jerking breath. “To know that I’ve caused her that same kind of grief, that same pain, simply because she loved me—” A shudder sped through him, and the anguished truth ripped from him. “I would never do that to her. I would never hurt her like that.”
Her old eyes softened. “It’s too late, I’m afraid. She’s already given her heart to you.” Her heartache for him was audible in her soft, slow whisper. “You’ve always wanted to protect her. You two got into that mess six years ago because you wanted to defend her, even then. But you cannot protect her from loving you, just as you cannot stop the tide from rising or the sun from setting.” She paused. “Or from loving her yourself.”
With the affection of a mother, she brushed at the lock of hair falling across his brow.
“Love isn’t at all what you think it is. But Belle can show you the goodness of it, because she loves you.” She smiled at him. “And you do love her, I know it. I suspect that so does Belle.” She rose up on tiptoe to place a kiss to his forehead. “So go tell her you love her. If you let the words come, the heart will follow.”
His heart pounded, the damned thing not knowing whether to be terrified at opening itself up to love or elated at the possibility of loving Belle forever. Dear God, if he made the wrong decision— “It isn’t that simple.”
“Yes.” Her tear-filled eyes sparkled knowingly. “It is exactly that simple.”
* * *
Belle walked down the dew dampened lane toward the far pasture with her hands shoved deep into her coat pockets and her eyes fixed to the ground but not seeing anything. She’d dressed in her work clothes and left the house as soon as she’d spoken to Angus Burns, not because this morning’s trouble was anything too serious but because she couldn’t bear to linger within the same walls with Quinton a moment longer.
Around her, the early morning was quiet and still. The birds weren’t fully awake beneath the layer of clouds that the rising sun had yet to burn away, and the soft scrape of her boots against the gravel was muted by the fog that clung to the pasturelands like a veil. She wore the collar of her coat turned up against her neck, but it proved poor protection against the damp cold that seeped into her bones and seemed to chill her all the way down to her soul. Summer was over.
And so was any hope of being loved by Quinn.
She’d wanted the biting cold of the damp air and the physical exercise to chase last night from her mind, if not from her body’s memory, of how joyous it felt to make love to him. But the quiet morning served only to churn the emotions inside her even more, the images and sensations of being in his arms repeatedly pummeling her senses until hot tears blurred the ground in front of her.
She hunched her shoulders and blinked hard. No. She wouldn’t cry again. That was all she’d done since he’d left her room last night, until she thought she didn’t have any tears left. But she scowled at herself when she swiped a hand over her eyes and felt the warm wetness on her fingertips.
How dare that scoundrel come sweeping back into her life! Until he came along, she’d been perfectly fine. She’d grown used to being alone with her books and her swims in the pond, with managing the estate all by herself, and with the villagers and Lady Ainsley to care for. She would have lived out her life here, contented and satisfied with her lot. But then Quinton came along and ruined everything by making her fall in love with him, and by not loving her back.
She pressed her hand against her chest, where the man’s waistcoat she wore covered her pounding heart—as if the foolish thing didn’t know that it was supposed to be dead. Because surely it had shattered, this time beyond all repair. Oh, dear heavens, how much it hurt! She’d thought that the pain from six years ago could never be topped. But that girlish infatuation and humiliation had been nothing compared to this loss.
And she had no idea how to survive it.
“Miss Greene,” a voice called out from just beyond the edge of the mist. “Good morning!”
She glanced up, blinking rapidly to clear her eyes enough to make out Sir Harold sitting on top of his curricle that he’d stopped in the lane. The perfectly matched pair of bays pawed at the ground, impatient to continue their morning drive.
“Sir Harold.” She forced a smile. “What a surprise to see you up this early.”
He returned her smile, but it shivered through her, striking her as equally cold as the misty air around them. “Couldn’t be helped, I’m afraid. I seem to have a problem on my hands.”
This morning’s trouble with the sheep, of course.
Belle sucked in a deep breath to brace herself for the lecture she was certain to receive about the necessity of having better fences and gates, about how women had no place running an estate. The same set-down she’d received from him for the past year whenever trouble struck Glenarvon.
“I’m terribly sorry about the sheep,” she said, offering her apologies to keep the peace between them. Now that Glenarvon would be completely hers, they would have to deal with each other for a long time to come. And she wasn’t entirely certain that the wound she’d given to his pride last night had yet healed. “But it should all be cleared up soon. I’ve got Angus Burns and my men rounding up the flock right now.”
“I know.” His smile widened, but somehow remained just as stiff as before. Just as icy. “They’re down in my south pasture. Should be occupied there for several hours, I think.” He looked past her into the morning mist. “No guard dog this morning to escort you?”
“Lord Quinton is at the house.” She smiled tightly, even though his question tore at her heart. “I thought I’d come out early to help the men.”
“Can I offer you a ride to Kinnybroch, then?” He set the brake and tied off the ribbons, then stood to help her up onto the rig. When she hesitated, he added, “Might as well save your energy for rounding up sheep instead of walking all the way there.”
But she needed to walk, and to walk until she’d exorcised away the anguish still clawing inside her and the unbearable loss of a future that could never be hers. She forced her smile not to waver. “I don’t want to bother you.”
“It’s no bother.” He reached out his hand. “I insist.”
A prickly unease tingled at the backs of her knees. Something wasn’t right about him this morning. Something was…off. She couldn’t quite name what exactly, but it made her apprehensive to go with him.
Yet when she looked at him, his gloved hand outstretched, a stabbing guilt told her that she couldn’t refuse.
She was being silly! He’d driven her around the countryside dozens of times in the past, and often like this, just the two of them without a chaperone. This would be no different. What would never be allowed in London among the so-called quality was commonplace here in the country. After all, how much could she beg off for propriety’s sake when she was wearing men’s clothing, ready to join the field hands in herding sheep?
“I hold no grudge against you for what happened at your party,” he assured her, misreading her hesitation, “although I’d hoped to be the one you chose to marry.”
“I am sorry for that,” she said softly. And she was. Although she’d never cared for him, Sir Harold was a gentleman, and he didn’t deserve to be embarrassed.
“Then make it up to me by letting me drive you.” Another smile, just as strangely stilted as before. But now she understood the tension behind it. “We’re still neighbors and friends, are we not?”
Her shoulders eased down. “Yes. Of course.”
She slipped her hand into his, and he helped her up onto the curricle. She sat next to him on the bench. With a flick of his long whip, he sent the team forward.
When they reached the bend in the lane where it joined the main road, Sir Harold sent the team the wrong way—not toward the fields to the south but toward the north.
Turning in her seat, she glanced over her shoulder, to try to glimpse the men in the fields. But she could see nothing around the raised canopy behind them. Her heart began to pound as the same unease she’d felt when she first saw him bubbled up inside her.
“It seems we’ve gone astray,” she told him, forcing a lightheartedness into her voice that belied her rising uneasiness. “We’ll never find the sheep by heading in this direction.”
He kept his gaze straight ahead, but this time, he made no attempt to smile. “We’re not going to find the sheep.”
The short hairs on the back of her neck prickled in warning. “Where are we going then?”
“To Scotland.” He flipped the ribbons, and the horses jumped into a fast trot. A dark determination hardened his features. “Where we’ll be married, just as we should have been all along.”
Alarm flooded through her, and her hand gripped at the seat rail so tightly that her fingertips turned white. “I don’t find your teasing amusing, Sir Harold.” She forced out in panic, the jarring beat of her heart coming so hard that she winced, “Please stop and let me down this instant!”
“I’m not teasing.” He glanced sideways at her, with an expression of such raw hatred that she flinched. “And we’re not stopping until we reach Scotland and the blacksmith.”
Dear God, he was serious! Fear shot through her, and a bitter metallic taste formed on her tongue as her breath came in fast, frightened gasps that matched the terrified racing of her heart. Then she knew…
He was kidnapping her.
Her gaze darted to the hard and rocky ground speeding past, her mind spinning as fast as the curricle’s wheels. If she jumped, she could clear the wheels and run for help—
“You’ll break your neck,” he warned, reading her mind.
She pressed herself against the edge of the seat to put as much distance between them as possible. “Why?” she breathed out, panic burning inside her chest. “Why are you doing this?”
“Because you left me no choice,” he bit out. “Everything would have been fine if you’d simply married me, as you should have done all along.” His eyes narrowed on her, darkening until they were almost black. “But you’ve always been stubborn. Even with all the trouble I’ve caused for you at Glenarvon, you still refused my help when I offered.”
Terror flashed through her. “It was you,” she breathed out. “You were the one who destroyed the floodgate, let out the sheep…”
Worse. He’d set the fire in the hay barn that could have injured the workmen and that had nearly killed Quinn. She’d mocked Quinn’s intuition that Sir Harold had been involved. Oh God, she’d been so wrong about him!
“You forced me. Even then, you were too obstinate to realize that you needed to take me as your husband. You should have been honored to have a gentleman like me give you a second glance, let alone offer marriage.” A sneer pulled at his lips. “You, the worthless daughter of a convict and a maid, who should have been washing pots in my scullery. Who should have been begging me to marry you instead of forcing me to make overtures to you and that insipid Lady Ainsley.”
Confusion swirled with her panic. “If you hate me so much…why are you doing this?”
He snapped the whip over the horses’ backs to keep up their fast pace even as the wheels bumped and jumped over the rocks and dips in the old road. “Because of your announcement at the party that you wouldn’t marry.”
“No, you don’t understand! I don’t need to marry now.” She tugged at his arm, pleading desperately, “Please stop, and we’ll forget this ever happened. A misunderstanding is all, you wanting to help me—”
“Stupid gel!” His hand shot up and grabbed her by the neck. He yanked her toward him, his eyes flaring as he glared down at her with his fingers clenched around her throat. “I don’t give a damn about you. This is about saving Kinnybroch. The only way I can get my hands on enough money to pay the mortgage is to marry you and sell Glenarvon.”
“No,” she choked out, her body flashed numb with terror, even as she clawed at his arm to loosen his hold. “You’ll never have it!”
His eyes gleamed, and he tightened his fingers on her neck. “Once we marry, it becomes mine.”
“I’ll never marry you!” she ground out.
“You’ll have no choice. There’s a blacksmith just across the border who’ll do anything I ask, if I pay him enough. Including marrying you by force over the anvil and swearing you went willingly. And his wife will witness it.”
“Then I’ll—I’ll have it annulled!”
“You can’t. Not without your husband’s permission.” An icy smile spread across his face. “And I’ll never give it, unless you give me Glenarvon.”
A sickening helplessness overcame her, and she whispered in horror, “You’re mad.”
“Worse.” A muscle ticked in his tightened jaw. “I’m a gentleman in debt.”
With a hard shove, he released her throat and pushed her away, then flipped the ribbons and set the horses into a faster pace.
Annabelle cowered to the side of the seat and stared at him with revulsion and fear, her hands grasping the rail to hang on as the curricle bounced beneath her. In desperation, she looked down at the road again, now speeding by beneath the deadly wheels.
She took a deep breath to resolve herself and inched closer to the side of the carriage to jump—
“Annabelle!”
The deep voice boomed across the countryside, only seconds before the sound of racing hooves reached her.
“Quinton!” With relief pouring through her, she tried to rise up from the seat and wave for help over the large canopy. “Help me! Help—”
Sir Harold let fly a sharp curse and grabbed her by her hair. He yanked her down onto the seat.
Annabelle cried out in pain as she fought to keep hold on the seat, now bouncing wildly beneath her as he cracked the whip and the team jumped into a run. She could do nothing more than hang on for her life and trust in Quinton.
* * *
Quinn lowered himself over the back of his horse and urged the large gelding into a run after the curricle. His heart pounded as hard as the hooves thundering beneath him as his horse ate up the distance between him and the carriage.
When he pulled even with the carriage wheels, he saw Belle clinging in terror to the seat. Beside her, Bletchley ignored her cries to stop and whipped the team into a dangerous frenzy.
Something inside him snapped. A fury and fear unlike any he’d ever experienced before flared through him, and he focused every ounce of his being on saving Belle.
“Let her go!” he shouted at Bletchley.
In answer, the man gritted his teeth and yanked on the ribbons to send the curricle careening at Quinn, the tall wheel spinning dangerously toward his horse.
With a curse, Quinton reined in. The well-trained gelding darted out of the way just seconds before the wheel cut across their path.
Quinton dug his heels against his mount’s side, and the horse surged forward again. This time, before Bletchley could swerve toward him, he reached out to snatch the ribbons from Bletchley’s hands.
“Damn you!” Bletchley struck back with the whip, cracking it at Quinn’s horse, who jumped to the side just far enough to put Quinn in reach of the whip.
Bletchley smiled wickedly and snapped it again. The metal tip struck Quinn’s cheek and sliced through his skin, drawing blood from a painful gash. Belle screamed.
Growling and furious, and increasingly terrified for Belle, he ignored the sting of the whip as he rode in close. When Bletchley let fly another snap of the whip, Quinn grabbed at it, catching it and ripping it from Bletchley’s hands.
But Bletchley still had control of the ribbons and the team, and he pulled sharply, turning again toward Quinn’s horse. The gelding darted away from the spinning wheel, safely out of danger, but damnation! The weaving carriage kept him too far away to stop it.
“Annabelle!” he shouted, needing her help.
She looked up, and for one heartbeat, they locked gazes. In that instant he saw the terror leave her, replaced by a fierce determination.
Carefully keeping hold of the seat, she moved closer to Bletchley, whose attention was still set on running Quinn down beneath his wheels. With a cry, she drew her right hand into a fist and swung with all her might. The glancing blow caught the tip of Bletchley’s chin and flung his head back. Not enough to make him stop the team but enough to distract him while Quinn charged again toward the lead horse.
From the corner of his eye as he moved up even with the team, Quinn could see Annabelle slapping at Bletchley, kicking and clawing at every part of him she could reach.
His chest warmed with pride. The Bluebell was no shirking violet. Bletchley had made a terrible mistake by attempting to abscond with her. Thank God that he’d gone after her, that he’d ridden into view at the far end of the lane just in time to see her climb into the carriage and ride off, that he’d gotten close enough when the curricle had turned to the north to see Bletchley grab her by the throat.
When he caught them, he’d murder the bastard for that.
Quinn leaned far to the right, dangerously hanging off his saddle by only a single stirrup, and reached toward the lead horse’s head. He glanced back at the spinning wheel just behind him, the ground rushing past beneath them. If his horse stumbled and he fell, if his stirrup snapped—he was as good as dead.
Belle cried out, and white-hot anger and fear for her drove him on. He lunged for the rein near the bit, grabbed it, and held tight as he slowed the team.
Behind him, the wheel smacked a large rock jutting up from the road. The curricle jumped, both wheels coming off the ground. When it landed, it careened out of control to the right. The rein yanked from Quinn’s hand.
His horse darted away as the carriage tipped. The axel broke with a splintering crack, and the wheel snapped. He watched helplessly as the carriage bounced into the air before slamming into the hard-packed road. Annabelle flew from the seat and hit the ground with a dull, sickening thud that stopped his heart with a soul-shattering jolt. The team ran on, dragging the wrecked carriage behind it with Bletchley clinging to the dashboard. When it hit another hard bump, he was flung to the road, where he lay moaning, too hurt to scramble to his feet.
Quinn yanked his horse to a stop and jumped from its back. Terror pulsed through him at the sight of Belle lying still in the dirt. Dear God, no! He ran to her side and dropped to his knees, scooping her into his shaking arms.
“Annabelle!” He clutched her to him, all of him trembling and shuddering. Fear clasped an icy fist around his heart as he cupped her face in his hand. “Open your eyes, darling,” he ordered breathlessly. “Please, dear God…Open your eyes. Annabelle…”
Her name was a pleading rasp on his lips. But she didn’t open her eyes to look at him.
“Don’t leave me,” he whispered against her temple, his own eyes now squeezed shut against the pulsing pain. “Not now, now that I finally have you…Annabelle, please!”
Pained heat stung at his eyes, and he held his breath, desperately listening for any sound of her breathing, of her heart beating—anything to signal that she was still there with him. But she lay so terribly still in his arms, her body limp and lifeless against his as he cradled her against his chest.
Wetness burned at his lashes. Each beat of his heart was agony.
“I love you, Annabelle,” he rasped out and kissed her.
A soft inhalation tickled against his lips. Then her eyes opened and she stared at him, dazed and unfocused.
With a shudder, she gasped and gulped in a deep swallow of air as she tried to catch back the breath that the fall had ripped from her. Her hands clutched at his shoulders as she struggled to breathe, and her eyes never left his as she forced out hoarsely, “Quinn…”
He crushed her to him and buried his face in her hair, which had come loose and now fell in disheveled curls around her shoulders. Her clothes were dirty and ripped. An ugly scrape bloodied the side of her face and both of her palms where she’d tried to arrest her fall, and her right ankle lay at an unnatural angle. Each breath she took was labored and rough, filled with pain.
But she was alive.
Thank God.
Then she winced as she lifted a hand to touch his cheek and the streak of blood from the whip wound. Her brow furrowed with worry as she breathed out, “You’re…hurt…”
Relief poured through him, like a liquid heat that filled him to overflowing, and he gave a soft laugh. Only Annabelle could be worried about a scratch on him when she had nearly been killed herself.
“I’m fine,” he assured her, gently rocking her in his arms. “I have you. And I am never letting you go.”
“You said you loved me,” she whispered. “Did you…did you truly mean it?”
“Yes.” Sweet heavens, yes. He cupped her cheek against his palm. “I thought I couldn’t love you, that I could keep from being wounded if I kept myself from you. And my heart.” Closing his eyes, he touched his lips to her forehead. “But when I saw that bastard hurt you. And then when you fell…” He silently shook his head, unwilling to put into words the terror he’d felt at nearly losing her.
“It’s all right,” she assured him, so softly his ears barely registered the sound. But his heart heard every word. “I understand.”
“I was a damned fool. But now I’m not willing to miss a single moment with you, Annabelle.” He slid his hand down her arm until he clasped her hand, lacing his fingers through hers. “Can you forgive me?”
Not moving her eyes from his, she slowly raised his hand to her bosom and guided his fingers beneath the gaping front of the torn waistcoat and shirt. He felt the rope of pearls she wore beneath her clothes, just as his aunt wore her locket. In order to keep him close to her heart. “Always,” she whispered.
“Then marry me, Belle,” he urged, his voice trembling and all of him shaking. “Not because we made love or because I need you to let me care for you and protect you—although I do, more than I realized. But because I love you, and because I hope that you still love me.” He traced his fingers over the pearls and the warm skin beneath, feeling her heart beating strong beneath his fingertips. “I want every moment with you that I can have, for as long as this life gives us.”
“Then it must be love.” A tear slipped down her dusty cheek as she lightly teased, “You keep asking even though I keep refusing.”
He crooked a half grin. “I’m not the kind of man who lets a woman’s absolute refusal stop me from marrying her.”
A small bubble of laughter escaped her, then she winced at the pain. Guilt washed through him. “Belle, I’m so sorry that you—”
“Yes, Quinton,” she whispered.
His heart stuttered. “Yes?”
Her fingers tightened around his, as if she never wanted to let him go. A smile of joy lit her face. “I will let you marry me now.”
Grinning at her stubborn pride, shining in her even now, he felt his love for her warm inside him until it permeated every ounce of his being and soul. Aunt Agatha was right. There was no choice in love. Thank God.
He lowered his head to kiss her.