he had gone.
Thank the bloody Lord. Odd how life had a way of working in circles. Demented circles. For here he sat, alone in his study, going about the business of getting thoroughly soused. He tossed back the rest of his brandy, wishing it could obliterate everything with its heady burn. How long ago had it been that he’d sat in this very chair on a similar night, and Clara had upended his world?
A lifetime, it seemed.
But the lifetime had come and gone now, taking with it every trace of brightness, every bit of joy she’d brought him. He would never find another like her. The Lord wouldn’t dare make a copy, nor would Julian settle for one. He loved her so much he ached with it, need of her an agony so searing he didn’t think he’d ever recover. Forcing her away from him had nearly been his undoing.
As had revealing all the ugly truths about himself. For try as he might to forget about the sins of his past, he couldn’t erase the indelible marks they’d left upon him. The evidence of it was everywhere, in the whisky and glass-soaked floor he’d refused to allow the servants to clean, in the incessant thumping of his head, in the pain tearing through him, and most damning of all, in the plum finger marks bruising Clara’s delicate throat.
His self-hatred was raging like a hurricane, threatening to blow him apart. Perhaps he ought to make it easy for the bastard who wanted him dead and drink himself to death. The idea had merits.
Nothing mattered now that Clara was back at her father’s house and safe. Whitney had sent word that they’d stationed guards everywhere in an effort to protect Clara and his sisters. That and the fact that they were removed from Julian’s ambit ought to prove enough to keep them safe. The best news of all: Whitney had managed to secure passage for Clara back to her homeland as well.
Knowing he would never see her again felt akin to a knife stuck in his chest. Whenever he thought about it—which was every other breath—raw, unadulterated anguish paralyzed him. Understanding it was for the best didn’t mitigate the pain. But he loved her too much to try to keep her. Even if the bastard who wanted him dead was caught, Clara deserved far better than a jaded rake who’d diddled half the ladies of the ton to keep the roof over his head. She deserved the best, and nothing but happiness, a man worthy of basking in her brilliance.
Julian was not that man. Nor would he ever be.
He took another gulp of brandy. Damn it, if only he hadn’t thrown his entire decanter of whisky against the wall. He was nearly out of brandy and he had yet to find the stupor he sought.
A discreet knock sounded at the door, disrupting his black thoughts. Couldn’t his butler ever do as he was bloody well told and leave a man the hell alone? He’d been explicit that he didn’t want to be disturbed. No matter how much crashing or breaking glass might be heard from within. By God, if he wanted to tear the entire study from floors to rafters and leave it nothing but a pile of rubble, he would.
He would, if that’s what it took to expunge Clara from his blood.
“Damn it, Osgood,” he roared, “I told you not to interrupt me. Not even for the devil himself.”
“Forgive me, sir, but a very urgent note has arrived from the Whitney residence,” Osgood intoned from the other side of the door. “I thought perhaps you may excuse the interruption in such an event.”
His blood went cold. An urgent note from the Whitney residence. What the bloody hell could it mean? He shot to his feet and stalked across the chamber, trouncing through broken glass, books, and papers without a care. He wrenched open the door himself to find his butler wearing a strained expression, a silver salver bearing a single missive in his hands.
Julian snatched it up and tore it open, desperate for news, praying for the first time in his life. Please God. Don’t let anything have happened to her. Take me instead. But why would the heavens want to listen to a man whose sins far outnumbered his years?
He scanned the contents of the note, dread sinking into his gut with the heaviness of a boulder. “Bloody, bloody hell.”
The message was penned in Jesse Whitney’s bold scrawl. And the words were the very last in the world that he wanted to see.
Clara had disappeared. So too had a footman instructed to guard an exterior door. But there was more. A single gunshot had been heard just outside the home. A frantic search of her chamber had turned up nothing.
Jesus. Everything in him withered.
No. He refused to believe something had happened to her. Anything but that. His sweet, lovely, bold Virginian lass could not be gone. Taken from the world when he’d done everything in his power to see her safe.
No, goddamn it.
He must have said the words aloud without realizing it, for they echoed now in the eerie silence of the hall like a war cry. It was the same hall where he’d pinned her to the wall and kissed her senseless on the day of their wedding. He thought of her soft, full lips beneath his, how innocent and sweet she’d tasted. How badly he’d wanted her. She could not be gone. Not his Clara. Not his little dove.
“My lord?” Osgood was a steadfast presence at his side, predicting action would be required.
“Have a horse brought round at once, Osgood.” He hadn’t time for the encumbrance of a carriage. But he would find her. By God, he’d ride all over London, tear the city apart with his bare hands if he must. Whatever he needed to do, he’d do it. And gladly, if only it meant that he could make her safe. If only it meant she hadn’t been shot or worse. He stared at his butler, feeling as if the entire world had gone horribly off-kilter. “Lady Ravenscroft has…gone missing.”
Saying it aloud hit him as surely as a blow to the chest. The air rushed from his lungs. For a moment, he couldn’t breathe. Saying the words aloud made them real, and brought with them all their crushing depths of primeval fear.
“Yes, my lord. May God be with her.” Osgood hastened away from him.
“Amen,” Julian whispered to his butler’s departing back. By Christ, she’d even won old Osgood’s wizened heart.
Stealing away from her father’s house now that it was under rigid guard was simultaneously easier and riskier than Clara had supposed. Easier than she’d supposed for she’d managed to succeed when she’d feared she had not a hope of escaping unnoticed. Riskier because taking a hostage had been, as it turned out, necessary.
It hadn’t taken long for her to realize what she needed to do after her arrival back at her father’s home. Lady Josephine and Lady Alexandra had run off to settle in to their temporary lodgings with a grim acceptance as she faced an unwanted interview with her family. She’d endured her father’s smothering comfort and Lady Bella’s equally smothering attempts to console her—all out of a place of love, she knew, but nevertheless difficult for her to accept.
Clara’s eyes had been swollen from crying, her head ached, her throat throbbed, and her heart hurt. There was nothing in the world she wanted to do less at that moment than speak with anyone. Her husband had just rejected her. Sent her away from him. Told her he was incapable of love.
“Lord Ravenscroft was right to bring you and his sisters here,” her father had said on a frown as he patted her arm. “You’re safe with us, my darling girl. Lord only knows what manner of fiend he’s brought down upon himself after so many years of debauchery. You cannot think to put yourself in harm’s way because of his past sins.”
Her father’s words had done nothing to stem the flow of misery careening through her like a flooded river. “He is my husband,” she’d argued. “It’s my duty to stand at his side.”
“Just as it’s his duty to protect you, dear heart,” Bella had intervened then, unable to refrain from gazing upon Clara as she might a motherless kitten she’d found on the street. Perhaps it was her delicate condition that caused her every emotion to be written across her beautiful face. Whatever the case, Clara found herself feeling most unappreciative of her stepmother’s sweet kindness. She didn’t want to be told that Julian was right to send her away. She wanted to rail against his decision, his self-loathing, his fears. She wanted someone to tell her to run straight back to his arms and put up a damn fight like a true Virginian.
But no one had, and all at once, understanding had dawned on her.
She loved her father. She loved Lady Bella. But everything in her told her that this was not where she belonged. She belonged with Julian. And if he was in danger, then she would face the danger with him. She would not, by all that was holy, cut stick and run, abandoning him to his fate.
No she would not. Virginia girls were made of sterner stuff.
The sternest stuff.
Naturally, her father had other ideas. He’d proved his usual obdurate self and had refused to allow her to leave, citing the recent attack on her as ample proof that being beneath Julian’s roof was dangerous. He’d even booked her passage to Virginia. But the victory she’d once fought for—the return to her homeland—was hollow now.
She knew where she was meant to be. She had one home, and it wasn’t a place.
As the hired hack she’d caught swayed through Belgravia, she kept her pistol trained on the brawny young footman she’d taken hostage. She rather pitied him, but her back had been pressed to the proverbial corner.
“You shot at me, my lady,” he said dumbly for what had to have been at least the third time since she’d made good her escape.
“I shot into the ground,” she corrected him gently. “And I’m sorry for it, but it was necessary. You weren’t listening to reason.”
She’d managed to convince the footman guarding her chamber door to allow her a visit to the library for a book. Once inside the library, she’d turned off the electric lights and made a run for it, knowing the layout of the house quite well. But upon reaching the side door she’d chosen for her exit, the footman guarding it had attempted to waylay her. When he’d begun shouting as she hailed a hack, she’d feared he would bring the entire household down upon them.
Clara had no wish to be discovered and forced back inside where she could spend the next several sleepless hours ruminating over why her husband had sent her away. And why she’d let him. No, sir. She had every intention of accomplishing what she’d set out to do. And so she’d raised the pistol hidden in the pocket of her skirts and shot.
Unfortunately, her action had not produced the desired effect, for the alarms had been raised in her father’s house. She’d decided at the last moment that perhaps bringing the lad along for her protection wouldn’t be a bad idea. And so, just as the front door had been thrown open, she’d disappeared into the hack with the footman, guiding him with the best incentive mankind had ever produced: the barrel of a firearm.
“Begging your pardon, but I think you’re mad, my lady.”
She frowned at him. “You aren’t precisely in a position to be tossing about insults, young man.”
But the footman was either too shocked or too simple to know when he ought to hold his tongue. “I’m sorry, my lady, I am. But why would you want to leave a house where you’re being kept safe to run out into the night? Only a madwoman would do such a foolish thing. Why, you’re merely asking for mischief, as my ma would say.”
Clara sighed. “Silence, if you please.”
The lad was likely not far from the truth. Fleeing her father’s home was, in hindsight, not the cleverest notion she’d ever entertained. But never let it be said that Clara Ravenscroft was afraid of taking a chance. And never let it be said that she wouldn’t do anything for the man she loved.
Even if it meant humbling herself before him. Even if it meant abducting a poor footman at gunpoint and galloping through town back to her husband. Even if it meant taking a stand against whoever or whatever evil threatened them.
For in the hours since she’d allowed herself to be evicted from her home and Julian’s life both, she’d discovered that she was stronger than she’d ever imagined. She was strong enough to face anything, to beat anything, to take a risk and feel the wind in her face. She was strong enough, which meant she would fight. She’d fight for Julian, fight for herself, fight for the life they were meant to live together.
The hack slowed as they reached the familiar neighborhood of Ravenscroft’s townhome. In the darkness with only the glow of the street lamps, it looked more imposing than it truthfully was. Her heart hammered in her breast. Home, she thought.
“We’re here,” she informed the hapless footman, waving her pistol at him. “You alight first. I’ve no desire to cause you harm, but if you attempt to stop me, consider this fair warning. I can shoot an apple off a man’s head from fifty paces.”
It wasn’t the first time she’d used that threat. Very likely, it wouldn’t be the last. The footman blanched and did her bidding, preceding her out of the conveyance. She paid the hack driver, a grinning fellow with more black space in his mouth than teeth. If the sight of a lady brandishing a weapon and forcing a servant inside his conveyance had alarmed him, he still didn’t show it. The coin she’d given him prior to their departure had certainly helped to ease any concerns he may have had.
She hurried to the front door. It was answered in two swift knocks. Osgood appeared, his ordinarily imperturbable countenance brightening into an expression of genuine relief. “My lady! You’re home.”
“Of course I am. Please see to it that this young man has a nice meal and a warm bath.” She gestured to the footman with her pistol, which she perhaps ought to have hidden, given the startled look that raced across the butler’s face. Belatedly recalling the trappings of civility, she tucked the small weapon back into the pocket in her skirts. “I’m afraid I’ve given him quite a fright this evening. Where is his lordship?”
The redoubtable butler frowned. “He isn’t with you, my lady? He left a short time ago. He’d had word from the Whitney residence that you’d disappeared. His lordship was extremely concerned, as you might imagine.”
“Oh dear.” Perhaps her escape plan hadn’t gone as well as she’d imagined after all. Firing the pistol had, in retrospect, been a grievous error. “Have you any idea where he was headed?”
“I’m afraid not, my lady,” Osgood said gently, apparently recovered from the sight of her waving a pistol about like a common street criminal. Much to his credit. “He didn’t advise as to his plans as he was in quite a rush.”
Well, this was certainly an unexpected predicament of her own foolish making. She could either go back into the night in search of Julian or await his return. She hadn’t intended to cause such a frenzy with her departure. It seemed she’d never cease landing herself in scrapes.
Rather than continue to chase her husband all over town, the best course of action would be to stay in one place, she reasoned. If he’d rushed out at word of her disappearance, then his destination was likely her father’s home. “Osgood, would you please have a note sent to the Whitney residence to let them know I’ve arrived here safely and that I’ll await Lord Ravenscroft’s return?”
“Of course, my lady,” reassured the competent butler. “And may I say that I’m heartily relieved your ladyship has returned to us?”
She smiled, touched by the thawing in his ordinarily frigid hauteur. “Thank you, Osgood. I’m equally relieved to be back.”
Now if only her husband’s welcome would be as warm. She made her way to his study, intending to wait for him in its comfortable confines. But she wasn’t prepared for the disaster that greeted her upon her entrance. Books had been flung, their spines cracked. Glass shards littered the worn carpet. The entire room smelled heavily of spirits. Several dark stains marred the faded wallpaper. Chairs were overturned.
Good Lord, it looked as though a regiment of marauding soldiers had ransacked the chamber.
“Oh Julian,” she whispered as she took in the evidence of how much it had devastated him to send her away. The door closed softly at her back and for the briefest flash, the sensation that she wasn’t alone overcame her.
Before she could react, a voice sounded behind her.
“Lady Ravenscroft, we meet again.”
Clara’s entire body froze, her skin going instantly clammy, her breath hitched and shallow, her mouth dry as sand. Fear curled around her chest in a crushing grip. The last time she’d heard that voice, there had been a pair of large hands wrapped around her neck.
By the time Julian returned to his home and was instructed by a relieved Osgood that Clara awaited him in his study, he felt as if he’d been to the bloody gates of hell. First, a paralyzing dread had snared him in its unforgiving maws as he’d raced to Whitney’s house, desperate for news, any clue as to what had happened or how he could possibly find Clara. He’d been conferring with an extremely tense Jesse Whitney when word had arrived that the wayward minx was alive, thank God, and safe, waiting for him at home. Relief had come next, swift and searing. Following closely in its wake had been an almost unholy rage as the remainder of the succinct message had been read aloud.
Lady Ravenscroft escaped of her own volition.
No one had abducted her. She hadn’t been shot. Hadn’t been killed. However, she had put her life in jeopardy. He’d done everything in his power to send her from him, had stripped his soul bare to secure her safety, and instead of seeing reason, she’d defied him and her father both. Not to mention that it appeared she’d somehow taken a servant along with her, after firing a shot at the poor fellow.
Julian had found himself torn equally between anger and reluctant admiration for the entirety of his ride back. One moment, his blood thundered through his veins, his temples throbbing with suppressed anger, that she would be so bloody foolish. That she would not stay where no one could harm her and seize her reprieve from marriage to him with both hands.
The next moment, he couldn’t help but appreciate her audacity and determination. Some lack-witted part of him, the part that loved his maddening wife to distraction, felt buoyed by hope that her actions carried a far greater significance than her mere willfulness. That she loved him, enough to foolishly risk all to stay with him.
Buffeted by his turbulent emotions as a ship in a storm-tossed sea, he crossed the threshold of his study, expecting to find his wife awaiting him, tucked into a wing chair. Or perhaps even standing, color staining her high cheekbones in her dudgeon. What he did not expect, as the door closed almost soundlessly at his back, was to see Clara, beautiful and stricken, her face wet with tears, trapped in his brother’s arms. The barrel of a gun was pressed to her golden curls.
“Jesus, Edward.” His eyes were only for Clara at first, drinking in the sight of her. She didn’t appear to be harmed, thank God. His gaze went to his brother, a sickening sense of realization hitting him straight in the gut. He’d thought with such certainty that an enemy from his past—some cuckolded husband or jilted lover—had attacked him and Clara both.
But it had been a different sort of enemy from the past altogether. His very own flesh and blood. Betrayal tore through him like a gunshot, swift and ravaging in its aim. Edward had tried to kill him. Edward had attempted to strangle Clara. How the hell could it be?
His shocked brain attempted to make sense of the scene before him. He wanted to believe that the man holding Clara against her will was a stranger. But his eyes didn’t lie. Edward had inherited their father’s short, bullish build and plain features. Ten years had worked some change upon him—his body was stockier, his dark hairline receding as the former earl’s had, grooves marking his forehead—but the man facing him now with murderous intent etched into the hard lines of his face was none other than his brother.
“Edward,” he said again, his thoughts whirling with how the hell he could get Clara to safety. Perhaps he could overpower him, disarm him, at least tear her from Edward’s grip. He stalked forward. “Is it you?”
“Don’t take another step or she dies.” Edward’s tone was flat and emotionless. Menacing.
Some instinct deep within Julian cried out, forced him to continue. Another step. Two. Mine, he thought grimly. I protect what’s mine. And no one else in the world belonged to him the way Clara did. The way he belonged to her. She was his wife. His love. He’d do anything to save her and protect her. Even if it meant offering his own life. Especially if it meant that, for a life without Clara in it was one he didn’t want to live.
But Edward didn’t react well to his challenge. The arm he had locked around Clara’s neck tightened and she cried out in pain. “Stay where you are, goddamn it.”
Julian stopped, willing his mind to remain calm, to find some way out of this. “Let her go, brother. Your quarrel is with me.”
“Damn right my quarrel is with you.” Edward’s face curled into a sneer that was so reminiscent of their father that for a moment Julian’s body recoiled at the remembrance of the earl’s fists connecting with his flesh. It was almost like staring at their father’s ghost. An even more vicious, deranged ghost.
Julian raised his hands in a slow, placating gesture. “Tell me what you want from me. I’ll do anything you ask as long as you release my wife. She is an innocent in all this.”
“Your wife, innocent?” Edward laughed. “Best bloody joke I’ve heard in some time, brother. From what I hear, you’ve spent the last fifteen-odd years fucking your way through the ton. Any bride of yours would be tainted the instant you touched her. She’s likely already carrying your heir. And that makes her dispensable indeed, for I have no wish for competition.”
The air seemed to leave the chamber. Or Julian’s lungs. He couldn’t be sure. All he could be sure of was that his brother meant to kill him and claim the earldom for himself. More than likely, he intended to kill Clara as well.
Julian wasn’t about to allow Edward to carry out whatever evil plan he’d hatched. No one would harm so much as a hair on Clara’s head ever again. Not even over his dead fucking body.
“She’s not carrying my heir,” he denied, hoping to deflect some of his brother’s attention away from Clara, perhaps even to release her. “I haven’t touched the chit.”
Edward’s gaze narrowed to reptilian slits. “You expect me to believe you didn’t bed her? A young, innocent beauty like this?” He relaxed his hold on Clara’s throat to cup one of her full breasts in his hand. “Don’t tell me you could resist such pretty tits.”
A guttural sound tore from him and he lunged forward, blinded by rage and the need to defend Clara from being manhandled. Edward sprang backward, dragging Clara with him as though she were nothing more than a helpless heap of skirts.
“Not another step closer, damn you,” Edward warned, once again tightening his hold on Clara’s neck. “Or I’ll choke the life from her. I almost managed last night. This time I won’t fail. The choice is yours.”
“Julian,” Clara spoke for the first time. Her tone was hesitant, starved for breath. A plea. “He’s mad. He means to kill you.”
“Shut up,” snarled Edward, tightening his hold until Clara made a choking sound.
Julian just barely restrained himself from launching himself at his brother. The only thing that kept him planted to the spot was the gun Edward kept trained to Clara’s head. “Let her go. She has nothing to do with what’s between us. She’s leaving for Virginia in two days. Her passage is already secured. Release her and you’ll never hear from her again. Your quarrel is with me.”
“Quarrel.” Edward spat the word as though it left a bad taste in his mouth. “This is not a quarrel, goddamn you. This is about righting a grievous wrong. Now you’ve landed yourself a fat dowry and I mean to collect what’s owed me. I’m the rightful Earl of Ravenscroft, and I’ve wasted too many years waiting for you to drink yourself to death.”
He flinched. Perhaps a bit too close to the truth, that last statement. But Edward had been so mired in his bitterness that he’d failed to notice Julian advancing another half step nearer. If he could distract his brother with idle talk, inch close enough, there was a chance he could knock the gun from Edward’s hand.
His gaze met Clara’s for just a moment, long enough to spy the fear in the glittering depths of her eyes. Jesus, how he wished he could promise her he’d spring her from this hell safely. He wanted to allay her every fear, to kiss the beloved rosebud of her lips, the soft curve of her cheek, that wayward eyebrow. But he had to focus on the task at hand. A deadly one.
He wrenched his gaze back to Edward. “You’re the rightful heir?” he demanded, his tone mocking. “Pray tell me, brother, how can that be when I am indisputably the first born?”
Edward’s jaw tensed. “Our mother was a bloody whore. Little wonder you turned out in her mold. She came into the marriage to Father unchaste, a bastard in her belly. She never would tell him whose by-blow he’d accepted as his heir.”
“You lie,” Julian growled, creeping closer.
“I speak truth. Father confessed everything to me on his deathbed.” Edward smiled, resembling the previous earl more than ever. “Our mother pretended to be an innocent, tricked Father into marriage. Then you were born far too early, a weak and pathetic babe by all accounts. Father knew at once you could not have been of his blood. He wanted to smother you but our mother begged to keep you safe and he was merciful. When I was born a year later, he never forgave himself for giving in. He wished to his dying day that he could have ended you, removed your false claim upon the Ravenscroft line. At long last, I’ve decided to be the one who does.”
The story sounded like the sort of rot the old earl would spew. Then again, it could explain a great deal. He and Edward had never shared a resemblance. The earl had relished in beating and scorning him while he’d only ever heaped praise and adulation upon Edward. Their mother had undeniably taken lovers—Josephine and Alexandra were proof of that.
In truth, none of it mattered any longer, for their parents were long gone, and he couldn’t afford to be distracted. His entire being needed to be focused on freeing Clara, even if it meant getting himself killed in the process. He didn’t give a damn what happened to him, as long as she lived.
He’d inched closer yet again during Edward’s ramblings but stood still now as his deranged sibling’s eyes scoured him, looking for even a hint of forward motion. “If your aim is sending me across the River Styx, let Clara go. She’s done you no harm.”
Edward cocked his head, considering him in a shrewd manner that belied his lunacy. “I’ll strike a bargain with you, brother. As long as you swear she’s not carrying your get, I’ll let her go free.”
Julian swallowed. He would say anything to save her. Lie or truth, it didn’t matter. “She’s not. I swear it.”
“This won’t end well for you,” Edward warned grimly, almost as if he had a conscience. “I’m afraid you must die so that I can become earl as I ought to have been from the first. It’s the only way. I waited on the Continent for so long, you know. Waited and did the honorable thing, hoping you’d drink or whore yourself to death. But then word reached me that you were courting an heiress, and I couldn’t allow an heir to supplant me and take the earldom that’s been mine all along, now could I? Her fortune is, of course, a boon.”
Julian’s blood went cold to hear his brother’s casual confession. Jesus, he made it sound as if his greedy bloodletting was a natural step in the process of regaining what he felt was rightfully his.
“Of course you couldn’t,” he said easily, not daring to step closer with Edward’s attention pinned on him. “But neither could you realize that she and I reached a bargain. We have a marriage in name only, in return for my portion of her dowry, while she goes home to Virginia. She’s not a threat to the earldom, Edward. She’s not carrying my child.”
Edward appeared to be relenting. “I’ll strike a bargain with you. There’s a vial of poison in my pocket. Drink it, and I’ll let her go.”
“No,” Clara cried out. “Don’t do it, Julian. He’ll only kill us both.”
“Silence,” Edward ordered, tightening his arm on her throat.
Clara’s hands scrambled to Edward’s coat, clutching at it as he choked her.
Nausea hit Julian straight in the gut. Damn it, Edward was going to kill Clara unless he acted. Unless he agreed to drink the poison. From there, with Clara freed from the pistol pressed to her head, perhaps he could finally make a move.
“I’ll do it,” he said definitively. “Let her go, Edward, and I’ll drink the bloody poison.”
Clara cried out, tears dashing down her cheeks. “No, Julian.”
“Hush,” he told her with a calm he little felt. “All will be well. This is what must be done.” With his eyes, he tried his best to tell her how much he worshipped her, to communicate to her the endless depths of his love. He looked to Edward then. “Let her free.”
Edward released her, shoving her away from him and in the opposite direction of Julian. Clara stumbled, gasping for her breath before catching her skirts in her hands and righting herself.
“Go sit in the chair,” Edward ordered Clara, waiting as she haltingly made her way to the chair behind Julian’s desk before turning his attention to Julian, the pistol trained upon him now. He reached inside his jacket and extracted a small vial. “You’ll drink this now or I’ll kill her and then I’ll kill you.”
Julian stared at the vial of poison, his mind spinning. He could knock it from Edward’s hand, jump on him, grapple for the gun. But would that put Clara at risk? Think, he told himself frantically. Think, goddamn it. He could stall him, delay him, distract him. Those were his best options. And when he saw his opportunity, he would act.
“How do you imagine this will play out, Edward? I die and then what? You don’t think the authorities will find this suspect?”
“You don’t think I’ve thought this out?” Edward taunted. “Of course I have. It’s a shame you suffered an apoplectic fit like our father. I’ll be grieving, of course. Not many questions will be asked. And if they are, isn’t it commonly known that poison is a woman’s weapon? Perhaps one of your lovers finally sent you to hell. Perhaps even your own wife.”
Julian’s fists clenched at his side as he struggled to remain calm. The plan didn’t sound nearly as deranged as it ought. But what chilled him the most was not his brother’s betrayal or even his greed. It was that he intended to frame Clara for Julian’s murder.
“You’re a sick bastard,” he said, staring at the stranger who shared his blood. Half his blood if he were to be believed, but blood nonetheless.
“Drink the poison or I’ll make you watch her die,” Edward snarled, holding the vial out to him.
Julian prepared himself to strike, knowing he would need to act fast, to take Edward by surprise and overpower him or all would be lost for he and Clara both. He reached out as if to accept the vial.
And just that quickly, a gunshot exploded into the silence. Almost simultaneously, a bullet found its home in Edward’s skull. Blood spattered across Julian’s waistcoat, the wall, the carpet. Edward fell, a wound on his forehead blossoming scarlet. His eyes stared sightlessly into the ceiling. The gun and poison fell from his limp fingers.
It was over. Edward was dead.
“Julian, are you injured?” Clara’s shaky voice cut through the haze of shock clouding his mind.
He turned to find her standing, her face a pale mask, a pistol in her hand. Jesus, she’d shot Edward and saved them both. He’d never have imagined she’d have it in her. Everything he should have said to her before clamored to his tongue. But instead of any of them, all he could manage was a numb reply.
“Clara, you shot him.”
Her beautiful mouth tugged up into a half-smile. “I told you I could shoot an apple off a man’s head at fifty paces.”
“My little Virginian warrior princess.” His throat was thick, his mind and body and heart bombarded with all that had unfolded this night. But one thing he knew for certain. He loved her with everything in him. She was fierce and brave and better than he deserved. “My love. Come here.”
He didn’t need to say it twice.
She flew into his arms, and he held her to him as if he could forever keep her there. If he clasped her with more force than necessary, it couldn’t be helped. Never in his life had he been more relieved. The full, blinding force of emotion exploding inside him was overwhelming. Thank Christ she was safe. Trembling in his embrace, but safe.
He buried his face in her fragrant hair, breathing deeply of her scent, and blurted the words he should have said long ago, the words that it seemed had begun simmering within him the very first night he’d laid eyes on her in his study. “I love you, Clara. I love you so damn much I ache with it. More than I ever imagined possible. When I almost lost you, it was more than I could bear. I would do anything for you. For you, I would have gladly swallowed the goddamn poison.” His hoarse voice broke on the last confession but he didn’t feel a bit of shame.
Her face was pressed to his neck, her arms around him in a grip that rivaled his own in its vehemence. She tipped back her head to look up at him, tears and unrestrained love shining in her eyes. He’d never seen a more beautiful sight. “And I love you, Julian. I love you so much that I couldn’t stay away, regardless of the danger. I never want to be anywhere but with you ever again. You’re my home.”
Perhaps he shouldn’t have revealed his feelings. He still had no right to keep her from pursuing what she truly wanted, from returning to Virginia. He still wanted only the best for her. He was still an imperfect man with a past marred by too many sins to count. But something about the way she gazed at him now made him believe he could be a better man. That he had changed, and that she alone was responsible for it.
He swept a stray tendril of hair from her soft cheek, caressing her with his thumb. “I thought Virginia was your home.”
She shook her head. “Not any longer. Anywhere in the world is home to me as long as I’m by your side.”
He took her lips with his, the kiss fierce and deep as he dared for a moment to imagine a future for them. It was a kiss that would have gone on much longer if the servants, alarmed after hearing the fatal gunshot, hadn’t chosen that moment to storm into his study. With reluctance, he tore his mouth away, for there was much to be dealt with yet this night and many grim hours looming ahead.