Page 58 of Snowbound Surrender

“No!” Arabella reached for the carriage door, but Lady Quamby caught her arm, saying firmly, “He’s right! You must be safe. James is here. He and the Colonel will help Nicholas.”

The carriage lurched into motion as Arabella pressed her face to the window, watching in horror as the three men struggled in the snow. James had dismounted and was rushing to Nicholas’s aid, while Colonel Shankshaft emerged from the house at a run.

“Your beloved will prevail,” Lady Fenton said soothingly, settling beside Arabella and taking her trembling hands. “Nicholas is strong, and he has help now. But you needed to be away from that monster.”

“I should have stayed,” Arabella whispered, her eyes never leaving the increasingly distant figures. “I should have?—”

“You did exactly what you should have,” Lady Quamby interrupted. “You’ve spent five years sacrificing yourself for others. Tonight, you let others sacrifice for you.”

As the carriage rounded a bend and Lushington Hall disappeared from view, Arabella finally allowed herself to collapse against the seat cushions. The full weight of what had transpired was beginning to settle over her—the terror, the deception, the revelation that Nicholas had risked everything to save her.

“He came back,” she whispered, the words barely audible above the sound of wheels on gravel. “Even believing I had betrayed him, he came back for me.”

“Of course he did,” Lady Fenton said gently. “Anyone with eyes could see how much that man loves you. Even when he was playing his part earlier today.”

“I heard him say such cruel things?—”

“Because he had to,” Lady Quamby said. “Because it was the only way to get close enough to save you. Do you think those words came easily to him? I saw his face when we left you this afternoon. He looked like a man being torn apart.”

Arabella closed her eyes, remembering the agony in her chest when she had overheard Nicholas’s supposed desire for revenge. If it had been that painful for her to hear, how much worse had it been for him to speak such lies?

“Your brother was quite beside himself when we explained everything,” Lady Fenton continued conversationally, clearly trying to distract Arabella from her fears about the men they had left behind. “He kept saying he never knew, never realized what you had done for him.”

“He was just a boy,” Arabella said softly. “Frightened and desperate. I couldn’t let him hang for a mistake.”

“And now he understands the true cost of your sacrifice,” Antoinette said. “He was determined to prove himself worthy of such devotion. That’s why he insisted on staying to help. He said it was his turn to protect you.”

Through the carriage window, Arabella could see they were approaching the main road. In several hours, they would be at Quamby House, warm and safe. But her heart remained back at Lushington Hall with Nicholas, fighting in the snow for her freedom.

“He will be all right, won’t he?” she asked, hating the tremor in her voice.

“Nicholas Morley is one of the ablest men I know,” Colonel Shankshaft had said before they departed. “And your brother may look mild, but he has the heart of a lion when it comesto protecting those he loves. Between the two of them, they’ll manage one villain easily enough.”

Arabella nodded, trying to find comfort in those words. But as the carriage carried her away from the man she loved and toward an uncertain future, she could only pray that when this night was over, they would all be alive to see the dawn.

Outside, the snow continued to fall, blanketing the world in pristine white as if nature itself was preparing a clean slate for whatever was to come.

CHAPTER 20

The drawing roomat Quamby House buzzed with anxious energy as they waited for word from Lushington Hall. Fenton had been pacing by the windows, starting at every sound, while Arabella sat rigidly on the settee, her hands clasped so tightly her knuckles were white.

“Perhaps I should ride back—” Fenton began for the third time.

“Absolutely not,” Fanny said firmly. “You’ll only complicate matters. Nicholas and James can handle one villain between them.”

“But we don’t know what other men Algernon might have had waiting,” Arabella said, her voice strained with worry. “What if there were accomplices? What if?—”

“My dear Lady Lushington,” Lady Quamby interrupted gently, settling beside her, “you must have faith. Your brother was quite determined to prove himself, and Nicholas... well, Nicholas would move heaven and earth to keep you safe.”

Fenton looked up from his pacing. “I’m still trying to understand the full scope of this business. Antoinette’s explanation was, I must say, rather... dramatic.”

“Because the truth is dramatic,” his wife said. “Arabella sacrificed her entire future to save her brother’s life, and that monster used her nobility against her.”

“But surely there could have been another way—” Fenton began.

“What other way?” Arabella’s voice was sharp with remembered pain. “James was facing a court martial for embezzlement. The evidence was overwhelming, even though it transpired he was guilty of taking only a small amount of what was a much greater sum. When he came to me just before my wedding, terrified and desperate, what was I to do? Let him hang?”

“You lied under oath?” Fenton asked quietly.