Page 23 of Submitting to the Widow

However, the real reason courage had replaced terror was the man beside her. When had he stopped being merely the sensual man who’d literally stepped out of her borrowed journal pages? She’d allowed her silly heart to open to him, and now he’d walk away when he’d completed whatever dark task Captain El had demanded of him in exchange for the chance to retrieve his precious, dangerous pages.

As soon as Trevellyn House hove into view, and James pulled up on the grays to slow them to a walk, she leaned forward sharply. Beside her, Stephen placed a light hand on her shoulder. “Have a care, Jane. You’ve been on bed-rest for several days. Please don’t over-do now.”

She pulled away from his reach. “Who are you to tell me what I should or should not do? That man threatened my life because of whatever you’re here to do in addition to the pursuit of those wretched journal pages.”

The look on his face was shuttered. “The answer to your dilemma is simple. If you give me the pages, I’ll leave and never bother you again.”

She buried her face in her hands. “But we haven’t finished the last adventure I have planned for you.”

Stephen threw up his hands. “How can you still cling to your insane notions of unbridled sensual passion when I nearly lost you after the last episode?”

She straightened and stared at him as if she’d never seen him before. “How can you lose something you do not own…or want?”

* * *

Stephen wasunable to break away from Jane’s intense gaze. She’d spoken a truth he’d forgotten in the days since he’d first met the devastatingly desirable Baroness Trevellyn. He now found himself in the middle of a tangle so convoluted, that for the first time in his legal career, he couldn’t reason his way out of a bad situation.

However, the stakes were so high in this particular situation that he couldn’t afford to lose the clarity that had made his barrister practice the most successful in London.

In an instant, he weighed his reputation and fortune against the sensuous creature curled up on the seat across from him. Her dark curls were pulled back into severe twist that even now in the midst of his angst he yearned to pull free so that they tumbled down over her shoulders. Her fearful eyes seemed unusually wide in her heart-shaped face, much like an urchin of a child anticipating a scolding.

He knew she’d spoken the truth. He had no right to claim her in any way. Their encounters should have been nothing more to him than a fair exchange for the accursed pages.

If only he’d known what a bull those pages would have made of his adult life… There was nothing left but for him to clean up after his idiocy all those years ago at Cambridge. He had to grow up and do the right thing. A fleeting thought glimmered of how his mother would have a good laugh at his expense if only she could see him now.

They hadn’t talked much over the years because of her need to complain constantly about his father’s absences. And then one day, Stephen the senior had returned from India with his other son in tow. It seemed he’d had a second family in India for years. And now he expected his long-suffering English wife to welcome the young man into her home so that the boy could enjoy the same education that Stephen the younger had gone through.

After years of complaining bitterly about his father’s absences, his mother inexplicably bonded with young Rudra. She’d taken him into not only her home but her heart and promptly re-named him Rudy as soon as the elder Stephen’s ship had cleared the harbor bound once again toward his duties with the East India Company. Rudy had recently been admitted to Lincoln’s Inn and probably would join Stephen’s firm once he was called to the bar.

12

APRIL 26, 1826

TREVELLYN HOUSE, COMBE DOWN

Jane’s heart lurched. A familiar horse was tied outside the side portico of Trevellyn House. She shrank back into the comfortable squabs of the carriage seat and tried to make herself as small as possible to avoid the ugly encounter she knew was about to come.

Outside the carriage, she heard one of the outriders prod their horse into a canter. That had to be Raj. There would be an argument, threats, and then a litany of criticism and ultimatums directed at Jane. Sanjay was the only man Raj could never subdue, but she always tried.

Jane couldn’t keep the look of fear from clouding her face. Stephen, facing her on the other seat and riding with his back toward the coachman, sensed immediately there was a problem and leaned toward the window.

Jane knew it was a mistake, but she swung her gaze to the front entry where Raj was shouting at Sanjay and brandishing her sword.

Stephen opened the door of the carriage and leapt out while the conveyance was still moving. Jane hid her face in her hands.

* * *

Stephen hadno idea who the warlike interloper barring the entrance to Trevellyn House might be, but if Raj was threatening the man, he could not be up to any good.

By the time he’d crept up behind the two of them, the strange man had stopped shouting in some sort of Hindi dialect at Raj and was trying to wrest her sword away from her whilst she continued to pummel him with the hilt about his head and shoulders. Stephen hadn’t waded into a decent mill since his college days and so without another thought, grabbed the man from behind and pulled him away from Raj.

The well built man whirled and Stephen knew immediately he was surely related to Raj and Jane. The family resemblance was striking. However, Stephen’s precipitous, combative move had probably ruled out civilized introductions. They seemed evenly matched in height and strength, so when the man’s fist connected with Stephen’s jaw, he realized he’d made a tactical error in underestimating the man’s anger. He’d apparently blundered into a fierce family feud.

Stephen picked himself up from the ground with alacrity and charged in toward the man’s belly with a head butt. A sudden, vicious kick stopped his forward momentum and took him down hard, rolling him over onto his backside.

This time when he regained his footing, he immediately clutched the other man in a bear grip around his midsection. The ensuing battle for domination took both of them to the edge of the duck pond at the front of Trevellyn House.

At that moment, Raj crept up behind them and slammed the hilt of her sword against the man’s back. Since both of them had tight, unyielding grips on each other, they both crashed into the pond.