Page 47

“ S top right there!”

The shout came from behind a tree as Rowan dismounted. Two men stepped into view with pistols raised.

“Turn around and leave,” the larger one growled. “This is private property.”

Rowan’s hands crept to his sides. Years aboard the Intrepid had taught him to read dangerous men. These were hired muscle, and nothing more.

“I’m here for my wife.”

“Don’t know nothing about no wife.” The second man shifted, finger tightening on his trigger. “Walk away now.”

A muzzle flash split the darkness. The shot went wide.

Rowan dove left, rolling behind his horse as the animal reared in panic. The second shot splintered bark inches from his head.

“He’s behind the horse!”

“Get around the other side!”

They separated, trying to flank him. Rowan waited until the first man rounded the horse’s hindquarters, then exploded upward. His fist connected with the man’s jaw, sending him staggering backward.

The pistol flew from nervous fingers. Rowan caught it, spun, and fired at the second attacker. The ball took the man in the shoulder, spinning him to the ground.

The first thug rushed him. Rowan ducked the wild swing, drove his elbow into the man’s ribs, then brought his knee up into the doubled-over face. Blood spurted. The man dropped like a stone.

The wounded one was trying to crawl away. Rowan kicked him in the head. He went limp.

Both men were unconscious. Good.

Rowan checked the cottage. One window glowed with lamplight. Movement inside.

He approached the door. Locked.

He stepped back and kicked. Wood splintered. The door burst inward.

“Stay back!” Annette’s voice was high with panic. “I’ll kill her!”

Rowan froze in the doorway. Selina sat bound on an old settee, Annette behind her with a pistol pressed to her temple. His wife’s eyes met his, wide with fear but alert.

“Let her go,” Rowan hissed. “Your quarrel is with me.”

“Is it? Or is it with the entire cursed Blackmore line?” Annette’s hand shook. Sweat beaded her forehead. “You destroyed everything I loved. Everything I was meant to have.”

“I destroyed nothing.”

“You killed your mother! Your birth tore her apart, left your father drowning in guilt and self-loathing. If you’d never existed, Catherine would be alive. Gerald and I would have married. We’d have been happy.”

Rowan took a careful step forward. “Put the gun down, Annette. We can discuss this.”

“Don’t move!” The pistol jerked. Selina flinched. “The ton will believe it, you know. The mad duke who vanished, came back wrong, killed his wife and lover in a jealous rage. This cottage still belongs to you, after all.”

Another step. Keep her talking.

“You think my father loved you,” Rowan said. “But you know the truth, don’t you? Deep down, you know what he really was.”

“He did love me! For twenty years, I was everything to him. His refuge, his comfort, his?—”

“His convenience.” Rowan’s voice turned icy. “Nothing more. A woman he could use when he needed escape from his failures.”

“No.” Annette’s voice cracked. “We were going to marry after my husband died. He promised.”

“He promised many things. To creditors he never paid. To my mother before he started his affairs. To himself that he’d change.” Rowan took another step. “But you know he’d never have married you. Not really. Not when it mattered.”

“You’re wrong!”

“Am I? How many times did he promise to leave my mother for you? How many times did he swear the next year would be different?” Rowan could see doubt creeping into her eyes. “He treated everyone the same way, Annette. He used people, then discarded them when they became inconvenient.”

“He loved me,” she whispered, but the words sounded hollow now.

“He loved no one but himself. You gave him twenty years of your life, and he gave you nothing but empty promises and borrowed time.” Rowan was close enough now to see tears on her cheeks. “You deserved better. You still do.”

The gun wavered. “I… I couldn’t have wasted all those years for nothing. He must have…”

“Put the gun down.” Rowan’s voice gentled. “My father wasn’t worth your love. Wasn’t worth a breath of yours. You deserve to live your life, not let hatred destroy what’s left of it.”

For a moment, Annette seemed to crumble. The pistol drooped.

Then she straightened, shaking her head violently. “No. No, you’re lying. He loved me. He did. We were going to?—”

Her finger tightened on the trigger.

Rowan lunged.

The pistol exploded. Plaster showered from the ceiling. He tackled Annette, bearing her to the floor as she screamed and clawed at his face.

“He loved me! Gerald loved me! Twenty years! Twenty years!”

She writhed beneath him like a wild thing, all reason gone. He pinned her wrists, holding her down until her struggles weakened.

“Selina,” he called over his shoulder. “Come here. I need to untie you.”

But when he looked back, Annette had gone limp. Too limp.

She slipped from his grasp like water, rolled away, and scrambled for the door.

“Stop her!” Selina shouted.

But Rowan focused on the bonds around her hands first.

“Go after her,” Selina urged as the ropes fell away.

“No.” Rowan pulled her into his arms. “We need to get you home safe.”

The thunder of hoofbeats outside made them both freeze. Voices shouted in the darkness.

“There! By the trees!”

“Lady Winsley, stop where you are!”

A gunshot cracked through the night.

Rowan and Selina ran outside. A small group of horsemen had surrounded the cottage. Felix set his mount near the edge of the clearing with the Duke of Emberford beside him, and several men in constable uniforms.

And on the grass near the tree line, Annette’s motionless form. A pistol lay beside her hand.

“She’s dead,” called a familiar voice. Grainger dismounted, approaching the body with professional caution. “Shot herself rather than be taken.”

Felix rode over to them. “Robert and I arrived just as she came running out. She grabbed one of your attackers’ weapons before we could stop her.”

“How did you find us?” Rowan asked.

“Georgiana sent Robert after you,” Felix explained. “The maid you left in the park heard you mutter Annette’s name. Robert came to me for help.”

Robert nodded grimly. “We went to her townhouse first. When the servants said she’d gone out with a bag, Felix remembered this place.”

“Lucky we brought the constables,” Felix added. “Though it seems Lady Winsley decided her own fate.”

Rowan felt Selina shudder against him. He wrapped his arms around her more tightly.

“Thank you,” he said to both men. “Both of you. I?—”

“Save it,” Felix interrupted, but his smile took the sting from the words. “You can apologize properly over whiskey. The expensive kind.”

Despite everything, Rowan laughed. “I promise.”

Grainger approached them, removing his hat. “Your Graces. I’ll need statements from both of you, but that can wait until tomorrow. You’ve been through enough tonight.”

“Thank you, Mr. Grainger,” Selina said. “For everything.”

“Just doing my duty, Your Grace. Though I’m glad this business is finally finished.” He gestured toward the constables examining the scene. “We’ll clean this up. You two go home.”

Robert offered to escort them back to London, but Rowan declined. They had only one horse, and he wanted time alone with Selina. Time to hold her, to convince himself she was truly safe.

As they prepared to leave, Felix rode up beside them.

“For what it’s worth,” he said quietly, “she was mad at the end. Completely mad. Nothing you could have said would have changed what happened.”

Rowan nodded, though guilt still gnawed at him. Annette had wasted her life loving a man who wasn’t worth her devotion. In the end, that obsession had destroyed her.

“Come,” he said to Selina, helping her onto his horse. “Let’s go home.”

Behind them, the constables continued their work by torchlight. The cottage that had sheltered his father’s affair now witnessed its final, violent end.

But that was the past. Selina was warm and alive in his arms, and they were riding toward their future together.

The rest could wait for daylight.