Page 93 of The Lord Meets His Lady

Twenty-two

No sooner had she bared herself to Lord Bowles, giving him the chance to escape their arrangement, when the cottage door opened.

“Riders coming. Two of them,” Mr. Beckworth bellowed from belowstairs.

“I’m on my way,” Marcus yelled and grabbed her shoulders.

She jolted at his hot, hazel-eyed scrutiny. Stern and unshaven, the master of Pallinsburn was positively hawkish.

“Do youwantto go with him?”

“No, but—”

“Then it’s settled. You’re staying with me.”

Lord Bowles bolted from the room and she followed, colliding into him when he stopped short. Her leg bumped the pistol butt sticking out from his boot.

He steadied her from falling. “Keep to the cottage.”

His tone brooked no argument, but of course she would anyway.

“Don’t you think it’d be helpful if I were with you?”

“No,” he barked, descending the stairs. “Unpack your things. You’re not going anywhere.”

Skirts clutched high, she scurried after him. “But Reinhard might listen to reason—”

“You meanHerr Wolf? Do me the courtesy of addressing him less intimately.” He whipped on his redingote. “Remember. I am your husband.”

For a little while…

Settling his hat on his head, Lord Bowles filled the doorway. His broad shoulders would carry the burdens of another woman someday. Not hers.

She shivered at the fierceness in his eyes. “You’re right.”

“Marcus,” Mr. Beckworth called from the yard. “Now.”

With a curt nod, Lord Bowles shut the door. His sternness could be born of danger. Or was it something else?Was Lord Bowles jealous of Reinhard?

Genevieve hugged herself, trying to quell a dull ache. Having Marcus champion her was a luxury, one she wasn’t used to having. Nor had he liked it when she’d tried to warn him about Reinhard. She’d read the hardness in his eyes: he thought she believed he couldn’t protect her from the Wolf.

In the dim entry, part of her feared it to be true.

Outside conversations muffled with the ebb and flow of masculine voices booming louder. She cracked the door. Herr Wolf sat tall on a dark horse, while Herr Thade sat in a cart meant to take her and her few possessions away. In the yard, Lord Bowles’s and Mr. Beckworth’s heads bent in a conspirators’ conversation. Her old master and Herr Thade exchanged quick, speaking looks before both men dismounted. Herr Wolf’s coat flapped open, and a silver-trimmed pistol butt shined against his black waistcoat.

When she pressed her ear to the opening, the murmured voices drove her to distraction. They were too far away to hear. She eyed her red cloak. It’d be conspicuous to walk out the front door. Wrapping herself in the wool, she raced to her room. Her window hadn’t been opened in years, but wrenching with all her might, she jammed the side sash open. Crows pecked at the dead garden. She climbed through the opening and tumbled onto the straw mulch below.

On tiptoe, she skimmed the cottage wall. Deep male voices rumbled. Footsteps crunched the graveled path as if heading to the garden. Herr Wolf and Lord Bowles walked toward her.

Heart pounding, she ducked back against the cottage and flattened herself to the wall. Cold sandstone bit her cheek. A flock of shiny-eyed crows gathered near her, cawing and flapping their wings. She glanced at her open window, but male voices carried as the footfalls ceased.

“I offer her a new life.” Herr Wolf. His German accent was as bold as his arrogance.

“A new life she doesn’t want.”

“And what areyougiving her,Englisch?”

She peeked around the corner. The Prussian’s arms were spread wide as he jeered at the modest rustic setting. Both men stood by an apple tree, a flock of crows hunched on its winter-bare branches. The Wolf was taller than Lord Bowles. Queue neatly clubbed, Herr Wolf was clean-shaven, his black boots freshly polished.