The Marriage Rescue

by Joanna Johnson

  I need to find out what’s worrying her—I can never let her run from me again.

  ‘Good morning, Selina. Are you well?’

  Edward pushed himself up to lean back against the pillows, allowing himself a better view of her face. ‘You look...troubled.’ Apprehension crept into his voice and he watched her closely, as though searching for clues, some snippet of an idea as to why she looked almost on the brink of tears. Her apparent distress tore at him, his feelings still raw after their unexpected airing the night before. The urge to gather her into his arms was strong, but the unhappy set of her jaw gave him pause.

  He saw her throat move as she swallowed, her slender neck seeming to cry out for him to kiss it as he had mere hours previously. Instead he tore his eyes away and waited for her to speak.

  ‘I have been thinking about your uncle’s return.’ She spoke quietly, her gaze fixed on her fingers as she worried at a lock of her midnight hair. ‘He could arrive any day and I—Forgive me.’ She broke off for a moment, her emotion obvious. ‘I do not have the strength to see him.’

  Edward felt a sharp pang of relief burst in his chest and his spirits soared upwards once again. Is that all that troubles her? Uncles Charles’s return?

  It was almost an anti-climax after his dizzying despair that the cause of her haunted look could be so easily solved. It wasn’t that she regretted their night together—it was something else entirely. He could have laughed aloud as the weight fell from his shoulders.

  He turned to Selina, reaching out to take her small hand in his much larger grasp. He saw her almost flinch at his touch and knew the same crackle of sensation he felt flared within her too. His body reacted at the sight, but he forced himself to set the ungentlemanly train of thought to one side in favour of reassuring his unhappy-looking wife.

  ‘Selina. Let me make you a promise: you will never have to set eyes on my uncle ever again.’

  He traced his thumb over the ridges of her knuckles and felt her hand tremble at the feel of his skin on hers. He wanted to kiss her tawny skin, to give in to the hunger for her that was beginning to stir within him once again, and the dawning hope he saw in Selina’s eyes only made his appetite grow.

  ‘I will write to Charles this very morning and tell him not to leave the Continent. Would that set your mind at ease?’

  He brought her hand up to his mouth, his gaze still locked on hers. He heard her tiny sigh at the touch of his lips and smiled down at her as her frame visibly relaxed, only moments before having been held so tightly he had wondered if it hurt.

  ‘You would do that?’

  Selina’s voice held a world of amazement and her face was a picture of wonder, although Edward almost narrowed his eyes at the hint of disbelief.

  ‘I—I would not want to be the cause of you missing the chance to see your family.’

  There was more than a shadow of irritation in Edward’s voice when he answered—though it was not directed at the woman in his bed. ‘There is no reason I can think of for his return other than an attempt to impose upon the running of my estate. My father and I fought often as a result of his controlling nature. My uncle is cut from the same cloth.’

  He looked down at Selina’s fingers, so small inside his palm, and marvelled with a fresh burst of dazed wonder at this second chance of happiness he had been given.

  ‘As the Squire of Blackwell I am more than capable of governing my own estate. I have no need of anybody to hold my hand as though I were a child.’ He paused for a moment before a small smile curved his lips. You romantic fool. ‘The only person whose hand I ever wish to hold is—’

  ‘Sir? Sir, are you awake? Apologies, but I’m afraid I need to speak with you.’

  Evans’s discreet knock at the door made Edward curse softly and wrench his eyes from Selina’s wide-eyed face. He snatched up his shirt from the tangle of clothes and linen on the floor next to the bed and pulled it over his head, at the same time swinging his legs over the side in search of his breeches.

  ‘You might want to pull the curtains.’

  He heard Selina’s giggle as she shuffled forward to draw the rich hangings of the four-poster bed into place, shielding her from Edward’s glowing gaze. He was just wondering if it would be terribly rude simply to ignore the servant at the door and rejoin his wife beneath the covers when the knock came again, this time a little more firmly, and so it was with his breeches held up by one hand and his shirt untucked that Edward finally opened the door.

  ‘Good morning, Evans.’

  ‘Good morning, sir. I’m very sorry to wake you.’

  Edward bit down on a smile. He could hardly have looked less like a man who had been innocently sleeping. Trust the old butler to attempt to maintain his master’s dignity.

  ‘Think nothing of it. Is there something you need to speak to me about?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’ Evans nodded, his expression slightly disapproving. ‘You have an unexpected visitor. We found him very early this morning, attempting to gain entry to the Hall.’

  The butler cleared his throat and Edward felt a sudden creep of dread at the unhappiness on the older man’s face.

  ‘We have put Mr Charles in the West Wing guest suite, where—I am sorry, sir—he insists he would like to speak with you at your earliest convenience.’

  Chapter Fifteen

  Edward quickly stepped through the door and pulled it closed behind him. ‘My uncle? He is here? In this house?’

  The butler nodded apologetically and Edward drew in a harsh breath.

  ‘Damn.’

  He brought a hand up across his eyes. Charles must have left to return to Blackwell almost as soon as he had written of his intentions to Sir William, no doubt hoping to catch his nephew off-guard.

  Edward felt a hot pulse of anger at Charles’s presumption in arriving unannounced and lowered his voice to mutter in Evans’s ear. ‘I shall see to this at once. Don’t mention his presence to Mrs Fulbrooke.’ Edward looked the other man intently in the eye. ‘Do you understand me? Mrs Fulbrooke is not to be told.’

  ‘Yes, sir. I understand.’

  It was evident by his face that the butler didn’t truly understand, but he would do as Edward ordered despite his own politely concealed confusion, and Edward clapped him on the shoulder.

  ‘You did right to tell me. I shall go to dress at once. Please send Wellburn...’ Edward hesitated, struck by the sudden thought that he couldn’t dress in his bedchamber as usual.

  The presence of Selina in his bed made his lips want to curve into a disbelieving smile, but he forced himself to return to the matter at hand. There will be plenty of time to spend with Selina later—once you’ve dealt with Uncle Charles.

  Edward set his face grimly. It was essential that Selina didn’t catch wind of Charles’s arrival at the Hall. To say she would be distressed was something of an understatement, and he could hardly bear the thought of her in such pain.

  ‘Please tell Wellburn I shall dress in my drawing room today. I will wait for him there.’

  ‘Very good, sir.’

  Evans moved off with his silent step and Edward ducked back into the bedchamber. The curtains were still drawn around the bed and, twitching them aside, he saw Selina’s eyes were closed and that her chest rose and fell with gentle breaths. He watched her for a moment, wondering yet again at the dizzying turn of events that had brought them together so inseparably, and felt the same grin he had fought back earlier tug at him again.

  I’ll speak with Charles and then come to wake her. I think the time may have come for me to tell her...

  He allowed the train of thought to tail off as a cold veil of doubt clouded his mind. To tell Selina of his true feelings for her would be to admit them out loud—something he had never even done alone in his rooms. There would be no turning back, no more hiding behind the walls he had built around his heart for so l
ong, and the thought of laying himself bare chilled him to the bone.

  She might still reject him—might take his love and thrust it aside as had happened to him twice before. Her rejection would be kind, Edward didn’t doubt that, but all the same it would wound him in a way with which his previous suffering would not compare.

  He turned away, smoothing the curtains back into place and allowing Selina to sleep on, her raven hair fanned out across his pillows. An uncomfortable combination of apprehension over Selina’s reaction and anger at his uncle’s intrusion settled heavy in his stomach, and Edward drew his brows together in a frown as he left the bedchamber and made for his drawing room.

  An audience with Charles was the last thing he wanted to deal with on this surprising morning, but it would at least postpone the hour when he had to look Selina square in the eye and tell her that, despite his fears, he couldn’t live without her—and then hear her reply, either making his dreams come true or crushing them beneath her heel.

  * * *

  The snow lay in deep drifts as Selina wandered slowly down one of the recently cleared paths that meandered through Blackwell’s gardens, but even the chill couldn’t dampen the warmth she felt lighting up her insides. She pulled her shawls closer about her body and breathed in deeply, savouring the crisp air as she allowed a smile of perfect happiness to spread across her face.

  The image of her husband as he had looked that morning, his hair rumpled from sleep and his eyes regaining their twinkle as he woke slowly, caused her heart to turn over in her chest. The memory of the heat of his body and the achingly masculine scent of his skin made her close her eyes briefly, recalling every detail of their unbelievable experience together.

  It hadn’t been a dream. She truly had spent the night with Edward, and the delicious feel of his lips on her knuckles as he had assured her that she needn’t fear his uncle’s return still tingled on her skin.

  He’d had to postpone their taking breakfast together while he dealt with some urgent business. Evans had murmured as much to her apologetically when she had emerged from Edward’s chamber, respectable once again in a gown hurriedly brought in by a blushing Dinah, with her Christmas brooch pinned to it, and she had thought that while she waited for him to reappear a walk in the gardens might help to clear her head. It still ached a little from her snowy adventure, although the pleasure that sang in the rest of her nerves helped to soothe the slight niggle of pain.

  Nothing could completely drown out the anxious fluttering in her stomach, however, at the thought of what she would have to tell Edward on his return.

  Selina ran a hand across the frosted leaves of one immaculately kept hedge as she walked, feeling the chill beneath her fingertips. Her breath hung in the air in little clouds—a visible reminder of how her nerves had quickened it.

  Surely you can be honest now? He must have guessed the truth of it.

  If Edward was in any doubt as to her feelings for him now she could only shake her head in wonder at the blindness of men to female emotions. He must be aware of how her love for him had grown. Every touch of his hand, every kind word, every thoughtful gesture had increased her fondness for him until it had erupted into something far more powerful than the instinctive attraction any woman might feel for such an undeniably handsome man. It was deeper than that.

  Selina swallowed as the sudden desire to see Edward seized her in its grip. She had to tell him—she couldn’t bear the tension anymore. Even if he didn’t feel the same way she had to stay true to her own heart—even if that meant risking the agony of rejection. He might have entered their marriage with the intention of mere convenience, but there was surely no way that could be his feeling now.

  The sound of footsteps crunching through snow made her turn. ‘Edward?’

  They were definitely a man’s steps: long strides made by large leather boots, unless she was very much mistaken, and they were coming from the other side of the hedge that bordered the path she had been following through the gardens.

  ‘Edward? Is that you?’

  A sudden vivid thrill of delicious anxiety flooded her and her heart began to pound. This could be the moment she had waited for, agonised over. The moment when she would finally know the answer to the question she had whispered in her sleep for months.

  The footsteps grew louder, and Selina felt her mouth shape into an instinctive smile as a figure rounded the corner before her.

  The smile dropped from her lips as a blindingly painful bolt of sheer horror punched through her chest, snatching the air from her lungs and winding her as though she had fallen from a great height. She could only stare with eyes huge and glassy with terror as Charles Fulbrooke came towards her, her every nightmare made flesh, and she was fixed to the spot by legs that suddenly felt as though they were made of water.

  It was in mute, heart-stopping fear that she saw Charles’s brow crease into a frown, before clearing to be replaced by a look of pure, arrogant contempt. His mouth twisted in a sneer, and the bow he swept Selina was so low it was clear even to her frozen mind that it was intended to mock her.

  ‘Well, well... The new lady of Blackwell Hall, I assume?’ He raised an eyebrow, elegantly amused. ‘I’ve been so looking forward to meeting you. I am Edward’s Uncle Charles—brother to his late father.’

  Charles’s eyes roamed across her and Selina felt herself shudder, her skin clammy with a sudden heat that made her palms prickle with sweat. He appraised her as though she was an animal at market, blatantly lingering over the shape of her figure in a way no gentleman would ever look at a respectable lady, and Selina almost gasped at the intense wave of nausea that swept through her.

  He looked just as she remembered, his face imprinted onto her brain forever, and the memories he unleashed flashed before Selina’s wide eyes, their unspeakable horror filling her with a dread she had hoped never to feel ever again.

  She had no words with which to reply. Instead she felt the air choked from her burning throat and fire scalding hot within the prison of her ribs. A voice inside her screamed at her to run, in any direction as long as it was far and it was fast, but her legs wouldn’t obey her churning mind and still she stood, staring at the man responsible for the death of her mother and for a lifetime of nightmares, with no way of escaping his cruel smile.

  ‘I’ve yet to see my nephew. I had intended to wait for him in my rooms, but he was taking such a long time to come to me I thought I’d look over the grounds while he roused himself. It’s been so long since I was last here.’

  Charles spoke idly, self-assured in the face of Selina’s obvious panic. She swallowed painfully, bile acrid on her tongue.

  He stepped closer to her—close enough for Selina to smell the tobacco on his breath and the expensive pomade on his hair.

  ‘I heard some whispers about you. Rumours, stories...that sort of thing.’

  Selina closed her eyes, attempting to blot out the face that had haunted her dreams. Perhaps she was asleep? Perhaps at any moment she would wake up, find herself back in the warmth of Edward’s bed with his face smiling down at her?

  ‘I heard that my foolish young nephew had taken a wife far below his station, but I hadn’t imagined he had sunk quite so low in his search for a bride. I returned at once, to make sure he saw reason, but now, having met you here so fortuitously, perhaps I needn’t speak with him at all.’

  Selina’s eyes flew open. Charles’s chestnut hair and ruddy complexion were entirely unlike Edward’s fair colouring, but the hazel eyes were similar enough to make her heart skip a painful beat. How one set of eyes could radiate such kindness while another the same shade could be so cold was a mystery, but Selina had no time to dwell on the question as Charles continued.

  ‘No doubt my nephew has been good to you, but your time here has come to an end. He has always had the most peculiar regard for your kind—one his father and myself did not encourage.’


  He paused to flick a scathing glance across her, and Selina flinched as though he had touched her skin.

  ‘I see no reason to involve him further. He has already shown how badly he is in need of my guidance and my instruction on how to conduct himself. If you had any decency...’ He trailed off, once again eyeing her from head to toe with unconcealed contempt. ‘Well... The less said about that the better. Still, even one such as you can surely see there is no place for you here?’

  Selina backed away from him, never taking her eyes from his hateful face. There was such venom in his voice it made her want to shrink into the hedge at her back, but some tiny part of her spirit, small but stubborn, crept from behind her blind terror and defiantly raised its head.

  They were no louder than a whisper, but Selina somehow managed to force words from her bloodless lips. ‘Edward wants me here.’ She almost choked on the sounds. ‘He was going to write to tell you not to come.’

  Cold anger flooded Charles’s face and he took a step towards her, closing the gap between them. Selina pressed herself against the frosted leaves behind her and felt an icy shard of fear pierce her like a knife to her chest.

  Where is Edward?

  She didn’t dare look away from the furious man in front of her and cast a desperate glance back in the direction of the Hall. All she could do was offer up a silent prayer that he would somehow sense her distress and appear to rescue her, as he had all those months before.

  ‘Audacious lies!’

  Charles’s nose was mere inches from Selina’s own and she shrank a fraction further.

  ‘You wish to drive me off, do you? To isolate the boy from his family so you can have him and his fortune all to yourself? You think to ruin his life with your selfishness!’

  Selina’s heart leapt within her as though it was trying to escape her chest. Acute fear and nausea had robbed her of her senses, leaving her deaf and blind to everything other than this dangerous man who looked as though he might try to grab her at any moment, crowding into her space and making every muscle in her body stiffen in terror.