She was right. It was impossible. But he still felt too much resentment, too much rage, too much pain to forgive and forget. There was too much of her locked up inside of him, and he didn’t know how to free himself from that bondage. So, in a moment of madness, he had decided to take her captive, as well.
He reached out a hand to her. “You’re mine, Verity. At long last, you’re mine.”
She rose abruptly and backed along the edge of the sofa out of his reach. “Don’t do this, Miles. We’ll both be sorry for it.”
“Marry me, Verity.”
She sobbed, a desperate, hopeless sound. “If I thought you loved me …”
He could feel her resistance. He was afraid, suddenly, that she was going to refuse him. He said the one thing he could think of that might force her acceptance. “Marry me, or you can get somebody else to help you find your son.”
“What?”
“You heard me.”
He watched the stupendous effort it took for her to control her temper. In the end, she lost the battle.
“That’s blackmail!” she said between gritted teeth. “You know I don’t have the money to hire someone else!”
“What’s your answer, Verity?”
“Damn you, Miles!”
“Is that a yes?”
“Yes,” she hissed. “Yes, I’ll marry you. I don’t know what pleasure you’ll get from having me in your bed when you obviously despise me. Just remember that every time you force yourself on me, I’ll be cringing.”
His hand started up toward the scar on his face. He caught himself and dropped it to his side, where it curled into a determined fist. “You can close your eyes if you find the sight of me offensive. But I will have you.”
“Even if I’m unwilling?”
“You wanted me once. You were on fire for me,” he reminded her. He had never forgotten how she had clung to him, how she had cried out in pain when he took her virginity, her fingernails digging into his skin and leaving bloodred crescents on his shoulders, how he had kissed away her tears, how she had given him fevered kisses and forgiven him for leaving her unsatisfied. He had promised her the next time he would show her what ecstasy was.
But there had been no next time.
“What happened between us happened a long time ago,” she said.
“It seems like yesterday to me.” He could have bitten off his tongue for revealing so much. “There’s an army chaplain here at the fort. I’ve made arrangements for him to marry us before we leave.”
Her eyes widened. “You mean right now?”
“The longer we delay, the longer it will be until we can start hunting for your son.”
“But … right now?”
“I can send for the chaplain as soon as you’ve combed your hair. But personally, I find that tousled look quite delectable.”
He saw the anger and disbelief in her eyes. He thought for a moment she would make some retort, or at least reach up and tuck at a few wayward strands of hair. She did neither. Instead, her eyes narrowed, and her lips flattened mutinously.
“You must have been awfully sure of yourself to make plans with the chaplain in advance,” she said.
“I know you very well.”
“You don’t know me at all,” she replied. “I’m not as gullible or yielding as I used to be, Miles. You’ll get no more from me than you’re willing to give in return.”
His eyes grew cold, and a muscle jerked in his scarred cheek. “That, of course, remains to be seen.”
5
She should have told him Rand was his son. Several times a confession had been on the tip of her tongue. But if Miles couldn’t accept the possibility that she had married Chester to save him, why would he have believed Randal Talbot was his son? It was more likely he would have accused her of lying to get his cooperation in the search for Rand.
And if Miles wanted vengeance for her supposed betrayal in marrying Chester, what revenge might he feel compelled to take if he discovered she had kept the knowledge of his son’s existence from him all these years?
It was better to keep her secret a little while longer.
If they found Rand, Miles would be able to see the truth for himself. She shuddered at the thought.
Meanwhile, she didn’t at all appreciate being manipulated into marriage. It was never what she had dreamed would happen if she ever saw Miles again. In her fantasy, he had taken her into his arms and made love to her as he had that one stolen afternoon they had shared together. That precious memory was all that had sustained her over the long years she had spent sleeping alone.
Verity stood with her jaw clenched. It seemed her whole life had been lived waiting for happily ever after. But it never seemed to arrive. Here she was, a bride for the second time, and this wedding was no more joyful than her first. Except that she had once been very much in love with the man standing beside her now.
She had borrowed some pins from Mrs. Peters and styled her hair, but she wasn’t as adept at it as the maid she had left behind in London. She could feel several curls slipping free at her nape. She was wearing the lawn basque-waist and frog-trimmed lavender jacket from her riding habit—both a little the worse for wear—together with the brown corduroy riding skirt Mrs. Peters had altered for her. It was not an outfit designed to give a bride confidence in her appearance. Except, Miles hadn’t taken his eyes off her since the ceremony had begun. Everywhere his eyes touched her she felt warmed by his gaze. Or was it only the August heat? A trickle of sweat stole its way down between her shoulder blades.
She listened to the words being spoken by the military chaplain in the parlor of Colonel Peters’s home, but she was hearing Miles’s voice in the vestry of St. George’s in London on the day of her first wedding, hurt, confused, begging her not to marry Chester.
She had been standing with her father, waiting to make the journey down the aisle a mere three weeks after her betrothal to Chester had been announced. Miles had not been invited to the wedding, for obvious reasons, so she had no expectation of seeing him again before she was bound forever to Chester Talbot. She had felt like Joan of Arc at the stake, with the fire already lit, hoping for a last-minute reprieve. She didn’t want to give up her chance for love and happiness with Miles, but she knew the sacrifice was necessary.
Then Miles had appeared at the church door, a silhouette in the morning sunlight.
Her heart had soared with gladness. Here was her knight in shining armor, come to rescue her. Only there could be no deliverance, not without condemning Miles to death. It sounded melodramatic to think in such terms, but she knew Chester was in deadly earnest. She was literally buying Miles’s life with her own.
Miles had turned toward her, and she had seen for only the second time the livid scar that ran from his temple to the corner of his eye downward through his mouth all the way to his throat. She had gasped, horrified anew at the disfigurement. Oh, not for her own sake—which was what the foolish man believed because of the lies she had told him—but for his.
Before the accident, Miles had been an extremely handsome man. It was hard to look at him now without flinching. She felt sorry that his beauty had been spoiled, but it didn’t make her love him any less.
From the anguish in his gray eyes as they stared at each other across the small distance separating them, she knew he had misunderstood her reaction to the sight of him.
She left her father’s side and crossed to speak privately with him. As she approached, he angled his body so she saw only the uninjured side of his face. “Miles—”
“Don’t say anything, just listen,” he said in a hard-edged voice. “I’m asking you to wait for me, Verity. I … the doctor tells me I won’t always look like this. The scar will fade in a year or less and … and now that my brother is dead I am Viscount Linden. I have the fortune your father needs to pay his debts. I—”
She raised a hand to his lips to silence his desperate words. She wanted to tell him she loved him despite the barely healed t
ear in his flesh. That he was more than flesh and bone to her, he was life itself. But it was too late for them both.
Neither could she bring herself to wound him further by repeating the lies she had told him about his repugnance to her. So she simply said, “No, Miles.”
“If you would only wait—”
Tears sprang to her eyes. It felt as though a weight were crushing her chest. “Miles, I can’t. I—” Just as her resolve was weakening, Chester appeared at her side.
“Is there some problem?”
It was impossible then to say anything. She couldn’t repeat Chester’s threats in Miles’s presence, not without provoking a confrontation between the two men that might lead to death for the man she loved.
“I can’t wait, Miles,” she said, begging him with her eyes to understand what she couldn’t speak in words. “Father needs the settlement …”
His eyes narrowed. He had told her he had the money. That excuse was no longer valid.
“It’s because of this, isn’t it?” He flung a hand toward the wound on his face. “I wanted to believe it didn’t matter. I thought you loved me.”
“Miles, try to understand—” She felt Chester’s hand tighten painfully on her forearm. She looked up at him and saw the stern warning in his pale yellow eyes.
“I won’t give you up, Verity,” Miles said.
“Step aside, Linden. The lady has made her choice,” Chester said.
“Verity?” Miles said, his voice urgent.
She kept her gaze lowered, unable to bear the accusation in his. She waited, praying for a miracle.
It didn’t happen.
“Take her and welcome,” Miles snarled at Chester.
Then he was gone. And she had burned in the fire for years and years afterward.
She had not seen Miles again until this morning, when she had stood awaiting her death on the grassy plains. She had thought of him often, especially after she learned she would bear his child, always wondering if she had made the right decision. Should she have told Miles of Chester’s threats? Could he have found a way to protect himself? Had she needlessly sacrificed her happiness and his?
She would never know.
It now appeared that, over the years, he had been thinking of her, too. But his thoughts had not been in the least charitable. He had been working behind the scenes to have his revenge. He had induced Chester to waste his fortune. He had made her a pauper and stolen her son’s—his own son’s—inheritance. He had slowly and methodically destroyed all feelings of love he might have had for her in his heart.
The Miles she had known hadn’t possessed a cruel or vindictive bone in his body. There was something hard, something callous, about the man standing beside her. Other young men recovered from a lost love and went on with their lives. Why had Miles nursed his anger for so many years?
The more important question now, perhaps, was whether there was any chance for them to find happiness together. It hardly seemed possible they could recapture the love they had once felt for each other. She had cherished another person entirely, a young and carefree English gentleman. She didn’t know this embittered and vengeful man.
“Verity?”
“What?”
“Your turn to say ‘I do,’ ” Miles said.
She had missed his vows altogether. She glanced around the colonel’s parlor, at the amiable face of the colonel, the more concerned features of Mrs. Peters, the four other men who had been introduced to her as Miles’s hired hands, and finally the chaplain, who, with his untrimmed hair and wrinkled blue wool uniform, bore little resemblance to the pristine clergy she had known in England.
She looked into Miles’s somber gray eyes. His hand tightened on hers.
Don’t do it, Verity, an inner voice warned her.
I have to.
You’re being foolish.
So she was a fool. She had never been able to give up on happily ever after. There was only one answer she could give. In her heart, hope beat strong and steady.
“I do,” she said.
She heard Miles exhale and realized he had been unsure whether she would say yes. Had his threats all been a bluff? Would he have let her go if she had refused to marry him? Would he have helped her find Rand anyway?
She had suspected he wasn’t playing fair. Of course, he wasn’t playing at all. He was deadly serious, and a great deal was at stake in the contest. He wanted to possess her, body and soul.
Well, two could play the same game. From now on, she intended to fight for happiness. She would do whatever it took—scheming, conniving, conspiring—to win Miles’s love back again. Thanks to Miles’s insistence on marriage, they would be legally tied together while she worked toward her goal.
“Are we done?” Miles asked the chaplain.
“You may kiss the bride,” the chaplain said.
“I don’t think—” Miles began.
She turned to face Miles and put her arms around his neck. The boldness of even that small action took all the courage she had. She would get better at it, she was sure. For now, it appeared she had done enough. Miles lowered his head toward hers. She closed her eyes and held herself still, waiting for the touch of his lips.
They were soft and warm and a little damp.
He lifted his head, and she raised her eyes to seek his. He looked—oh, she hoped he was—a little bit confused.
Moments later Miles was being slapped heartily on the back by his hired hands, and Mrs. Peters was embracing her.
“Please say you’ll stay here with us, at least for tonight,” Mrs. Peters said.
“We have to get moving,” Miles answered for Verity. “If we leave now, there’s still a good chance we can catch up to those Sioux.”
“Everything seems so sudden,” Mrs. Peters said, concern etched on her brow.
“Miles and I were childhood sweethearts,” Verity explained, telling a little, but not all, of the tale. “Please don’t worry about me.”
Too soon Verity found herself being ushered outside. Six saddled horses and a mule loaded down with supplies were tied to the hitching rail. Miles helped her mount astride, which was easier with the split skirt but felt no less awkward once she was in the saddle, then mounted himself, while his four cowhands stepped into their saddles.
Colonel and Mrs. Peters stood together on the veranda with their arms around each other and waved good-bye.
“Be careful with that bride of yours,” the colonel admonished Miles.
“Good luck, Mrs. Broderick,” Mrs. Peters said. “I hope you’ll bring your son and his fiancée to visit once you find them.”
“I will,” she promised.
Mrs. Broderick. At least she was no longer the Countess of Rushland. In England, if she ever returned, she would be Lady Linden. Viscountess Linden. It was a step down in rank, but one she didn’t in the least mind taking.
One of the men grabbed the lead attached to the mule’s halter, and they all headed north across the length of the quadrangle. In a very short time the fort had disappeared behind them. Verity’s eyes naturally strayed to the four men Miles had brought along.
Miles had told her he had eight hired hands in all, but half the cowboys had stayed behind at the ranch to tend to the stock. She wondered if they were anything like these four.
As Miles had introduced them one by one in the colonel’s parlor before the wedding, the four men had removed their motley mixture of high-crowned, curly-brimmed Western hats.
“This is Shorty,” Miles began.
She recognized right away that Western folk had a refined sense of humor. Shorty was the tallest, skinniest man she had ever seen in her life. She had smiled and said, “Hello, Shorty.”
“Ma’am.” He blushed pink as a boy caught stealing from the altar plate in church, stuffed his hat back on his head, got nudged hard with an elbow in the ribs by the man to his right, and snatched it back off again.
“This is Red,” Miles said.
She supposed Red must
once have had red hair, but he was bald as an egg. It wasn’t just his head that was missing hair. He had no beard, no eyebrows, not even eyelashes. It gave him an odd, sinister appearance. “Good afternoon, Red.”
“Nice to meet you, ma’am.” He had a disconcerting way of looking at her that made her feel like he could see inside her. She was the one who lowered her gaze first.
“This older fellow here is Frog,” Miles said.
Before he spoke, Verity thought Frog must have gotten his name from his badly bowed legs.
“Howdy, ma’am.”
Two words out of his mouth, and she knew it was his voice that had labeled him. He croaked like a bullfrog. She managed to say “Nice to meet you, Frog,” without succumbing to the urge to laugh.
“Finally, I’d like you to meet Tom Grimes.”
Verity looked at Tom closely, wondering why he didn’t have a nickname like the others. He had intense brown, almost black, eyes that were heavy-lidded, a sensual mouth and a beaked nose. His whole body seemed tense, as though at any moment he might spring into action. She noticed he was the only one besides Miles wearing a gun, a revolver in a fancy holster tied low on his hip. She wasn’t really looking for what she found. Her eyes skittered away from the huge erection making his jeans bulge.
“Back off, Tom,” Miles said in a soft voice. “This one’s already taken.”
Tom licked his lips like he was hungry, and she was a plate of rare roast beef and Yorkshire pudding. She had never met a man who was so rudely blatant about what he wanted from a woman. She saw the challenge in Tom’s eyes and the tautness in Miles’s body that eased only after Tom said, “Whatever you say, boss.”
It appeared Tom was well named after all—Tom as in tomcat. She shivered at the lecherous look he gave her. Why on earth would Miles have hired such a man?
“Tom is deadly with a gun,” Miles said. “He never misses what he aims at.”
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