He should have realized Shelton would strike. No, that wasn’t quite right, since he had sensed it. Roman had seen the violence in the younger man’s eyes. He’d known the blow was coming well before it ever started in his direction.
What he hadn’t anticipated was Bethanne trying to come between them.
When he ought to have been protecting her, instead, she had tried to protect him. He’d never seen anything more preposterous in his life. Nor had he ever felt so hollow as he did when she fell back against him, unconscious.
For a moment she seemed lifeless, and his breath had gone shallow, and his heart had stopped, and he had felt the same blinding need for answers and retribution as he’d felt on the fields of Waterloo. At the end of that fateful day, he’d stood over the bodies of the men who’d served beneath him, unable to do anything but weep as he held the damned glass vial in his hand when instead, he ought to have been wielding a weapon.
But then she’d let out a soft moan and shifted in Roman’s arms, and the feeling returned to his limbs at the same time as the breath returned to his lungs. After he’d settled Bethanne in her bed under Joyce’s care, painstakingly extracting himself from her presence, he and Shelton had discussed what was to be done.
As her brother, Shelton certainly had the right, not to mention the responsibility, to defend her honor. The simplest solution to it all, of course, would be for Roman to marry her. God knew he wanted to. But simple did not equal best, and his wants could not supersede hers, let alone her safety.
Sharing a bed with her would be an impossibility. That was something Roman could never trust himself to do. What would he do if, heaven forbid, he fell asleep before leaving her? He might harm her in one of his episodes without ever waking.
That was not an option. He couldn’t hurt her. It was bad enough that he’d been unable to prevent her from being hurt, but to have it at his own hands?
Roman would never be able to live with himself. There were far too many crimes against humanity he’d committed against strangers in the name of war. To allow such an atrocity against the one piece of lightness in his life?
No, marriage was not an option. Because of that, what choice did Shelton have but to slap a glove in Roman’s face? And while Roman wished no harm to the man, he could not refuse him the right to defend his sister’s virtue. What sort of gentleman would he be if he denied such a thing?
So he’d accepted the terms. And he’d left.
He’d been chopping wood for easily two hours before any of the Hassop House servants stumbled upon him and tried to intervene. Roman had sent the footman away. When Milner came out to ask how he might be of service, Roman had ordered the butler back to the house with the added instruction to keep the rest of the staff inside and away from him as well.
Another hour or more had passed, and the sun was lowering in the sky, casting the land in orange and pink light. Finally, Roman cast the axe aside and took a seat on the stump, allowing his body to rest while his mind ran rampant with errant thoughts.
That was where he still sat when Bethanne came to him, walking across the snow-dusted Hassop House lawn with the rising moon at her back, casting her aglow in ethereal light. Shelton was with her, though he kept his distance. The image before Roman was so surreal, he thought it was a dream at first. Then he wished it was, because the sight of her caused his heart to constrict and his stomach to seize. His Bethanne seemed so delicate and fragile in appearance, yet the strength and fortitude she carried inside would rival even the most battle-honed soldier.
But she was neither a dream nor an apparition. Roman stood when she drew near, cursing himself silently for the shadow of a bruise forming along her forehead. “Are you well?” he asked as she stepped before him. His hand itched to reach up and caress her cheek, but he could not allow himself such freedom with her, particularly not with her already irate brother standing sentry twenty paces away.
Damnation, why hadn’t he selected Crandall from the start? He could have had the man in the cottage and kept himself out of it all along. At least then, most of the problems she was facing now could have been avoided.
Alas, he was too selfish for such a thing.
She looked up at him, and the remnants of her tears shimmered in the moonlight in her twinkling eyes. “I’d hoped you would be here.” The mist of her breath feathered out from her mouth and crystalized in the air between them.
“You oughtn’t to hope for such things.”
A fresh wave of pain washed over her countenance at his words, and he felt like the worst sort of cad. Yet she didn’t back away from him, and she didn’t cower before him. She never had.
She ought to fear him. She would be much safer if she did.
Her tongue darted out between her lips and wetted them. “Will you walk with me?” Before he could decide whether it was a good idea or not, she started off, heading toward the path through the park.
Roman followed her and within a few strides had matched her pace, with Shelton trailing them by a good distance.
Calmly, confidently, she placed her hand on the crook of his arm as they walked, as though it were the most natural thing in the world she could do. He felt anything but calm or natural, however. Her dainty, elegant hand nearly scorched a path through his body, sending flaming licks of awareness on a war path to his loins even through both her glove and his coat. Her nearness invaded each of his senses. He smelled only her sweet rosewater scent. He could almost taste her, as he had when he’d stolen kisses which he had no right to. The soft hum of her breaths filled his ears, as did her gentle footfalls over the snowy ground that seemed such a stark contrast to his heavy, crunching tread. Her warmth enveloped him like a cocoon, wrapping around him and keeping him trapped within her.
They crossed over the footbridge as the creek tinkled by, the frost-covered rose trellis overhead lit by the bright moon. Roman wasn’t entirely certain Bethanne knew where she was leading them, but it didn’t matter.
Everything ceased to matter in that moment but the two of them. This would almost certainly be the last time he would have with her, after all. Roman intended to make the most of it. After tomorrow morning…
No. He would think about that tomorrow morning. Not before.
They came to a wooden bench beneath a copse of trees, and Bethanne took a seat. Roman sat beside her, still surrounded by her heat and scent and being. Some ways off, Shelton stopped beneath a tree, crossing his arms over his chest and taking up his position.
Roman watched her, noting the rise and fall of her chest as she breathed, and the way her fingers fidgeted with the edging of her redingote as Lady Rosaline’s fingers always toyed with her quill. Finally, she met his eyes, beseeching him with the green depths of hers. “You cannot follow through with this duel with my brother. I can’t possibly allow it.”
Alas, somewhere deep inside he’d known she would try to put a stop to it. Roman shook his head. “That is not possible, Bethanne.”
“But you don’t understand,” she implored him, inching closer to him on the bench, which only served to distract him from the matter at hand. “Isaac—he’s killed a man in a duel before.”
“Ah.” He wished she wouldn’t worry for him. The entire situation would be easier for her if she didn’t care.
Bethanne carried far too many worries upon her too-narrow shoulders already.
“Please,” she whispered. Her voice sounded reverent in the night air.
She looked down at her lap, and her fingers suddenly stilled against the fabric of her redingote. Inadvertently, Roman reached over and took her gloved hand in his. She jumped at the contact, but then relaxed as he wrapped her petite, gloved hand inside his. A series of trembles coursed through her body and radiated over to him.
He shouldn’t have done that. He doubted that Shelton could see the contact from such a distance, but that did not give Roman the right to touch her.
“There must be another way.”
“There is not. Your brot
her seeks satisfaction for your honor. He has every right to that.” He hated the finality in his tone, the utter certainty. Worse yet, he loathed the downcast expression which took over her face before she turned away from him.
Still, she did not remove her hand from his. The knot in her neck bobbed slightly as she swallowed, and her sniff rent through the air like a gunshot. “Isaac mentioned…he said there might be another means of obtaining satisfaction.”
The urge to draw her onto his lap, to wrap her in his arms and kiss until she could never shed another tear in her lifetime, to never let her go was overwhelming. “There could be,” he said slowly, cautiously, so as not to needlessly raise her hopes. “But it is not something I can do. Surely you understand that.”
Her breaths came in short, little bursts then. “Why?” Her voice was a strangled cry.
Without thinking, he drew the hand he held closer to his body, as though to offer comfort. She tugged it away from him and pushed to her feet, quickly putting some distance between them.
Beneath the light of the moon, the sight of her pain-filled silhouette was like taking a ball in his chest. Bethanne wrapped her arms across her chest, and she shuddered as silent, wracking sobs threatened to fold her body in two, even as the heavens opened above and a new blanket of snow began to form around them.
He ought to stay away. He had no right to offer her comfort. Yet he couldn’t stop his feet from moving toward her; nor could he prevent his arms from reaching out to her from behind, wrapping around her waist and pulling her back against him.
She felt right in his arms, which only made what he must tell her next all the more difficult. “I cannot possibly marry you.”
She just stilled against him, silent, voicing no argument at all, which made finding his voice next to impossible.
“Bethanne, you must see reason. I’ve nearly hurt you already. I should never have agreed to stay in the cottage when I slept, because I could have hurt any of you.”
“I’m not afraid of you,” she said, her tone laced with a stubborn determination.
That was precisely the problem. Or at least part of the problem.
“It is too dangerous for me to be there, even locked in my chamber. But if we were married? If we were to share a bed?” He shouldn’t have mentioned sharing a bed with her. Not while she was wrapped up tight in his arms. Not while her warmth left his entire body enflamed with need. Roman gave himself a mental shake, trying to force the errant thoughts from his mind. “How could I protect you from myself, love? I could not live with myself if I ever hurt you.”
She shook her head, as though that would be enough to alter his decision.
“I love you too much to see you come to any harm.”
Bethanne pulled away from him and spun around, her expression as thunderstruck as he felt after his admission. “This is not love,” she said with as much vehemence as he’d ever heard her muster.
Then she turned again and fled through the falling snow, taking the only remnants of his heart with her.
After Bethanne left, Roman had resumed chopping wood until there was no more left to chop. He’d gone into Hassop House, thinking to put something in his stomach, only to discover he couldn’t have eaten a thing if he’d tried. Being inside the main house had all the servants on edge, so he’d left as fast as he could.
He had a groom saddle a horse, and he took off into the snowy night.
Roman had no idea where he intended to ride—he just needed to ride. To clear his thoughts. To somehow convince himself that he was doing the right thing.
He would never have doubted it, if not for the sheer disbelief and pain upon Bethanne’s face as she’d left him. This is not love. Her words haunted him at every turn, and no amount of physical exertion had yet managed to exorcise them from his mind.
It was bad enough that he’d blurted the truth out before he’d taken the time to think about what he was saying, but for her to completely and utterly disbelieve his confession left him an empty shell of a man, a carcass left to rot.
Yet, was that not what he had been all along? At least since his return from the Continent, he’d hardly been more than a hollow replica of the man he’d formerly been. He’d not confided in his family about how very real the nightmares he faced were to him, thinking to protect them from the atrocities of war and the failure he’d become.
Indeed, Roman hadn’t confided in anyone at all, and certainly not in Bethanne. How could he share such evils with her? She had far too many worries of her own without adding his to her list.
This is not love.
It was love that had forced his hand. How could she not see it? Because of his love for her, he must protect her. Were he a man so base as to worry solely about his own lust, he would marry Bethanne without a second thought, nighttime episodes be damned.
Roman rode for hours, back and forth over the hills surrounding Hassop, thoroughly heedless of his destination. When tinges of pink and purple lit the backs of the hills from behind the clouds, he finally stopped…only to realize he’d stopped in front of the cottage. Since it was almost dawn, there really wasn’t a better place for him to be, he supposed. After all, he was to meet Shelton at first light.
As he dismounted and took his horse to the stables, he had to chuckle. He hadn’t named a second, not that he had any earthly idea whom he might. Shelton had neglected to do so as well. They hadn’t discussed terms or weapons.
Not that Roman would be uncomfortable with either pistols or swords. He was more than merely trained in the use of both. It would, however, make the proceedings smoother if they’d sorted some of it out. He’d been too caught up in his worries about Bethanne and how she would face the rest of her family after all of this was said and done, however, and it seemed Shelton might have been too blinded by his rage.
This might prove to be the oddest duel known to man.
Once his horse was settled, Roman started across the white-blanketed lawn toward the clearing beside the cottage, only to draw up short when Lady Rosaline’s scream rent through the pre-dawn air.
Without hesitation, Roman spun on his heels and sprinted for the house. After dashing up the steps, he slammed headlong into the front door, which didn’t budge. “Damnation,” he muttered. Perhaps he oughtn’t to have fixed the locks after all. They’d locked him out. Or at least someone had done so, and it would only take Roman one guess to determine which someone that might have been.
He pounded his fists on the doors, even as Lady Rosaline’s screams grew louder and more frantic. Feminine voices mixed with Shelton’s panicked baritone.
“Let me in!” He could only imagine how a man such as Shelton, one so reckless and quick to unleash his temper, might react to one of Lady Rosaline’s episodes; none of Roman’s imaginings on the matter were particularly pleasant.
Finally, the lock turned and the door fell open, and Roman dashed past a wide-eyed Joyce.
“She’s in a right state, my lord,” the cook said as together, they rushed up the stairs. “It’s one of the worst I’ve ever seen.”
Based on the numerous such events Roman had experienced, both Lady Rosaline’s and his own, that was an ominous sign, to say the least.
When he finally reached her chamber, he bolted through the open door and took a quick assessment of the situation. Shelton was trying to forcefully restrain Lady Shelton, while both Bethanne and Mrs. Temple tugged at his arms.
“My Christopher!” the lady cried. “I must get to my Christopher.” She thrashed on her bed, trying to free her limbs from the man’s grip.
“I will not let you leap from the window.” Shelton tightened his hold, which only served to elicit a pained gasp from Lady Rosaline.
Bethanne tugged on her brother’s arm more determinedly than before. “You’re hurting her, Isaac.”
If this wasn’t stopped at once, Lady Rosaline would have bruises covering her entire body.
“Enough,” Roman said calmly. The last thing any of them needed was f
or more heated emotion to be added to the situation.
Shelton’s furious eyes flashed up to meet him. “Get out of my aunt’s house at once.”
“Please, Isaac.” Bethanne sent a panicked look in her brother’s direction. “He can calm Aunt Rosaline.”
“Oh, sir! You must help me.” Tears filled Lady Rosaline’s pleading eyes. “This madman is keeping me from my intended.” She never ceased her fight for freedom.
Finally, Shelton gave a brief nod, the corners of his mouth working downward.
Roman held his arms out before him, moving toward the mass of bodies on the bed with a great deal of caution. He didn’t want to startle Lady Rosaline, and he didn’t trust Shelton yet. Lord only knew what a man so rash might do if he felt threatened.
“Christopher, you say?” He kept his tone conversational. That always worked best with Lady Rosaline. “Would this be a Christopher Jackson?”
“What’s he doing?” Shelton muttered beneath his breath to his sister.
Roman noticed that the man eased his grip at least slightly, however. That was good.
“Oh, yes. Do you know him?”
Inch by inch, step by step, Roman crept closer to the bed, continuing his now well-rehearsed conversation with the lady.
Shelton gawked as he observed the interaction between the two, a bemused and slightly dismayed expression upon his face.
A moment at a time, Lady Rosaline gave up her fight…and Shelton accordingly relinquished his hold upon her person. By the time Roman sat on the very edge of the bed, the lady was calm with the knowledge that her beau had not returned for her, and Shelton stood beside her bed with his hands hanging at his sides.
“And you will let me know the moment he’s arrived?” Lady Rosaline beseeched him.
“The very instant, my lady.”
She reached over and grasped his hand within both of hers. “You truly are a very kind man.”
The Old Maids' Club 02 - Pariah Page 22