She gave a choked sob at the ridiculousness of her inner ramblings. What did it matter what sort of cat Nik might be when his actions today had been full of the anger she now knew he felt toward her.
Nik had warned her not to attempt to run away from him, but Angelique could not remain here. Dare not remain here. For fear that next time, she might not be strong enough to survive Nik’s brand of sensual torture.
But where could she go to get away from him?
She had no close friends she could run to. Her mother’s constant presence in her life had seen to that. Nor did she wish to join her mother and her lover in London, in the sure knowledge Nik would follow her there and, as was his right, remove her to somewhere she would not be able to escape from. Besides which, Angelique was too disgusted by her mother’s greed in demanding money from Nik before their marriage took place and by Lady Jacqueline’s flight from Stonewell Park earlier today to have any faith in that lady’s ability to protect her. In Lady Jacqueline’s ability to want to protect her only child.
She was very much alone, Angelique realized, with no means of escape. And Nik was a very powerful man, not only as a personal friend of the Prince Regent but also as spymaster for the Crown.
Damn it, she was still Angelique Sinclair, the Duchess of Stonewell, and as such, she would not allow herself to be browbeaten and defeated by Nik or anyone else without first putting up a fight. If that fight meant she had to take herself away from Stonewell Park, then that was what she would do.
She got carefully out of bed to fumble her way round the darkened room until she found a door, relieved when the handle turned and she was able to go through to her own adjoining bedchamber. The scented candle she had lit earlier was sputtering and on the point of going out, and she quickly replaced it with a freshly lit one before dressing in warm clothing and sturdy boots. She then looked around the room, trying to decide what she should take in the small bag she was to carry with her and what she would leave behind.
It saddened her to realize how little she wished to take with her in the small portmanteau she had decided would be enough for her to carry.
Angelique had reasoned walking away would be safer than riding. Her horse, Jet, a foal sired from Nik’s stallion, Obsidian, was far too easily recognizable. The same applied to the Stonewell carriages, all of them, even her own light barouche, bearing the family crest on the doors. Besides which, she would be able to move and hide more easily on foot. She still had not decided where she would go, but there would be plenty of time to think about that once she had made a safe departure from Stonewell Park.
She packed a few trinkets of jewelry given to her by her late father in happier times, leaving all the Stonewell jewelry in the leather case on her dressing table. Nor did she wish to take any of the gifts of jewelry Nik had given her during the years of their marriage. They were too much of a reminder that it had all been a sham. That for some reason Nik now gave every appearance of hating her.
She also packed two of her less ostentatious gowns and equally suitable underwear. Wherever she ended up, Angelique doubted she was going to need silk ball gowns and undergarments.
Lastly, she gathered up the notes and coins she had been diligently saving from her allowance so that she could buy Nik a new black leather saddle as a Christmas present. A present that was no longer needed, because she would not be with Nik at Christmastime.
Was she doing the right thing by leaving?
What other choice did she have?
She knew Nik to be a controlled and disciplined man, but his actions today had been anything but that. If he continued along this extreme course, she might not be so lucky next time as to escape actual physical harm.
She had no idea where Nik was now, except to know he was not in his own bedchamber or this one. The ornate clock on her bedside table told her it was almost two o’clock in the morning, so the possibility was that he was either in his study or the library, the two rooms he usually preferred when he wished to be alone.
Either way, Angelique intended giving both those rooms a wide berth when she quietly left the house.
When she left Nik.
Chapter 6
Fuck!
Fuck, fuck, fuck!
Normally an articulate man who had numerous times stood up and expressed his political opinions in the House to great approval, Nik could now find no other word that adequately described his feelings after discovering his wife had fled the house sometime during the night.
Angelique had run away from him.
Without her horse or a carriage, and barely taking away more with her than the clothes on her back.
A maid had raised the alarm after taking her mistress’s breakfast tray to her bedchamber shortly after nine o’clock, discovering it empty and the bed unslept in.
Nik’s first emotion had been fury upon learning of his wife’s disappearance, Foster having woken him from the alcoholic stupor he had fallen into in his study the previous night. Followed by the conviction he had once again been duped by his scheming wife and been lulled into believing her safely asleep upstairs. All that time, Angelique had been plotting and planning her escape, possibly to France, once assured Nik was no longer in the bedchamber to prevent her from leaving. Stonewell Park was barely a mile or so from the coast. It would be the easiest thing in the world for Angelique to make contact with her French associates and arrange for her removal from England.
Once Nik had calmed down enough to search Angelique’s bedchamber, he had realized how little she had taken with her. Even the Stonewell family diamond and emerald jewelry was still safely stowed in the leather case on her dressing table. Which was odd, because Nik knew the jewels in the necklace, earbobs, and bracelet alone would be worth a small fortune. Nik’s gifts of jewelry to Angelique on her birthdays and their wedding anniversary were also still in her jewelry box.
Enquiries revealed Jet, Angelique’s horse, was still in the stable, as were all the other horses and the ducal carriages.
Which meant Angelique had walked out of Stonewell Park in the middle of night, with few clothes and no obvious financial means to ease her passage to wherever she had decided to flee.
It made no sense to Nik that Angelique had chosen not to take everything of value with her. Or the horse she adored.
Perhaps because Angelique is innocent of treason, after all…
Nik dare not allow himself to leap to that conclusion. Angelique could not be innocent, because there simply was no one else who could be guilty.
Then why had she taken nothing with her when she left?
Perhaps because Angelique did have a lover, one she had stolen away with in the night. A Frenchman who was as rich as Nik, and who could keep her in the life of luxury which she had become accustomed to as Nik’s duchess. A French lover would certainly explain Angelique’s willingness to betray her country and the Crown.
Nik was filled with a murderous rage at the thought that not only was Angelique a traitor but had, in all probability, cuckolded him.
If so, how long had the affair existed? During the earlier happier days of their marriage—or at least what Nik had thought of as their happier days? Had she told her lover of her husband’s belief she was a faithful wife to him, and possibly the two of them had laughed together at Nik’s gullibility? Worse, had Angelique’s eagerness for the physical side of their marriage also been no more than an act in order to keep Nik from discovering her true activities?
His hands clenched at his sides at the thought that might be the case. He would kill Angelique’s lover, and then she would learn what suffering truly was—
“Your Grace?”
He glanced across the desk in his study to where Foster stood in the doorway, fully aware that his own appearance was less than elegant. He jaw was unshaven, and he was still dressed in the evening trousers he had worn for dinner yesterday evening, along with the unfastened white shirt he had pulled on before leaving Angelique asleep in his bed. “Yes?” he prompted
dully.
“Two of the grooms have returned,” the butler informed him. “It seems that Her Grace was seen walking three miles from the house by estate workers on their way to the fields early this morning. She was alone, dressed in a warm cloak and carrying a small bag.”
The first thing Nik had done once he had accepted Angelique truly was gone was to instruct a couple of footmen and several grooms to search the surrounding countryside for any sightings of Angelique. To check if a strange carriage had been seen in the area, which might have facilitated her escape.
Foster now reported Angelique had been seen walking three miles from the house?
That made even less sense to Nik than her having left all her jewelry behind. Or that she had dared to leave at all after he had warned her there would be consequences if she did so. He would carry out his threat to hunt her down like a wild animal.
Unless Angelique had been taken completely by surprise at his arrival and his obvious suspicions?
That made more sense, and yet Nik still found that explanation lacking. Surely any spy worth their salt would have a contingency plan in place for their escape if discovered.
His eyes narrowed. “In which direction was the duchess walking?”
“Toward Millchester.”
Away from the coast.
Was Angelique meeting her lover in the nearest town, or was she intending to take a public coach to her destination once she reached Millchester?
Nik frowned. “At what time was she seen?”
“Six o’clock or thereabouts.”
Nik had no idea what time Angelique had left the house, but it had no doubt been sometime during the early hours of this morning. She had walked the distance of three miles in perhaps two or three hours, possibly delayed by the darkness and her lack of knowledge of the area that far from home. It was now a little past eleven o’clock, which meant she might have managed to walk another seven or eight miles since being seen.
He straightened. “Have Saunders saddle Obsidian,” he instructed briskly as he rose to his feet. “I will go down to the stables as soon as I have changed my clothes.”
Wherever Angelique was, whoever she was meeting—if she was meeting anyone—then Nik would find her. And this time, he would not allow her out of his sight until she had told him the truth.
She was stupid.
Utterly, utterly stupid.
How could she not have seen the rabbit hole before her foot went into it and she twisted her ankle so that even moving it caused her immeasurable pain?
Because she had been distracted and totally unable to see properly with the heat of the tears flooding her eyes and streaming down her cheeks.
She had shed even more tears of frustration as well as pain after landing on her back and then finding she was barely able to move because of the agony of her twisted ankle.
So here she sat, the Duchess of Stonewell, in the dirt of a ploughed field only seven miles away from the house she had left so hastily earlier this morning with no intention of ever returning.
Well, she might still achieve the latter: in all probability, she would starve to death out here, being unable to move in order to find food or water or help herself, with no one the wiser.
Angelique knew she looked a mess. Her bonnet, after becoming entangled in some trees in the woods she had walked through an hour or so ago, was no longer on her head but falling down her back and secured only by the ribbon about her throat. Her hair was likewise disheveled. No doubt there were smears of dirt on her face, as there were lichen stains on her cloak. Her boots were also dusty from trudging across fields and through the woods. The left one was now extremely tight about the swelling of her ankle. One of her stockings had a hole in the knee, revealing the scraped skin beneath from where she had tripped over a fallen tree earlier.
To make matters worse, it was starting to rain.
Maybe it would be best for all concerned if she did starve to death. Or, if the rain continued, she caught pneumonia and died that way. Without Nik in her life, the man she loved, she had very little reason to want to live—
“What the hell are you doing sniffling and groveling about down there in the dirt?”
Despair washed over Angelique the moment she heard her husband’s familiar harsh tone, his presence telling her she could no longer expect to escape or die. The latter not from starvation or pneumonia, at least. Nik’s hands about her throat seemed a more likely scenario.
She could now sense his brooding presence standing behind her, the air so thick with his disapproval, it was making it difficult for her to breathe. “I see you have succeeded in hunting me down as if I am a wild animal, as you said you would.”
“I keep my promises.”
Her shoulders slumped at the accusation she heard in his tone. “Then I would appreciate it if you could just shoot me now and put me out of my misery.”
Nik had almost missed Angelique’s prone form as he rode along the edge of the ploughed field, the dark brown of her cloak the same color as the soil. But then she had sat up, and the red beacon of her hair had been as unmistakable as a siren’s call. “Shooting is too good for you.”
Angelique turned to look at him over her shoulder. “You would do no less for that wild animal if it was wounded.”
His eyes were narrowed as he stepped around and in front of her to take in her disheveled and dirty appearance, frowning as he saw the way in which she appeared to be massaging her right ankle. “You have hurt yourself?”
Her eyebrows rose. “Can you think of another reason why I would be sniffling and groveling about in the dirt?”
Angelique had always treated him with a certain deference in the past. A deference that was now replaced by a defiant attitude.
Nik had never required a true submissive in the bedchamber, only someone who liked to play the same games he did, and Angelique had perfectly suited that role, to their mutual pleasure.
He felt the stirring of his cock at the realization this feistier Angelique promised to be even more entertaining than the woman who had been his wife for the previous three years.
Possibly because the woman he had known during those years was not the true Angelique?
Nik’s expression was grim as he moved down onto his haunches in front of her. “What have you done?” Although the rabbit hole nearby and Angelique’s ankle swelling inside her boot seemed obvious enough.
As was her narrow-eyed glare. “No doubt you will say it serves me right that I have fallen down a rabbit hole and twisted my ankle!”
He raised one dark brow. “Why would I say that?”
She snorted. “Possibly because you enjoy seeing me in pain.”
Nik scowled. “Is that truly what you think of me?”
Angelique’s eyes widened with incredulity. “What else should I think when you spanked and bit me in the first few hours after you arrived in Kent? Since then, you have also wielded a sharp knife to cut off my underclothes.”
The use of the knife had been a little extreme, Nik acknowledged with an inward wince. “It was a welcome change from ripping them off you,” he drawled. “And the bite on your shoulder was passion driven, not malicious,” he defended.
“Indeed?” she challenged. “Perhaps you should let me mark you in the same way and see if you are still of the same opinion.”
Nik believed he might let this Angelique do more than bite him.
His title and forceful nature meant that for many years, he had been given respect and obedience in all areas of his life. An obedience that was now sadly lacking in Angelique. The mere thought of Angelique’s tiny teeth biting his flesh caused his aroused cock to throb in anticipation.
Damn it, he was not supposed to enjoy any of this. “I prefer to be the one doing the biting.”
“Of course you do,” she dismissed with irritation. “Could you at least help me back onto my feet so that I might attempt to get out of the rain?”
The fact Angelique had not stood up after her fall
or since becoming aware of his presence told Nik that was probably because she was unable to do so. This new and fiery Angelique would never have stayed siting on the ground if she was not forced to do so by her own physical incapacity to do anything else.
Instead of helping her to stand, Nik chose to lift her and her small portmanteau up into his arms instead, taking care not to jar her twisted ankle as he straightened. He had a job to do, a duty to his prince and the Crown, but he was not the monster Angelique now believed he was. He certainly did not enjoy seeing her in obvious pain.
Angelique wanted to protest at her husband’s high-handedness as he strode across the field to where Obsidian lazily cropped some grass. But as she could not have moved without his help, she chose to hold her tongue on the subject.
Nik settled her sideways on the saddle before inspecting her foot. “I think it would be best to leave the boot on until we get back to Stonewell Park—”
“I am not going back to Stonewell Park.”
He glanced up at her. “Oh, but you are,” Nik assured her softly.
Angelique’s mouth set stubbornly. “I am not so stupid as to put myself at your untender mercy for a second time.”
Nik’s expression was unreadable as he easily swung himself up into the saddle behind her, his arm about her waist keeping her trapped within his embrace as he took up the reins. “We will return to Stonewell Park, the doctor will be called to look at your ankle,” he added as she would have spoken, “and then you and I shall continue our…discussion.”
Angelique really did not want to return to Stonewell Park. Nor did she especially wish to see a doctor. Her ankle was only twisted and swollen, and the elevation of her foot and the application of a bandage would soon take care of that.
The two of them continuing their discussion sounded the most dangerous of the three things Nik proposed.
To Angelique, that was.
Chapter 7
“I would prefer to be in my own bed in my own bedchamber.” Angelique, propped up against half a dozen pillows, glared across the room to where her husband sat in a chair. The sun shining in the window behind Nik made it impossible for her to see his expression.
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