“I said nothing about it being urgent,” Emma defended with a wince as her husband raised a brow.
Hawkwood looked at Amanda. “I see now why Alex likes you. Intelligent as well as beautiful. It is a lethal combination to men such as Alex and I.” He gave his wife an appreciative smile.
Amanda studied him through narrowed lids. “What was your reason for suggesting I should come here, Your Grace?”
“Well, it was not so that Alex had the freedom to take the new woman in his life back to Wetherby House and fuck her,” he drawled.
Oh dear God…
Color burned Amanda’s cheeks. “I am so sorry you overheard me saying that, Your Grace. It is only… I am angry with Alex for sending me away, but I should not have spoken in such a blunt and unladylike manner in your home or to your wife.”
“Why not, if it’s the way you feel?” Hawkwood’s arm dropped about Emma’s shoulders and drew her against his side. “I am sure Emma is no stranger to fucking. In fact, I take delight in reminding her of it on a daily, sometimes thrice daily, basis.”
His wife chuckled. “Adam.”
He kissed her lightly on the nose before rising to his feet. “I am not at liberty to tell you all that has transpired in recent months,” he told Amanda briskly. “Suffice it to say whatever Alex is doing, it is with your welfare and safety in mind.”
“My safety?” Amanda echoed.
“Yes.”
“I do not… Is Alex in danger?” she prompted suspiciously.
Hawkwood shrugged. “No more so than usual.”
“What does that mean?”
The duke’s mouth thinned. “It means that in the past, my brother has played fast and loose with other men’s wives. Always a dangerous pursuit. Brother or not, I would have run him through with a sword if he had so much as attempted to flirt with my wife.”
There was no doubting the sincerity of Hawkwood’s words or the fierce glitter of intent in his eyes. “You must know why he behaves that way,” Amanda defended.
Hawkwood’s gaze narrowed. “Do you?”
She nodded. “Because he wishes to ensure those neglected wives know more of happiness than your mother did during her unhappy marriage to your father.”
To her surprise, Hawkwood gave her an appreciative bow. “You really are an extraordinary young woman, Amanda Fullerton. No wonder Alex has no idea if he is on his head or his arse where you are concerned.”
Her cheeks warmed again. “That is all well and good, Your Grace—”
“You really must call me Adam if we are to spend more time together in future,” he invited. “And I very much believe we will be,” he added enigmatically.
No matter how much Amanda pestered the other couple during dinner, neither of them would enlighten her any further as to what Alex was protecting her from.
By the time Amanda retired for the night, she was so frustrated with the couple’s determination not to tell her anything more on the subject that she knew she would not be able to sleep until someone had given her the answers she required.
And if the duke and duchess would not, then Alex must be made to do so.
Chapter 13
Alex regretted sending Amanda away as soon as he heard the wheels of Hawkwood’s carriage driving away over the cobbled street with Amanda safely inside.
Safe was the relevant word.
Amanda was now safe within the walls of Hawkwood House.
The knowledge of that was the only reason Alex had held himself back from running out into the street and demanding the carriage stop so that he could pull Amanda out of it and into his arms. No matter how ridiculous it might have made him look.
He had resisted, of course, knowing if Juanita Millbrook was watching Wetherby House, as Alex believed she was, it would only confirm Amanda as being a worthy target for the other woman’s jealous rage, completely nullifying the sacrifice Alex had made by sending Amanda away in the first place. And it had been a sacrifice on Alex’s part, when being apart from Amanda was the very last thing he wanted.
Alex froze as he heard a noise outside the hallway of his study. It couldn’t be any of the household staff, because he had dismissed them immediately after dinner and then deliberately left every room in the house in darkness apart from the lit candles in his study to indicate exactly which room he was in. If anyone was to be a target for Juanita Millbrook’s insanity, then Alex intended for it to be himself.
His eyes widened, heart pounding as he watched the doorknob on the outer door slowly begin to turn, comforted by the knowledge that he had a loaded pistol on his thigh and one hidden by the desk. He hoped he wouldn’t have to use it, of course, but he had no idea how much more demented Juanita was than she had been two months ago when she attempted to kill Emma.
Juanita was certainly deranged enough still to have broken into his house last week and then attacked Amanda earlier today.
Alex kept his face devoid of expression when the door finally opened fully and it was indeed Juanita Millbrook who now stood framed in the doorway, looking for all the world as if she were on her way to a ball rather than having just broken into Alex’s home. Her beautiful face was expertly made up, her lips painted a deep red. Her dark hair was fashionably styled, her royal-blue gown the same color as the lining of the midnight-blue cloak she wore over it. Only the glittering fierceness of her dark gaze indicated she was not as emotionally stable as her appearance otherwise indicated.
That, and the fact she held a small pistol in her right hand and it was pointed directly at Alex.
“Did it not occur to you to knock on the front door and wait to be admitted?” Alex drawled.
Dark brows rose over those feverishly bright eyes. “Are you not pleased to see me?”
The truthful answer was no, Alex was not in the least pleased to see this woman again. In fact, he wished he had never met her at all, let alone entered into a brief affair with her.
But the pistol pointed at him warned against such honesty. As did his need to settle this situation once and for all. Malcolm Moorcroft had confided earlier today that his mother-in-law had been a resident in a mental institution for the past ten years. The two men had agreed that must also be Juanita’s fate if she was determined to continue to act in this emotionally unbalanced fashion. Her presence here this evening, pistol in hand, confirmed that she was.
“I have been aware of your absence, yes,” Alex now answered Juanita carefully, all the time keeping his gaze on that raised pistol.
She smiled. “I spent a few tedious weeks in the country at Millbrook’s insistence, but I am back in town now.”
“So I see.”
She chuckled. “Were you terribly bored in my absence?”
Alex noted the pistol in her hand did not waver in the slightest and was still pointed directly at his heart. No doubt ready to be used if she should take exception to something he did or said. “Hawkwood and Emma ensured I was kept entertained,” he dismissed noncommittally.
“Of course.” Juanita smiled. “I was pleased to hear of their marriage.”
Alex nodded. “Indeed.”
She sobered. “You must understand, Alex, my past actions were not against Emma Harris personally,” she dismissed. “I simply will not allow any other woman to think she might take what is mine.”
Considering the two of them had spent only a few weeks fucking each other at every opportunity that arose and not a word of love or affection had ever passed Alex’s lips during the whole of that time, he had never and still did not consider himself to be the property of Juanita Millbrook.
If he belonged to anyone, then it was—
“Exactly who is this young woman Amanda Fullerton you have staying here and whom you claim to be your ward?” Dark eyes glittered malevolently. “You never mentioned having a ward to me.”
Alex felt an inward jolt that someone must have told this woman Amanda’s full name and that she was Alex’s ward.
Although the incident when this woman ha
d tried to kill Emma two months ago had not been made public knowledge once Millbrook agreed to remove his wife from Society for the rest of the Season. So none of Juanita’s friends would have had any reason not to answer her questions regarding Alex or Amanda.
Alex settled back in his chair and allowed one of his hands to fall and take hold of the butt of his pistol. “To be truthful, I put my ward in boarding school three years ago and had forgotten her existence until she arrived on my doorstep last week,” he drawled.
“Well, we can soon send her back again,” Juanita dismissed. “Then once you have disposed of my husband, the two of us can finally be together.”
Alex could only assume that “disposed of” was a euphemism for him killing Millbrook.
Even if Alex had been in love with Juanita, which he most certainly was not, he would not have countenanced killing her husband. Having spent years in Wellington’s army doing exactly that on behalf of the Crown, being the cause of another person’s death was complete anathema to him. Besides, Millbrook’s only crime was in marrying Juanita in the first place. Something Alex had known from the other man’s weary and haggard appearance earlier today, Millbrook already had ample cause to regret.
“I—” Alex broke off his denial as he saw a slight movement in the shadowed hallway behind Juanita.
Was someone else here?
Buckham, no doubt, having decided to check if Alex needed anything before the butler retired for the night.
Alex couldn’t think of anyone else it could be; none of the maids would have dared intrude above stairs at this time of night.
If Juanita should become aware of the other man’s presence—
“I am afraid I am now far too old for school, madam.”
Holy hell…
Not Buckham, but Amanda!
Alex rose abruptly to his feet. What the hell was Amanda doing back here when he had sent her away for her own good only a few hours ago?
Whatever it was, Amanda had now put herself directly in the way of the fury now contorting Juanita’s features as she began to turn, that small pistol still in her now angrily shaking hand.
Alex raised his own pistol and aimed it at Juanita.
“I am very sorry to be the one to break another of your vases, Alex,” Amanda told him calmly before bringing that vase down on the side of Juanita’s head.
Alex could only watch in wide-eyed incredulity as Juanita first froze from the force of the blow and then slowly began to crumple to the floor onto the shards of the shattered vase.
Amanda stepped over the other woman’s prone body to enter the study fully, turquoise eyes glittering with temper. “If you ever think to protect me again by putting yourself in danger, I shall smash a vase over your head!”
Had Alex fallen asleep at his desk and was now dreaming?
Because Amanda could not actually be here at almost midnight and currently upbraiding him for protecting her after having completely immobilized the woman who had been pointing a pistol at him.
Could she?
“I wish you would stop staring at me in that incredulous fashion and actually say whatever it is you wish to say to me.” Amanda snapped her irritation with Alex’s continued silence the following morning.
After what had, she freely admitted, been a traumatic night.
Having let herself quietly out of Hawkwood House the previous evening before walking to Wetherby House through the dark streets, Amanda had not been at all pleased to find the servants’ door slightly ajar and the lock looking as if it had been broken.
Once inside, she had stealthily followed the sound of murmured voices, arriving in the hallway outside Alex’s study just in time to hear him tell his visitor how he had “sent her off to boarding school and forgotten her existence.”
Amanda was fully aware of that already, had not needed to hear Alex confirm it.
But she had forgotten all about the hurt those words caused the moment she realized the other woman was pointing a gun at Alex and calmly talking of his “disposing” of her husband. Alex might be many things—far too handsome for his own good, arrogant, ridiculously chivalrous toward women, to name but a few—but Amanda did not believe he was a murderer.
The disgusted expression on his face confirmed he had no intention of killing anyone, least of all this woman’s husband. That it was, in fact, this woman who represented a danger to Amanda and was no doubt the same woman who had run her down in the park earlier today.
The vase on the table in the hallway had been far too convenient a weapon for Amanda to resist using it.
She had barely stepped over the other woman’s prone body and snapped at Alex when there was a commotion out in the entrance hall, followed seconds later by the arrival of Hawkwood and Emma.
It seemed the other couple, having discovered her empty bedchamber at Hawkwood House, realized where she must have gone and decided to follow her here.
Afterwards, Amanda had sat beside Emma in the drawing room while Malcolm Millbrook was sent for. He had brought a doctor with him. It transpired that Juanita Millbrook’s mother had suffered from a mental illness which had now manifested itself in her daughter. The doctor had no choice but to admit Juanita Millbrook to the same mental institution as her mother after she had flown across the room toward her husband with her fingers curled into lethal talons and screaming obscenities.
By the time the doctor, Millbrook, and his hysterical wife left the house, it was almost two o’clock in the morning.
Alex had not presented any objection when the duke announced Amanda would be returning to Hawkwood House with him and Emma. Indeed, Alex had not spoken to Amanda at all. A fact which had hurt her dreadfully.
Consequently, she had not expected Alex would ask to see her the following morning after calling and speaking with his brother and sister-in-law. Or that, once Amanda had joined Alex in the drawing room, he would then proceed to stand and simply stare at her in that incredulous fashion rather than actually saying anything.
She glared her impatience with this uncomfortable silence. “If you are annoyed at having another vase broken—”
“Fuck the vase!” Alex burst out forcefully, his hands clenched into fists at his sides in an effort not to simply grab hold of Amanda and shake her until her teeth rattled in her head. “You can break every bloody useless vase in Wetherby House for all I care! But do not ever, ever, put yourself in danger again as you did last night. You could have been shot, damn it. Could be dead right now!” He shuddered at the thought of how nearly that had come to pass the previous night.
Amanda’s mouth twisted into a mocking smile. “At least it would have saved you the trouble of knowing what to do with me—Alex…?” she questioned sharply as he could no longer hold himself and check and grasped the tops of her arms to shake her. “Alex!” she protested when he continued to do so.
His eyes glittered down at her. “You have no idea what you did, do you?” he accused, fear clenching his gut every time he so much as dwelt on the memory of Juanita’s intention to shoot Amanda.
Every time Alex closed his eyes, he could envisage that scene spread out before him. Amanda prostrate on the floor, a bloom of red spreading across her chest as she gasped her last breath. He hadn’t managed to sleep at all last night for thinking of it.
Amanda’s brows rose. “Saved your life, you mean?”
“And almost lost your own doing it,” he bit out between gritted teeth.
“As I said—”
“Do not repeat that ridiculous statement unless you wish me to put you over my knee and spank your arse again,” he warned harshly.
Right now, Amanda thought that might be preferable to the white-hot anger currently driving Alex. “At least you now know I was not lying about who smashed the other vase.”
He nodded tersely. “For which I owe you an apology.” His mouth twisted. “If I had known you better, I would have realized that you see no reason to ever lie. As you have continued to have absolutely no regard f
or your own safety,” he added grimly.
“I have no idea what you want me to say,” Amanda admitted, totally bewildered by the fierceness of Alex’s anger. “I simply saw the gun in that woman’s hand and that she had it pointed at you, and knew I had to stop her from firing it.” She shrugged. “The vase was the closest thing to hand.”
“Will you stop talking about that fucking vase as if it actually matters!” His voice rose angrily, fingers still gripping Amanda’s arms so tightly, they were sure to leave bruises. As if becoming aware of that fact, Alex released her so suddenly, Amanda stumbled back a step or two. “What the hell were you even doing back at Wetherby House last night?”
She grimaced. “I wanted an explanation as to what, or whom, you were protecting me from.”
“At almost midnight?”
“I could not sleep until I had an answer, and Hawkwood and Emma refused to give me one.”
His eyes narrowed to glittering slits. “So you walked to Wetherby House, alone, and in the dark?”
“Yes.”
“Did it not occur to you that you put yourself in danger by doing so?”
She gave a snort. “Further danger, you mean?”
“This is no light matter, Amanda. You simply cannot roam the streets of London in the dead of night. You could have been attacked, or worse.”
“I did not think of it in those terms.”
“No, of course you did not,” he muttered disgustedly. “Miss Amanda Fullerton does what she wants when she wants, no matter what the consequences.”
“And if I had not come to Wetherby House last night, you might now be dead!” she defended.
“I was never in any danger. I had my own pistol hidden beneath the desk.”
“Then why did you not use it?” she accused.
“You are impossible!” Alex ran an agitated hand through the dark thickness of his hair. “I cannot talk to you any more just now. I have to go.” He turned abruptly on his heel.
“But—but am I not to return to Wetherby House with you now the danger is over?” she protested.
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