A Lord Rotheby's Holiday Bundle (116 page)

Finally, two sets of footsteps raced
up the stairs. It was about time.

“
Bloody hell,” Utley
muttered, then yanked her backward, into a seldom-used
study.

Chapter
Fourteen

Peter’s stomach settled in his toes as
he rushed from the supper room. Sarah needed him.

The larger concern—the one that had
him shoving Sinclaire aside and running, instead of walking—was
that she’d come downstairs alone.

Without Mrs. Pratt.

With none of his countless servants
seeing her and stopping her.

Something was very, very wrong in his
home.

Without paying attention to whether
Sinclaire was still following him or not, he raced ahead. All he
knew was he had to get upstairs to his daughter. Now.

Peter took the stairs two at a time.
The third floor, which housed his nursery, was almost completely
dark. “Deuced footmen. What the blazes are they doing instead of
their jobs?” A sparse two candles near the nursery door cast an
eerie glow upon the hall in the absence of the usual lighting,
providing just enough to see the doorway to his children’s
nursery.

He took one from the sconce and used
it to light his path.

Slept
. Thank God. He held the candle aloft in the room, checking
both beds again to be certain that both of his children were in
their beds where they belonged.

A heavy clomping of boots in the hall
signaled Sinclaire’s arrival. Peter took great care to silently
exit the nursery, then closed the door behind him.

“
You could stand to walk
with a lighter touch.” Peter glared upon his friend, even as
another brash set of boots came up behind Sinclaire.

Neil skidded to a stop beside them. “I
saw you two running off. What’s wrong?” The excitement in his tone
was impossible for him to hide, as though he were spoiling for an
adventure.

“
Sarah’s all right?”
Sinclaire asked, ignoring Neil.

“
Asleep. Lower your voices
or you’ll wake her again.”

“
And Miss Matthews?”
Sinclaire’s voice echoed in the deserted hall.

The man clearly didn’t understand how
to follow orders. Granted, this was nothing new. Sinclaire and
Peter’s younger brother, Alex, had done as they pleased as
boys.

Blast the earl for his
impudence.

Neil looked back and forth between
them. “What’s happened to Jane?”

“
Well?” the earl prodded,
his tone a touch more reserved than it had been before.

“
Well what?” Good Lord,
Peter was supposed to be hosting a bloody ball. Neil and Sinclaire
couldn’t expect him to piddle around in the hallway answering inane
questions all night. His guests would be waiting for him, and Mama
would be furious if he was gone too long.

“
Well, is Miss Matthews all
right?” Sinclaire’s glare matched his own. “Is she still in the
nursery with the children?”

Christ, he’d forgotten about Jane in
his worry over Sarah. “I am... She wasn’t there.”

Just like the minx to disappear on
him. It was her bloody come-out ball going on downstairs, and now
she was missing. As though he didn’t have enough other concerns
weighing on his mind at the moment. All of his servants had up and
abandoned their posts during the ball.

“
Something isn’t right,
here,” Sinclaire murmured. “She wouldn’t have left the children
alone. Not with the nurse missing and Lady Sarah being
frightened.”

Peter sighed. Of course, he was right.
Blast it.

“
We have to find her,
Peter,” Neil said. “She could be in trouble. I should
have—”

“
She bloody well
is
trouble,” Peter said,
cutting his brother off without thinking about what he was saying.
He punched the wall beside him, causing the candle still burning in
its sconce to bounce around.

A soft moan sounded in the
hall—feminine, afraid. “Blast, I just woke Sarah again,” he
muttered.

“
That wasn’t Sarah.”
Sinclaire’s voice was low—so low Peter had difficulty making out
his words. The earl jerked his head toward the unused study behind
where Peter had just assaulted the wall, his eyes huge and black,
and realization settled over Peter.

It couldn’t be happening again. Not
like with Mary. Not in his own deuced home.

Not with his family—his
children—present.

But Jane’s muffled whimper told him it
was.

His jaw tensed and he held his arms at
his sides, clenching and unclenching his fists. For a moment—only a
moment—he tried to calm himself.

Peter strode to the study, Sinclaire
and Neil close behind. He reached to wrench the door from its
hinges, but it was already wide open, as though it was waiting for
him.

He thrust his candle inside, sweeping
it about. Even with what had happened to Mary, he couldn’t have
ever prepared himself for what stood before him.

Utley, the licentious bastard, had one
hand covering Jane’s mouth to stifle her cries. His other hand held
her arms captive even as she struggled against him. Her eyes were
wide and her legs shook. She had to be frightened out of her wits.
Thank God she wasn’t crying. Peter would lose the very thin veil of
control he had over his sanity if she were crying.

“
Somerton,” Utley said, his
voice high and shaking. “I had planned to be caught, but not by
you.” The Adam’s apple in his throat bobbed once, then
again.

What game was the bastard
playing? Wasn’t ruining one woman and leaving her to suffer the
consequences alone enough? Peter narrowed his eyes at him, but
faced him full-on. “You have precisely sixty seconds to unhand Miss
Matthews and leave my home before I seek retribution.” Which raised
another question—how did Utley even get in to Hardwicke House, in
the first place? The bastard was most certainly
not
on the guest list for the
evening.

“
Ha. Don’t you see?” Utley
asked with a cackle. “I’ve already won. Your
Miss Matthews
is ruined now. In
moments, your guests will be coming upon us and she’ll have no
choice but to marry me. The scandal will be all over Town by
morning.”

Peter would allow Jane to marry that
scoundrel about as soon as he would swim to France and join
Napoleon’s army, pulling his family along behind him. The man was
daft. Which, of course, Peter already knew. Something in Utley had
cracked back on that day…that day that haunted Peter’s dreams since
he was only a boy.

Losing one’s sanity, however, did not
give one leave to ruin countless other lives. Rawden’s death, no
matter the cause, couldn’t be enough to justify ruining other
innocents. “Forty-three seconds. I suppose you expect to receive
her dowry as well? Is this about money, Utley? We all know you’re
well on the way to squandering the fortune you
inherited.”

Utley made no move to release her.
“You’ve boasted quite a sum for her. Any gentleman in need of
some...assistance, shall we say...? would be a fool not to do the
same.” He licked his lips and ran a hand over the sweat beading
over his brow. “I’m no fool.”

“
Twenty-four seconds. And
you
are
a fool if
you think you’ll ever again see even so much as a farthing from me,
for any reason. You’re an even greater fool if you expect me to
believe money is the deciding factor in all of this.”

A tic formed in Utley’s jaw, and he
moved his hand from Jane’s mouth to her décolletage, wetting his
lips repeatedly through his sneer.

Heat rose up through Peter’s body and
his head jerked involuntarily to the side and back. He felt, more
than saw, Sinclaire and Neil both slip past him and closer to where
Utley held Jane captive.

“
You don’t like that, do
you, Somerton? You want her for yourself?” Utley laughed. “It
matters not to me—I wouldn’t bed her for the king’s entire
treasury. She can be your plaything. But I
will
have her dowry.”

Peter’s rage turned his vision red. He
dove for Utley, reaching for his throat. Neil pulled Jane away just
in time.

A rip sounded as they all fell, two in
one direction, two in the other.

Peter held onto Utley’s lapel and
planted his fist into the bastard’s face over and over. Peter
reached back to send another straight through his nose when a hand
pulled back hard on his arm.

“
Stop, Somerton.” Sinclaire
tightened his grip and wouldn’t let go. “Enough.”

“
Enough?” he roared. It
would never be enough. He could never reclaim Mary’s honor. And
now, he could never reclaim Jane’s honor, either.

He started to say just that, but
Jane’s quiet voice stopped him. “Yes. It’s enough.
Please.”

She sat in the corner of the room
shaking almost as badly as Peter was with Neil at her side. The
bodice of her gown was held up only by her hands. Still, she didn’t
cry. Jane’s eyes pierced through his, pleading with him. “Let it be
enough.”

One more. He only wanted one more
shot.

But he couldn’t do it and then look at
her again. Not when she asked him to do otherwise. Peter let go of
Utley’s coat. A thud sounded when he hit the floor.

Peter’s eyes followed the bastard, and
landed on his own hand. It was covered in blood. Had he hurt Utley
that badly? The memory already faded into the distance.

When Utley painstakingly rose to his
feet and stood in the dim light filtering in from the hall, streams
of blood poured from his mouth and nose.

“
Leave,” Peter said, his
voice strangled, foreign sounding. “Never dare to step foot on my
property again.”

Utley’s eyes were wild, but he said
nothing. He turned and fled from the room, rushing for the back
stairs only used by the servants. That must have been how he got
inside Hardwicke House in the first place.

“
I’ll follow him,” Neil
said, just before Peter did as his feet impelled him to do and
followed the bastard himself. “He won’t return.”

“
I’ll go, too,” Sinclaire
added and rushed out.

Peter didn’t trust his voice (nor
himself, in terms of actually allowing the man to live), so he
nodded and remained where he was as Neil and Sinclaire chased Utley
down the stairs to some unknown end.

Jane still sat on her chair in the
corner, her eyes never leaving him, her hand holding the tattered
remains of her gown to her chest. Her eyes were bright, unwavering.
Focused on him.

Both of them were still
trembling.

Peter took a step toward her. When she
didn’t flinch, he took two more. “I...” Thoughts left him faster
than they arrived. Fiend seize it, what does one say at a time like
this?

However, Jane seemed unconcerned about
his inability to form a coherent sentence. She stood and walked
slowly—meticulously slowly—to stand before him. With each step she
took, he forgot to breathe.

How could she be so serene? So
unruffled?

Peter was ready to rip limbs from the
next man who stepped foot through the door—no matter who that man
might be—if not worse. He wanted to bellow his agony from the
rooftop for all of Town to hear.

He wanted to wrap her in his arms and
assure himself no one would ever hurt her again.

“
Peter?” she said, her
voice a mere whisper.

He couldn’t answer; he must say
nothing, so as to avoid saying something wrong. Hurtful.
Damaging.

To avoid doing something he would
regret.

There were enough regrets already in
his life.

She drew ever closer, her eyes
searching him for something he couldn’t give her. A foot away. A
breath away.

A heartbeat away.

The heat radiating from her body would
be his undoing if she didn’t back away that instant. He should push
her aside—force some distance between them.

But he couldn’t move.

Jane examined him, her eyes scanning
his face, his chest, moving down to his hand. He focused on her
eyes as she studied his battered, swollen, bloodied hand. Utley’s
blood? Or his own? It hardly mattered at this point.

What mattered was that she took that
hand—his hand—into one of her own and gingerly felt over it. Her
touch was light as a feather.

It seared him.

“
No,” Peter said. He
attempted to pull his hand free, to finally force his body to
separate from her—her heat—but her butterfly grasp turned to steel.
She wouldn’t set him loose.

Once he stopped pulling against her,
she trailed her fingers over the bones of his fingers, feeling for
breaks. She bent to the ground and ripped a strip from her
underskirts.

In the process, the hand which had
been covering her bosom dropped away, and the torn fabric fell away
with it.