Revenge Wears Rubies (43 page)

“I recognized his carriage, and from the pace his coachman was setting, they certainly didn’t slow to take notice of me. Then I overheard your screams . . .”

“Oh, my!” Her knees started to buckle, and he caught her easily to carry her back to the only room he was aware of that could offer her a soft place to recover. Settling her onto the sofa, he tried not to convey any sense of hurry, although he was eager to get back to Rand to finish the matter at hand.

“It’s a good thing you never faint.”

“You’re an ogre to tease at such a moment, Galen.”

He nodded. “It’s the least of my sins, Haley. Stay here.”

He left and quickly made his way back to a still unconscious Rand Bascombe. The temptation to kick him didn’t pass, but Galen managed to ignore it all the same and refrain from murdering the man—barely. If he let himself remember Haley’s cries or the way Rand had dared to touch and threaten her—a dark part of him beckoned with rational arguments about their future safety and the expedience of vermin removal in the grand scheme of things. But instead he went to the front door and called out to the waiting footmen. “Come for your man!”

“Yes, your lordship?” They came forward, clearly unaware of the situation.

“Your master is there!” Galen stepped back to give them a good view before he hauled Bascombe up with an ignoble grip on the back of his coat and pants and heaved the man out the front door to land facedown in the mud. “Take him back to London with the regards of the Jaded.”

They complied with sheepish astonishment, managing to lift their filthy employer from the muck with efficiency, if not dignity, as his coat and feet dragged through the mud before they could leverage him into the carriage. Galen stood on the steps and watched the carriage pull away for Bascombe’s uncomfortable journey home.

And the worst of it struck him.

Everything that Michael had said about being cautious and taking these threats seriously—he’d ignored almost all of it and mindlessly brought the worst kind of danger to her doorstep. He’d thought only of how much he loved her, how much he desperately wanted to make amends. He’d offered to marry her as if matrimony would insulate her in some way from the worst of the world.

“Galen?” She stood in the arch of the doorway, her expression anxious. “You’re never going to dry if you don’t come out of the rain.”

“Haley . . .” Despair washed through him at the sight of her, and he suspected that there wasn’t an ounce of misery he could ever complain of that he hadn’t earned. “I don’t think anyone has ever . . .” He took a deep breath, then looked back up at her, forcing himself to drink in every detail. Her hair had come down, and she was so beautiful that it was painful to look into her eyes. “I’m so sorry.”

“Galen, you—”

“I never should have come here.” His spine stiffened, and he could have sworn that he could feel his heart turning to stone with each agony-evoking word. But this time, he was determined to put her happiness and well-being above his own.
I’m a selfish villain! I could have paid her father’s debts from an anonymous distance and guaranteed her whatever life she desired without plopping myself on her doorstep and leading Bascombe to her.
“None of . . . Bascombe threatened you because of me, and I’ll see to it. You’ll have nothing to fear from him or any of his kind, ever again.”

Her hand reached up against the doorframe, as if to steady herself. “You couldn’t have known what Bascombe intended!” She held out her hand. “Come out of the rain, Galen.”

He shook his head. “I’ll send your father back from the village and make sure that you’re not alone. You won’t be troubled with any more of my petitions, Haley.”

“W-what are you saying?” She took a step forward, her eyes darkening.

“It is hard to imagine loving a woman more, or thinking that anyone has ever felt this way . . . but I’ll not see you cursed with me. I’m a fool not to have realized it before. But I’d rather die than see you harmed. Good-bye, Haley.”

He turned and began to walk down the muddy driveway, determined not to look back at her, not to torture himself any longer. He would go back and wear black and have every excuse for sulking and grieving for as long as it took to—

“Galen!” She ran down the steps into the rain and pulled him around to face her.

“Go back, damn it! You’ll catch your death!”

She was already drenched, but she put her hands on her hips defiantly, refusing to give ground. “I’m not made of glass, Mr. Hawke, and I don’t see you rushing out of the weather to prevent your own death, so I’m not going anywhere until you stop this!” She stamped her foot in frustration, and Galen winced as the mud sloshed up onto her dress, effectively ruining it, but augmenting how human she looked, how vulnerable, and even now . . . alluring.

“I am stopping, Haley. I’m stopping all of it! I’m leaving you in peace!”

“In peace?” She grabbed the lapels of his overcoat, a flash of temper in her eyes making his breath catch in his throat in surprise. “If you loved me as you said, then how can I know any peace without you, Galen? If you truly meant it, then how can you even think of leaving me?”

“You heard Bascombe! You won’t be safe with me, Haley. It doesn’t even matter if there is a treasure or not! So long as the rumors exist about the Jaded, they’ll keep trying to take it or uncover what secrets they can, and I don’t know if I can keep you from harm.”

Thunder rolled ominously, and Haley’s grip tightened on his coat. “You wouldn’t know that if you were a sheepherder, Galen. No one can know that they are safe—no man can promise it. So, you’re saying all of this because you don’t love me and you don’t want to marry me, is that right?”

“No! I want you more than air! I’m . . . I’m a flawed man, Haley. I came here to secure my own happiness and never considered that it might cost you your life! How does that redeem me? How in the name of heaven can I ever excuse that?”

“You’re human! Forgive yourself for being human, Galen!”

“After all that I’ve done to you, for all the wrong reasons, how could
you
ever forgive me?”

“Is that truly what you need, Galen?
My
forgiveness?”

He started to answer her but then held very still. Every noble impulse to set her aside for her own good dissipated and he was left with an icy sense of panic, like a man standing on the edge of a cliff.
God, yes, woman . . . pull me back! Help me find my way onto solid ground and see my way out of this tangle!

“Haley . . .”

Her eyes filled with tears. “I forgive you, Galen. I forgive you for . . . John. I forgive you for leaving him there—and for leaving too much of yourself there, too. I forgive you for everything you’ve done to punish us both for living in a world that didn’t really stop to notice any of it. I forgive you for breaking my heart into a thousand pieces . . . because I . . .” She released his coat, a rain- soaked Aphrodite freeing him to fly. “If hate blinds, then what of love? For I swear, I cannot see anything but you, Galen.”

“Then keep me, Haley.”

“Not unless you make me one promise.” Tears flowed freely, undisguised by the rain, but her voice was steady.

“Name it.”

“No more hiding.”

And he knew exactly what she was asking, and every corner of his heart filled with light and heat. His beautiful Haley wasn’t afraid of the Black. She would be with him from this moment on, and there wasn’t a demon on any plane of existence that they couldn’t vanquish together.

“Never, my love. Never again.” He kissed her, as if with every touch and taste he reclaimed his soul, as if he would never let her go. She melted against him, and he couldn’t surmise where he ended and she began, and Galen savored the sweet serenity of the world at last falling away. He pulled his lips from hers, only to whisper in her ear, “I’m going to tell you that I love you each day and every day that I have left until you command me to stop.”

She smiled through her tears, joy fueling a playful light in her eyes. “You have never listened to a single command I’ve given you before, Mr. Hawke.”

“I’ve obeyed every word!” He drew her back into his arms, a wicked grin on his face. “Of course, you’ll have the rest of your life to test my husbandly compliance, Miss Moreland.”

She gave him a look of equal mischief, and he could feel the seductive burn of it uncoil within him. “I’m going to look forward to that.”

“You’ve saved my life, Haley.” He kissed her again, restraint falling away as she mirrored his desire, and the weeks of separation and denial fueled a searing heat between them that gave no quarter. Every longing he’d been forced to ignore sprang into life and demanded her surrender. Galen’s kiss claimed every soft, sweet corner of her mouth, experiencing every exquisite texture, and drawing from her all that he needed as the fire in his blood began to dismiss logic.

Her knees buckled and he held her weight, cupping her delectable bottom through the wet layers of her clothes, pressing her up against him, even as his own knees bent so that they were both kneeling in the mud and the rain, intertwined in an embrace that allowed for nothing between them. Haley’s hand slid up inside his coat and across the wet silk of his shirt, and Galen growled in frustration. He dropped his arm to ready himself to tip her back and carry her inside the house where he could finally have his wicked way with her, when the sound of a carriage abruptly changed his plans.

Lord Moreland’s mouth was open in shock as his light rig began to slow. “What the hell are you doing to my daughter?”

Galen helped Haley to her feet, suddenly aware of their muddy state and exactly what he’d been about to “do” to Lord Moreland’s daughter. Galen braced for the man’s justifiable reaction.

“Mr. Hawke!” Lord Moreland pulled hard on the reins, leaping from the carriage before it had genuinely come to a halt. “Unhand my daughter, you cad!”

“Father, please!” Haley tried to step between them. “He wasn’t—”

“He was!” Her father stopped, his face red, although his expression was wavering from angry to simply perplexed. “Is this not the man you insisted I not so much as mention? I swear, Alice threatened to nail my doors shut if I interfered and he is . . .
kissing you! On the ground!
Without even the gentlemanly accord of a damn umbrella!”

Galen did his best not to smile and stepped out to prevent Haley from acting as a shield. He wasn’t about to let his future father-in-law mistake him for a coward. “She is extremely stubborn, your lordship, as you may have warned me. I did attempt to send her back inside, but . . . well, as you can see, we may have forgotten the weather momentarily.”

“Galen!” Haley elbowed him in the ribs.

“You’ve forgotten more than the weather, young man!” Lord Moreland crossed his arms. “This is absolutely unacceptable and—”

“I’ve asked your daughter to marry me, and as you noticed, she has agreed.”

“M-marry?” He looked at them both for signs of madness—beyond their refusal to acknowledge that it was raining. “She accepted?”

Galen nodded. “In
spite
of my wealth and title, she has.”

“Father”—she put her hand on his arm—“I am in love with Galen Hawke. I will have him, and no other.”

Galen was sure that if a man could die of happiness, it would have occurred at that instant, hearing her proclaim her feelings to her father, so unashamedly and so sweetly.

“Th-then you should marry him.” Her father kissed her forehead. “And let the rest of the world find its own way, dearest child.”

Lord Moreland released her back to Galen’s hands, shaking his head. “Speediest courtship I’ve ever seen!”

Galen swept her up, circling with her in his arms, until she threw her head back and began to laugh, and with each melodic peal of merriment, the last shadows vanished and Galen knew he’d finally made his way back home.

Glasses raised high in Rowan’s restored library, in unison the men hailed their friend’s great fortune and unpredictable success in falling into nuptial bliss and his safe return from his honeymoon. “To Galen! To the new Lady Winters!”

Galen kept his arms crossed, enjoying their warm wishes and doing his best not to capitulate to the worst of their well-meant jibes.

“Thank heavens Josiah refused to take that bet on who would be the first among us to suffer a wife!” Ashe intoned, taking another drink. “I’d be bankrupt!”

Josiah rolled his eyes, but Rowan couldn’t help himself. “And who did you say would be the first to fall?”