Anthony twisted his mouth with derision. She had promised all of England he’d produce something brilliant. “You are wasting my time. Worthless, useless creature.” The dog licked her beautiful hand.
“He’s very nice. Once he has a bath”
The horses picked up speed as they left the cobbled road of the village and galloped through the rutted, rain-soaked road. Anthony seized the strap for balance. To think she had gone into town unescorted. Didn’t she have any regard for her safety? Disasters gripped his mind. She could have been attacked by highwaymen and been ravaged. Her body left for wild animals. “About the blacksmith…”
“What about him?”
“Stop it. I need him to make copper discs and strands.”She could have broken her neck. He wouldn’t have been there to save her.
The crack of the driver’s whip snapped. The horses whickered. The harnesses clanged. The countryside blurred. What was happening to him?
“I don’t like your tone and there’s nothing to do about it.”
Something shattered inside him, driving him beyond rational thought. “You are as useless as that dog. No one would want you.”
Her head jerked up. The color drained from her face. “I would not want them anyway.”
You fool, he told himself savagely, but the past that tracked him like an ugly shadow came roaring down. He grabbed the sides of his head. No.
“An accident,” the gamekeeper said quietly. “Unseated. When Celeste fell…broke—”
“Get a doctor,” Anthony said gruffly.
“Anthony, it’s no use,” his father said.
“Damn you, get a doctor or I’ll—”
“Her neck was broken by the fall.”
“No—”
“Anthony, she’s dead…”
Rachel burst out crying. The dog howled in chorus and she buried her beautiful face in her hands. “Everyone talks behind my back. Do you know how that feels?” Despair leapt from her so profound…she sobbed, her diatribe never ending, but becoming high-pitched, hysterical sputtering of all the wrongs incurred on her and none of which made any sense to Anthony.
His mind clawed for logic. To escape the lunacy that controlled him. He took deep breaths. The fog cleared.
What a brute he’d been. More than a brute. He’d been cruel.
Rachel needed him. Now.
With certainty, self-pity was an impulse, Rachel seldom tolerated, her New England upbringing forbidding it. Whatever her history was, it had a profound effect on her.
Loud, soulful, hiccupping anguish. “I-I was nearly defiled.”
Chapter Eleven
Nearly defiled? He’d kill the bastard who had dared to touch her.
What a selfish wretch he’d been, thinking of himself when Rachel grieved her own torment.
“You don’t know how to love, Anthony,” Celeste taunted. “You only love your isolation.”
The inside of the carriage grew small and suffocating. He rubbed the back of his neck, debating alternatives. Nothing had prepared him for a crying woman. Not just any crying woman, but Rachel. Postulates, theorems, hypotheses, all his old tools left him. He shifted to her side and took her in his arms, allowing a powerful inclination to comfort her as the most natural thing to do. She struggled to break free but he held her tight until she collapsed against him, still sobbing, her head bowed, her body slumped and wetting his shirt with her tears.
How petrifying her secret must have been. How brave she was to tell him.
The rest of the world disappeared with the horror of isolation that taunted him, that constant companion of emptiness. Why did he refuse to push away from Rachel like he had with Celeste?
