“I tried to tell you before,” Shrewsbury said. “I made every effort to see you, and after you left London, I sent you letters.”
She had returned them all, unopened.
“Because I did not care to hear what you had to say, my lord,” she told him resolutely. “If you will excuse me, I must return to the ball before my absence is noted. Thanks to you, I am already treading upon the thinnest ice in society.”
But his grip on her hands only tightened.
“My lady—”
“I recommend you release my betrothed,” interrupted a deep, accented baritone.
Catriona turned to find the familiar silhouette of the earl prowling toward them. Relief warred with misgiving at his appearance. Shrewsbury still held her hands in his, and the scene must look damning. She could only wonder how long Rayne had been in the shadows, how much of her dialogue with the marquess he had overheard.
“Unless you would like to name your second and meet me at dawn?” Rayne persisted, his voice laced with danger.
Shrewsbury dropped her hands as if they had been fashioned of flame, but instead of fleeing the balcony as she had supposed he might, he turned to face the earl.
“I am an excellent marksman, Rayne,” the marquess said. “If you wish to take such a foolish risk, I welcome it, especially since your demise will leave Lady Catriona free once more.”
Catriona inserted herself between the two men, facing Rayne with Shrewsbury at her back. “Please, my lords, stop this nonsense. It ill becomes the both of you. Bloodshed and further scandal will not solve anything.”
Rayne’s dark eyes glittered. “He was touching you.”
“My hands, nothing more,” she promised. “I was leaving the balcony when you arrived, my lord. Nothing untoward occurred, nor would it have, I assure you.”
“You are damned right it will not,” Rayne growled. “If this puppy so much as looks in your direction again, I will gut him.”
“How dare you?” Shrewsbury cried out at her back. “I ought to challengeyouto a duel instead for such an insult.”
Rayne smiled, but there was no mirth or levity, only menace. “Be my guest,bellaco. I will not challenge you to pistols, but swords, and then I will make good on my word to slit you from your navel to your chin. No one dishonors my family. Do you understand?No one.”
Catriona shuddered at the suppressed rage in the earl’s voice before making the disquieting realization he had just referred to her as his family. “Rayne,” she said pleadingly. “I do not want violence. Please.”
Rayne’s lips tightened, and his shoulders were still tensed, as if he were a man about to go to battle. “You are acobarde, a coward, to use a woman to get what you want and then expect her to fall upon you with gratitude. Do not dare to ever so much as look in her direction again.”
“I will not be threatened by you,” Shrewsbury said.
A change came over Rayne then. Catriona could not define it, for it was so subtle, someone less observant may have missed the manner in which his shoulders went back, the sudden stillness with which he held himself. But she noticed, and a new kind of fear crept into her heart.
It occurred to her she did not know what he was capable of any more than she had known what Shrewsbury would do. And yet, she was entrusting herself to him. To this stranger who was at times smoldering, at times cold. This man whose heart belonged to a dead woman. This man who intended to wed her, bed her, and leave her.
“Go inside now, Lady Catriona,” Rayne ordered her. “I will find you within.”
She did not want to leave. Misgiving held her in place. She feared what the two men would do to each other. “Lord Rayne, I do not think it wise for the two of you to remain here alone. Let us all return to the ball separately and forget this discourse ever happened.”
“Go,” Rayne said, and though his tone was gentle, it was edged in stone.
He would not bend.
There would be no forgetting.
She swallowed down a knot of dread. Both men had left her with little choice. First, Shrewsbury had kept her on the balcony far too long, increasing the odds of discovery. Now, Rayne had come as well, as distant, cold, and angry as he had ever been. The longer she lingered, the sooner her mother would look for her, the greater the chances of someone else seeking the cooler air of the outdoors.
“Promise me you will not hurt him,” she begged.
A grim smile twisted the earl’s lips. “Such pretty concern for the man who ruined you. Your heart is too good, my lady. But never fear. I have no intention of maiming thisbellacounless he forces me to. You must return to the ball before you are missed.”
Still filled with a grim sense of foreboding, she curtsied, the formality ingrained in her, and left the men behind. Slipping back into the ball, she searched for a friendly face and found Hattie near the potted palm she had abandoned not long before. She made her way through the revelers, all too aware of the conversation between the earl and the marquess she had left. What would Rayne do? What would Shrewsbury say?
