A twisted smirk stretched his pale mouth. “I recall having you on your back seven years ago. Apparently, you liked it so much, you readily got on your back again.”
“The only reason a woman would get on her back for a vile piece of excrement like you is if you paid her,” Phoebe said, her teeth clenched.
His expression turned malicious and he pulled back his booted leg and slammed it into her side.
Phoebe gasped at the sharp pain. Tears stung the backs of her eyes. A trace of his apple scented pomade from his close proximity caused a stomach spasm. She swallowed against the need to retch. Phoebe would fight this serpent with her last breath before she let him hurt her again.
“You are like your parents, thinking you are better than me. They didn’t agree to my proposal seven years ago for your hand, but I had you anyway, didn’t I?” Ross said, contempt lifting the left side of his mouth.
Phoebe blinked at him, shock, and confusion churning in her belly, amidst the pain riveting through her injured leg.
“Wha … what proposal?” she asked, her voice weak.
A mirthless laugh escaped his mouth. “Didn’t they tell you? I asked for your hand seven years ago. And again, three weeks ago. But your parents denied me. We wouldn’t suit, they said.” He scoffed.
Anger flashed in his eyes, similar to seven years ago, and again three weeks ago.
Pieces of a sickening puzzle started to drop into place. His seething anger that day seven years ago when he’d attacked her. He wasn’t just angry she’d refused to stop riding when he’d called after her on the moors seven years ago. He’d been seething because her parents had refused him. She’d thought itwas anger from her slight. And then again three weeks ago her mother had said she had to marry Slade because they’d been seen kissing. And because the other options for a husband were not worth mentioning. At the time the words had struck her as peculiar, but she’d dismissed it in her panicked state.
Phoebe’s eyes bulged. “Why in all that is holy would you want to marry me?”
Hostility and rancor curled his lips into a sneer. “Because I had been watching you for weeks after Hamish and Broden first told me who you were. Riding the moors seven years ago, without a care in the world. Wild and uncultured like an animal. Animals like you must be controlled, broken in,” he said, coming to stand directly above her, his chin raised sending her an unnatural smile. Its eeriness unsettled her.
“I liked the look of you, I imagined I could take you for my wife, but you needed to be trained, like a man must train a horse or a dog how to take commands and behave when in the presence of their masters,” he continued, his eyes traveling the length of her, making that unclean feeling crash over her like a tidal wave.
His expression had been the subject of her nightmares. It had made her cry, scream, break out into cold sweats, and shake with terror and fury. It had left her in dark hopeless moods and made her lock herself up in her room for days on end. Not only had she distrusted every single man she’d encountered, but she’d hated every single redcoat for the past seven years because of Ross. He had gotten his wish of control, although not as he might have imagined.
She desperately wanted to grab the pistol he’d wacked out of her hand which lay a few feet away, but the seconds it would take to reload with the extra powder and ball she had in her pocket would cause her dearly, either her life, or much worse like seven years ago. Then there was the dagger strapped to her thigh, butshe would have to lift the hems of her cloak and riding habit to reach it. He would knock it from her grip before she could strike.
Blast it all to hell!
But then she noticed a blur of movement and a familiar tall figure about twenty paces away jumping down from his moving horses’ saddle without slowing. His animal’s hooves muffled against the earthen ground.
Phoebe turned back to Ross.Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake, Falcon had said. Ross was too busy licking his lips and unbuttoning his breeches to take note of anything else.
“You are making it very easy for me this time, brat.” Ross sneered.
But she must interrupt Ross, for the sake of distracting him from Slade.
“I’ll do whatever you want, I’ll lay with you, just please don’t hurt me again,” she said, lifting the hem of her cloak and then the hem of her riding habit.
Ross’s hands stilled, and his eyes widened staring at her stocking clad thighs. So distracted was he that he didn’t notice her husband lunging for him.
CHAPTER 65
Red blurred Slade’s vision at the sight of Phoebe’s injured leg and Ross looming over her, her discharged pistol on the ground a few feet away. Bloodthirsty rage howled through his veins. An unimaginable roar cracked the air. It took Slade a split second to realize he’d made the ungodly sound. He dragged Ross away from Phoebe and slammed him down on the ground. When he’d heard the shot minutes ago, his only thought had been for Phoebe.
Propelled by an instinctual inferno in his belly to protect the woman he loved, Slade slammed his booted foot into Ross’s head.
Ross dodged the second kick, rolled and jumped up, blinking from Phoebe to Slade, realization and a lewd smile twisted his lips apart, revealing bloodied teeth.
“You know I’ve had her before you?”
Slade growled at Ross, just as Ross’s right leg came at Slade. The first kick sent a shock of pain through Slade’s side. He gritted his teeth, too focused on ending Ross to care. He was ready for the second kick. He entrapped Ross’s right thigh to keep him unbalanced and in place as he punched Ross’s face. Again, and again. Ross angled his elbows in a defensive position,causing Slade to drop his leg and to step to Ross’s rear. He grabbed Ross’s waist from behind, heisted him up and slammed him down with an ear-piercing crash.
Slade hovered over Ross, his breath coming hard and fast like a growling beast, his usual patience and methodical nature shredded. He held back from punching and kicking Ross until the man’s body was a bleeding mass of skin and bones, even though that’s all he wanted to do.
“I learned something about you from Colonel Wilfred Owens.” Slade snarled at Ross.
