Especially since she believed James was marrying her only out of some sense of honor or duty. But the fact was, it was much more than that.
Much, much more. Only he’d never told her that. He’d hardly allowed himself to acknowledge it in his own heart, let alone confess it to her or anyone else. Bearing his heart had never ended well for him, and so here he was, chasing after a woman whom he had likely hurt without meaning to.
And that meant a great deal to him. More than it should have.
“No!”
James froze as he approached the stable, for he had heard the sharp cry of a woman’s voice within. Emma’s voice.
He broke into a run, racing toward the stable at double time as he heard a truncated second scream. He rounded the corner into the still stable, his gaze darting from one side of the large space to the next. And there, in the far corner, in the shadowy darkness, he saw Emma. She was leaning back, tugging hard against a man’s hand, a man’s hand that gripped her wrist. The blackguard was obviously working to pull her into an empty stall.
James rushed forward. “Stop!” he called out.
Whoever was holding Emma released her and she staggered backward, nearly depositing herself on the dusty stable floor. James pulled her behind him and looked down into the stall to see who her attacker was.
His eyes went wide as he saw Sir Archibald in the narrow space. The older man’s face was pale as paper and his lips trembled as he stared up at James. “Abernathe,” he breathed.
James let him say nothing else before he threw a punch that connected squarely with Sir Archibald’s jaw. Sir Archibald fell backward, colliding with the wall of the stable and letting out a pained grunt.
“What the hell are you doing here?” James asked, though he could see exactly what the man’s intentions were. His clothing was in disarray, his shirt loose and untucked from his trousers.
That he had intended to harm Emma made James want to kill him.
He might have, but Emma wrapped a hand around his forearm, forcing him to look back at her. “James,” she said softly.
He looked down into her tear-streaked face and caught his breath. Disheveled as she now was, she was also beautiful in her wedding gown.
“Did he hurt you?” he asked, reaching out to trace her jaw with his finger. “Did he touch you?”
“No,” she reassured him. “Not yet. You stopped him.”
He caught his breath. There were bruises on her wrist, faint but there. He lifted her hand up. “Emma…”
“I’m not hurt,” she whispered, though her trembling voice said that was a lie. “I’m not hurt.”
He spun back to face Sir Archibald, anger coloring his vision, but found that the man had snuck past him as he tended to Emma. Now he was running out the stable as fast as his legs could carry him. James rushed after him in time to see the bastard swing up on his horse and fly off toward the estate gates.
“I will see you dead if you come near her again!” James shouted, certain the wind carried his angry words to the hunched back of his enemy.
He turned back and reentered the stable. Back at the stall where Emma had been attacked, she leaned against the wall, her face pale and drawn. His heart clenched at her expression. At her pain.
“I will ride after him,” he murmured, smoothing an errant lock of hair from her cheek. “I willkillhim for what he tried to do.”
“No,” Emma said, stepping forward to clutch his arm. “James, you know what would happen if you did something like that. You could be transported or hanged. Even if you weren’t, the scandal would destroy you. Destroy Meg. I am not worth that.”
He stared at her. She believed what she said. Of course she would, after the life she’d led. And suddenly he wanted to give her so much more than she had already experienced. He wanted to give her everything. Everything he had and was. More importantly, he wanted to give her everything he could be but hadn’t yet become.
He wanted to be better for her.
“You are worth far more,” he said softly.
“I don’t want to lose you,” she said, forming each word succinctly. “Please don’t follow him.”
His ground his teeth. The idea of Archibald getting away after what he’d tried to do was disgusting. He would only hurt someone else. Or perhaps even come after Emma again in his vengeful state.
“I’ll have Graham take care of it,” he said at last. “When we return to London, he can monitor Sir Archibald. I’m sure he’ll find help in that task from plenty of our friends.”
She nodded. “Yes. Then you’ll know if he has designs for some other kind of evil.”
