Although he was on the opposite side of the ballroom, he could very well read the thoughts on their minds. It was in the way Joseph and Cecilia came closer and spoke, hiding their mouths behind their hands.
And yet it was when Gerald saw Joseph with a cruel smile on his face that he knew there was a plan set in motion.
“Damn it,” Gerald cursed under his breath.
He had chosen to relax for Arabella’s sake, and now he was paying the price. He knew that he shouldn’t have trusted the so-called family. Then again, he didn’t think that they were this immoral, that they would choose to act upon his wife.
He scanned the room once more before his eyes turned to the corridor Arabella had just vanished into. His heart was beating fast, and inside his delicate leather gloves, he felt sweat.
He had one last hope that perhaps Arabella had returned to the ballroom without him noticing.
He would give anything right now to see her entangled in a friendly conversation with any other man in the room, because that would simply mean that she was safe. But she was nowhere to be seen.
The thought hit him in the chest like a brick. Arabella was alone, without him by her side, and the worst of it was that his family seemed to be aware of the fact as well.
Gerald dropped everything he was doing, cutting people off in the middle of a conversation and heading as fast as he could towards that wretched corridor.
His steps were fast and decisive. His look must have been lethal, because everywhere he passed, people moved aside. But inside, he was feeling petrified. His heart kept an impossible rhythm that he tried to tame, but that would only happen if he managed to lay eyes on Arabella.
He turned to the corridor, and some ladies were coming from the powder room, and Gerald relaxed a little. Maybe there were too many people for the powder room. She could have used one further away, and that is why she was late. That would also mean that she was somewhere with fewer people. Alone. More exposed.
He made his way further down the corridor, his palms sweating in the gloves, his pulse refusing to find a steady rhythm. If anything had happened to Arabella, he would-
That’s when he saw the sapphire silk of her dress caught under the candles that lit the long corridor. She was walking back toward the ballroom, perfectly composed and unharmed. Relief washed over him like a salve for his soul. He took in a steady breath and allowed his fingers to unclench.
Arabella hadn’t seen him yet, still adjusting her gloves. Gerald smiled at seeing her again and decided to tease her, and perhaps feel her, just to calm his nerves, to make sure she was safe.
The moment he took a step towards her, he saw it. There was a dark corner, draped with a heavy velvet curtain, right behind Arabella. That curtain moved, and from there a man emerged.
The blood in Gerald’s veins went cold. That man had his eye trained on Arabella, his look dark. He watched in shock as the man walked behind her, too close, too deliberate. He didn’t need to see more. The man was targeting her.
He moved fast, so aggressively that Arabella looked up, startled, and relaxed only when she realized who he was. Gerald wanted to scream at her that the real danger was the man behind her, but that would make a scene, exactly what his siblings were hoping would happen.
Fury, the likes of which he rarely experienced in his life, came over him. If this were not a formal event, he would have shown the man who dared glance with malicious intent at his wife what the price was for such insolence. The man was so focused on his target that he hadn’t noticed him. Gerald made sure to give as much presence as he could.
“Gerald,” Arabella said, looking at him, perplexed but also amused.
He was not entertained. She was blatantly unaware of the danger she was in, and that infuriated him more. He said nothing; he just walked up to her, still looking at him, frowning at his reaction.
Behind her, the man finally realized that they weren’t alone in the corridor. He instantly read on the other man’s face that he was not counting on the Duke to appear. Arabella was supposed to be an easy victim.
The two men measured each other over Arabella’s head, and though Gerald was expected to be the civilized gentleman, he couldn’t help but give this man a murderous look. If his family wanted to create a scene, Gerald was ready to give them one, a very bloody one.
The intent must have been clear on Gerald’s face, so the man quickly retreated to the darkness he had emerged from. Obviously, some hired man his family employed for the sole purpose of placing Arabella in a compromising position. He was obviously not getting paid enough to confront anyone else but one defenseless woman.
“Gerald?” She finally saw that there was something amiss and regarded him with worry.
He reached her finally, and the first thing he did was wrap his arm around her. He said nothing, just placed himselfbetween Arabella and the danger. The moment he was physically touching her, tucked away safely by his side, his heart settled only a little.
“There you are,” he said simply.
Arabella looked up at him. She was not completely ignorant that they were behind enemy lines, but still didn’t realize how close to ruin she was.
“Did something happen?” Arabella asked, agitated.
She was worried about him. After they both foolishly assumed that he would be the main target of his family’s plotting, neither of them had stopped to consider that now that she was married to him, she was in a vulnerable position, exposed to danger, all because of him.
“Absolutely nothing,” he bit out and led her back to the ballroom.
