She began to shake. She clasped her arms in front of her chest and willed herself not to fall. She would not faint or beg.
But what was left her?
She mounted two steps. “I wanted to know if my Gift was real,” she said. “My parents always said it was, but ever since coming to England, I’ve wondered.”
Her uncle halted in the doorway.
“You’ve always said I was foolish to believe them, to believe in it. I just wanted to know the truth.”
“That explanation is supposed to excuse your behavior? I’m supposed to be reassured that society will call you daft as well as wanton?”
She wasn’t going to tell him the other reason she’d attended the meeting. Doing so would probably garner her even more punishment. But what could be worse than being sent to live on the streets?
Her uncle gave her a look no doubt meant to chastise her—and succeeded admirably—before closing the door in her face.
Montgomery had seen men paralyzed by fear on the battlefield. They couldn’t seem to grasp the fact that war was real, that death was truly imminent. So they stood there and waited to be shot or blown to bits by cannon.
Right at that moment, he knew exactly how they felt.
This couldn’t be happening.
“Damn it,” he said, striding toward the door.
He glanced at the woman on the steps. “Don’t make this situation worse by crying,” he said. “I’ll not tolerate it.” A moment later, he looked back over at her. “I mean it,” he added, before turning and pounding on the door.
When no one answered the knock, he turned, frowning down at her.
Now what did he do?
“Will you take me in?” she asked.
When he didn’t—couldn’t—respond, she smiled tremulously. “My reputation is evidently destroyed. Does it matter if I stay with you?”
“It matters to me. I’ve no intention of caring for a woman. A silly woman. A woman without an ounce of sense.”
“Why are you so angry? I’m the one who’s just been tossed out of her home. Not you.”
He glanced down at her.
“I felt, for some reason, compelled to rescue you from the events of tonight. I didn’t realize that would require finding you a place to live, too.”
At that, her spirit seemed to rise in some contradictory fashion. She tilted her chin up and glared at him.
“I did not ask you to rescue me.”
“No,” he said, biting off the words. “You’d have preferred being raped in full view of dozens of men.”
That shut her up.
What the hell did he do with her?
He didn’t underestimate the Earl of Conley’s stubbornness, especially since the man had admitted to being part of that insufferable body of aristocrats before whom he’d had to appear last week. They’d been supremely aware of their position in life as well as their exceptionality.
The Earl of Conley might well leave his niece to starve.
Nor would remaining huddled on the front door of her uncle’s home do anything to repair Veronica’s reputation.
“You needn’t frown at me,” she said, her voice sounding as if she were trying not to cry.
