Arabella did not interrupt.
“He took what he wished,” Amos continued. “He left ruin where it suited him. And when the reckoning came—when someone finally answered him—he was allowed to retreat behind a title and a mask, as though that erased it.”
The carriage rocked again, the path rough beneath them now.
Arabella felt the shift in him more than she saw it.
“You believe he wronged you?” she said.
“I know he did.”
“You think I speak from rumor?” Amos’s voice sharpened, something close to a laugh breaking through it. “I watched him ruin her. Watched him take what he pleased and leave her to bear the consequences of it.”
Arabella’s breath caught, though she did not interrupt.
“She was not like the others,” he continued, more quietly now, though the intensity in it did not lessen. “Not to me.”
The words settled heavily between them.
“And when I warned him,” Amos went on, his gaze fixed ahead rather than on her, “when I made it clear he was not the only man in this world with something to lose— he laughed.”
Arabella felt something shift, sharp and sudden.
“So you had him beaten,” she said.
“I had him stopped,” Amos corrected.
No hesitation. No uncertainty.
“And so you take it upon yourself to correct it,” she continued. “By abducting his wife.”
His expression flickered, irritation breaking through the certainty. “You are not a part of this.”
“I am precisely a part of this,” she said, steady now despite everything. “You have ensured it.”
He leaned closer, closing the space between them. “You were always a part of it. You simply did not know it.”
Arabella did not look away.
“You have convinced yourself of a great many things,” she said. “None of which alters the fact that you have acted without reason.”
His jaw tightened. “Without reason?”
“You speak of justice,” she said. “Of protection. And yet you strike a woman in the street and force another into a carriage against her will.” Her gaze held his. “Is that the conduct of a man who believes himself righteous?”
The words landed.
For a moment, the composure he had maintained fractured—something sharper breaking through.
“You do not understand what I am trying to prevent,” he said.
“Then enlighten me.”
His grip tightened again. “You are carrying his child.”
The statement landed with a force that stilled her—not from agreement, but from the certainty with which he spoke it.
“Yes,” she said, after a moment.
