Picking up her bag, Bex opened the door but then marched backward. A gun barrel was in his face, and an angry Josiah Croome, her father, held the trigger.
Chapter Fourteen
Vows of Duress
Staring at the gun barrel and the shaking onyx hand pointing it to his chest, Arthur stepped backward into his room and drew Ester behind him. “I think you have the wrong room. Don’t hurt her.”
The large, angry man pushed deeper into the room, kicking the door closed. “You stole my daughter, and you’re worried aboutmehurting her? Do you know what side of the gun you’re on and where my sight is pointed?”
“Papa, please. Put the gun away.”
“Mr. Croome?” Arthur had dealt with a few jealous husbands of women who’d claimed to have fallen in love with his stage performance, but never did he think the men’s anger would lead to his death, not until now. “Your daughter is unharmed.”
The man put the gun barrel atop Arthur’s nose. “Take your filthy hands from my Ester.”
He dropped her bag but stayed in front of her. “Mr. Croome, your daughter is safe. Please lower your weapon.”
“Safe! You take my daughter to a remote coaching inn, share a room with her. Defile her. How is that safe?”
Ester came from behind, leaning against Arthur’s hurt arm. “I stayed in the servants’ quarters. Bex has done nothing to me.”
“What? My daughter was good enough to steal from her home but not good enough to stay in a room?” Mr. Croome cocked the pistol.
“Papa, you’re not listening. The servants’ quarters were my idea. Bex didn’t want me there, either.”
Croome’s jaw trembled, as did his finger on the trigger.
Arthur swallowed hard. “You’re not helping, Ester. The man just needs to know you have not been injured or taken advantage of.”
Mr. Croome gritted his teeth. “Don’t tell my daughter what to do. I’ll do that. You defiled my girl, took her without permission from my house. A man would have had enough respect to come andaskto marry her.”
Ester left Arthur and grabbed hold of her father’s muscled arm. The bulging strength of it was barely hidden beneath the gray-weave greatcoat. She forced him to lower his hand. “Papa, I left on my own. I chose to jump out that window.”
“A window? Not even dignified enough to leave through the front door.” He raised the gun again. “You stole her from my house and defiled her.”
“Sir, nothing has happened. I’ve not dishonored your daughter.”
“Bex, I can speak for myself.” She tugged on her father’s coat again. “Papa, nothing has happened. Put down your weapon.”
“Bex?” The man’s hand dropped to his side. “The actor? Arthur Bex, the actor you always talk about? You were serious about being in love with him?”
Ester had tears in her eyes. “Yes, I talked foolishness, Papa, about Arthur Bex, but nothing happened. Bex has been a gentleman to me.”
“Nothing?” Croome shook his head. “Ester Croome, you disappear from my house during your mother’s party. You have me thinking you’ve been kidnapped or lost to the violence of the streets. There’s a brothel with Blackamoor women that caters to the lords. I don’t want that for you.”
Knowing the things that they’d faced on their travels, he couldn’t fault the man’s fears. Arthur tried to make his bad arm work a little to pull his coat back on, but it was bound too tightly. “Your daughter’s safe. I’d let nothing happen to her. I was escorting her to make arrangements to send her home on a coach. No one will know that this elopement occurred or that it never came off. You have my word.”
Ester came back to Arthur and swiped up his good hand in hers. “He’s telling the truth. I wanted to elope, and we are only a few miles from Gretna Green, but we’ve called it off.
Croome’s finger eased, but he could easily still lift and fire. “I don’t know whose word to believe—you, who ran away, or your Bex, who changes his mind after all the trouble of escaping with you from my house. What happened, Bex? Did you come to your senses and realize she wasn’t wife material for the likes of you?”
Oh, Ester was wife material, more than he’d hoped for. “Shechanged her mind, Croome. She decided to end things, perhaps with the hope of starting a new courtship—with your consent.”
The man frowned and put his gun into his coat, but Arthur dared not move. He might change his mind again.
“Ester, why would you do this to me and your mother? Why did you believe this actor’s words and risk all to leave with him?”
“Papa, the elopement was my idea. I chose to come with Bex. I wanted to elope because I wanted to choose my husband. I chose Arthur Bex, and you and Mama didn’t.”
