Good God.
This woman…
She made time stand still. His boots weren’t on the steps of Blaren House but planted in front of the forge of Gretna Green’s blacksmith. He’d committed his life to a very young bride, to love and protect her. Then it was all taken away. Chatsworth Adoniram Wilkinson, the Baron of Wycliff, had vowed never to surrender and never to lose again.
But this woman…
One gaze at her face and a sense of knowing swept over him, then a fierce wave of protection.
His stone heart awakened. Joy, then abject fear, seized the useless organ.
In a blink, he was young, a fool so in love he couldn’t eat or breathe or think. His every action centered on her—having her, knowing her, pleasing her.
This woman, his woman…
She was everything: a sun, the moon, the stars, all the firmaments of the universe.
People ran around him. Everyone screaming.
But he went back deeper in time to the docks near the Thames. A strong breeze had kicked up sand, making him turn to shield his eyes. That’s when he’d seen her standing near the warehouses. So beautiful with honey-brown skin. By the time he’d made an introduction, he was in love, worshiping her chocolate eyes flecked with indigo and gold. And those lashes, curly and long, he couldn’t wait to touch them, to touch her.
“Let me through.” A little woman, a pretty negress, hit at Lawden.
“Wycliff,” his man-of-all-work called out, “we must finish this, sir.”
“Yes. Finish. Keep all away.”
Yet, Wycliff didn’t move. He couldn’t crack his sjambok.
This woman…she’d died.
He’d seen her take her last breath, witnessed the convulsion that had stolen her life. At that moment, his heart had turned cold and black.
He’d wanted to die and take everyone who’d hurt her with him.
Now he had a different plan for vengeance and the means and the power to complete it.
“Wycliff, are you done?”
The trance broke. He lifted his head, snapped his sjambok whip. “Be gone and tell everyone. Blaren House has been restored to its true owner.”
“Don’t hurt Ruth! Let my sister alone.”
Oh, the sweetness of the name,Ruth.
His Ruth, His Ruthy. His miracle.
One man stopped running. He stood half in the bushes leading to the street. This one might run and report directly to Uncle Soulden or Wycliff’s cousin, Nicholas.
With everything at stake, Wycliff made his antics large, swinging his sjambok over his head. “A mighty bed wench delivered on time. A lovely celebration.”
Lord. If Ruth heard that slur, she’d never forgive him.
He sounded as awful as that innkeeper had their last day together, the last day they’d lived as man and wife.
Her little sister, the screaming thing, slipped around Lawden and ran at him. “Let her go, you beast!”
Oh, this was a bad time for a family reunion.
