Wielding her branch, she spun in a circle, slicing at shadows that weren’t shadows, at dogs that weren’t dogs. The creatures that snapped and snarled from the bushes were closer to wolves of old than the darling spaniels and loyal terriers that had crossed to create them. Freedom had turned the pack feral and then starvation had made it wild, taking what once was tame and twisting it into something else entirely.
Something that had her surrounded.
Gathering the courage she’d lacked in the bedroom—that she’d lacked for her entire life—Mara prepared to fight.
Chapter Twelve
Where the hellwas she, Ambrose thought irritably for the second time that night as he stalked across the lawn, arms swinging at his sides. A small army of servants, organized by Humphrey, were fanning out across the rest of the grounds. Some to the stables. Some to the pond. Some to the gardens. Not wanting to wait, Ambrose had struck out on his own. As he walked, he noted a chill in the air that should haven’t been there. A prickle at his nape where his hair stood on end. Was it a warning of ominous happenings on the horizon? Or merely nature’s harbinger of a late frost? Either way, he would have vastly preferred to be in his study, a warm drink in his hand, instead of marching out into the darkness clutching a knife.
He didn’t want to stab a dog.
He wasn’t a monster.
And hewasn’this father.
But then an eerie howl, vicious and victorious, made his blood run cold, and he lifted his arm, pointing his weapon straight and true as he charged toward the apple orchards at the top of the hill.
“MARA!” he bellowed, his chest burning with fire and fear as he reached the first row of trees, their spindly, gnarled limbs creating a wooden labyrinth that was nearly impossible to see through. “MARA, WHERE ARE YOU?”
A chorus of barks, somewhere off to his right. He spun blindly toward the sound. The clouds parted, allowing a sliver of moonlight to slip through and reflect off the flat of his blade as a shadow leapt and his wrist sliced instinctively through the air.
The dog yelped when the point of the knife pierced its skin and deflected off a rib. Tail tucked, teeth bared, it scuttled to the side where it was joined by another pack-mate that glared at Ambrose with a flat, chilling yellow gaze.
“What thefuckhave you done to my wife?” he snarled, more animal than man as he advanced on the wild dogs, driving them farther back into the orchard even as more crept around to flank him from behind. The bastards had him encircled, but it wasn’t himself he was afraid for. It was Mara.
Mara, who had gone walking after dark because of him and his bloody callousness. Mara, who had never been anything but sweet, honest, and true. Mara, who hadn’t deserved to be abandoned here as if she were something that he was ashamed of instead of the best thing that had ever happened to him.
If she died...
If she was already dead...
No.
No.
“MARA!” This time there was an undercurrent of desperation in his voice. Of despair. Of the same desolation he’d felt whenever his father had purposefully ripped his most beloved people and pets away from him in an effort to make him stronger... when, in the end, all it had done was turn him to stone.
Mara, for as long as they’d been apart, was and always had been the final chink in his armor. The last piece of his mortality. Justknowingshe was here, at Southwick Castle, had been a comfort to him. A soothing balm to his tortured soul, whether he’d realized it or not. If he lost her, then he’d be reduced to nothing more than a gruesome shadow of his former self. A walking gargoyle that truly had no reason to care for anyone or anything.
She was the part of his heart that still beat.
She was the part of his soul that still felt.
She was the best of him.
She always had been.
And perhaps... perhaps that was why he’d been drawn to her from the very first night he’d seen her, sitting there in a ballroom with an open book on her lap. Blissfully oblivious to the catty politics and social games being played all around her. He had told himself he picked her because she was obedient and quiet: the perfect duchess for a duke who didn’t want the obligations of a wife. But these past few days in her company had uncovered a difficult truth.
He could have picked anyone.
But he’dchosenMara.
Not for her submissiveness or her obedience, but because from their first words spoken, to their first kiss, to the first time she’d made him laugh, she had made him feel whole again. She had made him feel like he had a home again. A real home, the kind that he’d yearned for all those years when he was a sad little boy who had just wanted his parents to love him as he was.
Mara had been willing to love him as he was. She’d accepted his numerous flaws. She’d softened his hardest edges. She’d made him better.
And in return, he’d ignored her. He’d pushed her away. He’d banished her. Because the need to prove that he wasn’t worth loving was far stronger and more ingrained than the vulnerability it took to be lovable.
