Page 97 of A Momentary Marriage

“I’m not jealous!” James turned away and suddenly, with a wordless roar, he swept his arm across his desk, sending the things on it crashing to the floor. Demosthenes, who had been watching them warily, now jumped to his feet and let out a bark. James cursed beneath his breath and braced his hands against the desk, just standing there for a long moment, not looking at Laura.

Understanding dawned on Laura. “You’re running away.”

James whipped back around. “What did you say?”

“You aren’t going to London to hire a killer. Or to keep Claude from killing me. You’re running away!”

“I beg your pardon.” He scowled. “I’ve never run from anything.”

“No?” Laura stepped forward. “You are running. From me.”

“From you? Don’t be absurd. You think I’m afraid of you?” James gave a scornful laugh.

“I think you’re afraid of how you feel,” she retorted. “You want to stay alone and locked up, secure in your isolation.”

“Rubbish.”

“I don’t think so.” She faced him, eyes bright, the truth burning like a flame in her. “You almost lost me tonight, and it scared you. That’s why you’re so angry. So wild.”

“That’s nonsense.”

“Is it? Then why are you trying to escape? You’re scared of the emotion you feel. Scared to death of it. You’re afraid to admit it, even to yourself.”

James curled his lip. “Afraid to admit what?”

“That you love me.”

James went still, his silence filling the room. Finally, in a voice as cool and final as death, he said, “That, my dear, is where you are wrong.”

He strode from the room, leaving Laura standing in numb silence behind him.

chapter 38

James sat across from his brother in the carriage, pretending an icy calm he didn’t feel. Claude, after muttering, “Don’t see why we have to flee in the night like criminals,” contented himself with crossing his arms over his chest and glowering at James. Claude’s resentment and anger didn’t bother James; the hard, cold knot in the pit of his stomach did.

He was furious at everyone—at Claude, at himself for having placed her in danger, at Graeme for being there to save her when James himself was helpless to do so, at Laura for turning for help to someone other than him. And overlaying it all was the cold, sick terror that seized him as he saw the urn tumbling toward her, the emptiness that lurked beneath his fury.

His mind skittered away from that thought. Better to dwell on Claude and his perfidy. Concentrate on what he needed to do. First he must find where Claude had hidden the mercury in the town house and dispose of it. Since he could not watch his brother constantly, he should hire a detective to follow Claude when he left the house. And, not at all the least of it, he needed to locate someone who would carry out his threat against Claude.

James had considered simply bluffing about the assassin and trusting that it would keep his brother in line. But James wasn’t the sort of man who left anything to chance. Besides, if Claude managed to harm Laura—he could feel that hard lump in his stomach clenching even more tightly—James wanted him dead.

He turned his eyes to Claude, and something of what he was thinking must have shown in his gaze, because Claude shifted in his seat, the sullen expression on his face flaring into anger.

“You’re a fool, you know,” Claude growled. James didn’t answer, merely lifted his brows in that condescending way he knew infuriated his brother. “If your wife is really in any danger, which I doubt, you’ve just left her unprotected.”

“Demosthenes is with her, in case you’ve hired someone to do the job you bungled.”

“I didn’t do anything to her. It’s ludicrous. I’m sure it was only an accident.”

“Two accidents in the space of what, a month, six weeks? I think not.”

“You don’t know that anyone deliberately pushed that urn. Someone could have stumbled and fallen against it. They’d have been too bloody scared to admit it once you started ranting and raving. Or maybe the weight of it broke the railing.”

“I checked; the railing is sturdy. The urn’s too heavy for a mere stumble to overset it. And you were missing from the ballroom. In fact, you were on the upper floor.”

“Everyone else was in the ballroom at the time it happened? I suppose you noted every face there.” Claude sneered. “No. You just looked for me—the man you wanted to accuse.”

“The man who had a motive.”