It was shadowed, gloomy, and there was no way she could see him depress the trigger, but she moved anyway, surging to her feet, driving her shoulder into Adrian's belly to knock him out of the way just as the small area exploded in sound, and they both went down, hard. She felt an odd burning in her arm, a strange pressure as she landed on top of Adrian. He shoved her off him, and when he rose he had that tiny, useless gun that was almost swallowed up by his long-fingered hand.
She thought she heard another shot, but her ears were still ringing from the first, and he'd used his other hand to shove her down onto the floor, keeping her there. She felt his body jerk slightly, and she knew he was shot, knew Etienne had killed him, and she screamed behind the gag, despair washing over her. She would kill him, she would. . .
She tried to scramble to her feet, but she was feeling oddly weak, and strong hands shoved her down again. Adrian's hands. The small building was filled with smoke from the pistol fire, and she could hear nothing but a loud ringing in her ears. She lay on her back, stunned, staring up to see Adrian rise, limber and graceful as always, and she wanted to scream at him to get down.
She could smell blood. Adrian's? Or Etienne's? Worse than blood, an indescribable stink on the air
, one of violent death. But Adrian was still moving. Adrian still moved.
She managed to get her bound wrists under her and push herself up to a sitting position. Etienne de Giverney lay splayed out on the floor, a tiny, thoroughly effective bullet wound in the middle of his forehead, his discarded gun at his foot Adrian picked up the gun and stood over his cousin's body, kicking him with his booted foot just to make certain, kicking him hard. And then he turned back to Charlotte, and she'd never seen such rage on anyone's face in her life.
"How dare you!" he shouted at her. "That's my child you're carrying—how dare you put yourself in danger. "
She reached up and pulled the gag free, even with her wrists still bound, and struggled to her knees.
"Bastard," she said succinctly. "It would be nice if you cared whether I died, but instead you just don't want your precious heir put in danger. Well, to hell with you, you bloody-minded, pig-swiving, ridiculous man! I was trying to save your worthless, damnable life. "
Apparently he realized there had been something missing in his protest. "Why?"
"Why what?" She tried to stand up but instead fell back again. She felt weak, her shoulder was paining her damnably and she was tired of fighting him.
"Why were you trying to save my worthless, damnable life?"
She considered passing out, just to avoid coming up with an answer. After all, she was pregnant—she no longer had any doubt about the truth of it—and she hadn't eaten, and being kidnapped by a madman and nearly murdered was surely enough justification for even the most stalwart of females, which she hoped she was, to faint. But where was light-headedness when you really needed it? she thought.
"Because I love you," she shouted back at him, furious. "You do not deserve it. You're almost as worthless as your murderous cousin, and I still refuse to marry you, but whether I like it or not, I don't want you dead. I'm in love with you, but I imagine it's simply because pregnancy disarranges women's minds, and I plan to do everything I can to get over it as quickly as I can. "
Author: Anne Stuart
He stared at her. It would make life so much simpler if he wasn't so damned beautiful, she thought. She was really pathetically shallow, because looking at him made her heart melt. Her only choice was to close her eyes as she repudiated him, but that made the room swim, and she decided she really didn't want to faint after all. She summoned up a suitably truculent expression, glowering at him.
"You're bleeding. Goddamn it, Charlotte, the bastard shot you. ”
"Oh," she said faintly. In that case it was perfectly all right to swoon. It would have been nice if she'd known mat a little sooner and avoided having to tell him she loved him. But at least she needn't say anything more.
And she happily slipped into darkness.
25
As if things weren't bad enough, Adrian thought, facing the tribunal that sat across from him in Montague's library. Even Monty seemed to have rallied enough to be carried in, though Adrian suspected he'd come more for amusement's sake than anything else.
He'd been carrying Charlotte's bleeding, unconscious body toward the landing when he saw them running toward him: Pagett, Dodson, half a dozen footmen and, to his utter and complete horror, his father. He hadn't wanted to let go of Charlotte's limp body, cradling her tightly in the boat as Pagett ripped away the sleeve of her dress to expose what was, in fact, nothing but a graze. If his father hadn't been watching him out of cool, assessing eyes he might have started crying. Instead he just held her closely, letting her bleed all over him as they made it back to estate.
They were wailing for her with a litter, and by this point he relinquished her. He knew when she'd regained consciousness—sometime in the boat—but she'd elected not to let anyone know. He couldn't blame her. If he could manage to fate a fainting spell he would, anything to avoid his father's icy rage.
Even now she was tucked up into bed, a hot-water bottle at her feet, his mother sitting in a chair beside her. At least she wasn't here in the library, ready to have his liver served up to the wolves.
He surveyed the grim-faced row of judges. The only one who terrified him more than his father was Lady Whitmore, who would have most definitely gutted him on the spot if she could. She was sitting as far away from the vicar as she possibly could, which didn't fool most of the people there. Monty was right—they wanted to shag each other silly, and he wondered if he could deflect attention from his own transgressions by pointing this out, then thought better of it.
“What do you have to say for yourself, Adrian?" His father was quite a remarkable old man, considering he'd spent a life of debauchery that presumably put Adrian's career in the shade. Adrian could thank his godfather for his parents' unwanted appearance. No sooner had Adrian taken off with his special license in hand, when the bishop had sent a message out to Dorset, informing his parents of their son and heir's upcoming nuptials. He should never have told his godfather where he was going, but he'd just escaped from Etienne's paid assassins, and he wasn't thinking too clearly.
"If I'm supposed to apologize for blowing Etienne's head off then you'll have to excuse me," he said stiffly. Never in his life had he wanted a drink more, but no one seemed to be offering.
"You didn't blow his head off with that tiny peashooter," his father said with a genteel snort.
“Well, I'm sorry that I didn't have a bigger gun," Adrian retorted.
“I'm sorry you didn't as well. I regret even more that you didn't listen when I warned you about him," the marquess said in icy tones. "If you had kept your distance in the first place this might never have happened. ”