Page 118 of The Duke's Jilted Bride

“Put the gun down.” Rowan’s voice gentled. “My father wasn’t worth your love. Wasn’t worth a breath of yours. You deserve to live your life, not let hatred destroy what’s left of it.”

For a moment, Annette seemed to crumble. The pistol drooped.

Then she straightened, shaking her head violently. “No. No, you’re lying. He loved me. He did. We were going to?—”

Her finger tightened on the trigger.

Rowan lunged.

The pistol exploded. Plaster showered from the ceiling. He tackled Annette, bearing her to the floor as she screamed and clawed at his face.

“He loved me! Gerald loved me! Twenty years! Twenty years!”

She writhed beneath him like a wild thing, all reason gone. He pinned her wrists, holding her down until her struggles weakened.

“Selina,” he called over his shoulder. “Come here. I need to untie you.”

But when he looked back, Annette had gone limp. Too limp.

She slipped from his grasp like water, rolled away, and scrambled for the door.

“Stop her!” Selina shouted.

But Rowan focused on the bonds around her hands first.

“Go after her,” Selina urged as the ropes fell away.

“No.” Rowan pulled her into his arms. “We need to get you home safe.”

The thunder of hoofbeats outside made them both freeze. Voices shouted in the darkness.

“There! By the trees!”

“Lady Winsley, stop where you are!”

A gunshot cracked through the night.

Rowan and Selina ran outside. A small group of horsemen had surrounded the cottage. Felix set his mount near the edge of the clearing with the Duke of Emberford beside him, and several men in constable uniforms.

And on the grass near the tree line, Annette’s motionless form. A pistol lay beside her hand.

“She’s dead,” called a familiar voice. Grainger dismounted, approaching the body with professional caution. “Shot herself rather than be taken.”

Felix rode over to them. “Robert and I arrived just as she came running out. She grabbed one of your attackers’ weapons before we could stop her.”

“How did you find us?” Rowan asked.

“Georgiana sent Robert after you,” Felix explained. “The maid you left in the park heard you mutter Annette’s name. Robert came to me for help.”

Robert nodded grimly. “We went to her townhouse first. When the servants said she’d gone out with a bag, Felix remembered this place.”

“Lucky we brought the constables,” Felix added. “Though it seems Lady Winsley decided her own fate.”

Rowan felt Selina shudder against him. He wrapped his arms around her more tightly.

“Thank you,” he said to both men. “Both of you. I?—”

“Save it,” Felix interrupted, but his smile took the sting from the words. “You can apologize properly over whiskey. The expensive kind.”

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