Page 30 of Tempting the Scoundrel
“Damn the carpet,” Richard snapped. “Three days ago you wouldn’t even speak to my sister and now I’ve come to find that she’s spent the night with you. Tell me what happened.”
Thorne made a noise and polished off his brandy. “Some bastard tried to abduct her out of her bedchamber last night. Because she’s my wife.”
Richard stood, alarm filling his features. “Say again?”
Thorne wasn’t about to tell Grey about the murder that preceded Alex’s near-abduction. The last thing he needed was his brother-in-law getting involved when he ought to be fussing over his pregnant wife.
“A man like me has a lot of enemies, Grey. You ought to know. I made many of them helping you blackmail those toffs in Parliament.”
The other man grimaced. “I’m sorry.”
“Nothing to be sorry for. God knows they’d never pass a reform bill out of the goodness of their fucking hearts.”
A thump from upstairs drew Grey’s attention. “So Alexandra will be staying with you? At the Brimstone?”
“Just as soon as she gets her clothes. And before you think of getting involved, you’d do well to keep an eye on your own wife. You’ve got enough problems, no need for you to burden yourself with mine.”
Richard looked angry at that. “You’re my bloody brother-in-law now. She’s mysister.”
“I’m taking care of it, Grey.”
“And the man who attacked her?”
“Dead,” Thorne said tightly. Then, with meaning: “Sorry about your brother’s fancy fuckin’ carpet.”
He wasn’t about to tell Richard Grey that his sister had killed her attacker. Grey might be an understanding man, but murder had a way of changing the way one looks at a person. It was no skin off Thorne’s hide to imply the death was his; he’d done the dirty deed often enough. Every once in a while, he ought to remind Grey what manner of man he’d allied himself with.
Grey leveled Thorne with an intent, serious expression. “Just know that if you hurt her again, not only will I stand by and cheer her on whilst she beats the shit out of you, I’ll help her burn your life to the ground.”
“Duly noted,” Thorne said with a dry laugh. He finished off his brandy and stood. “She’s been up there a while. I hope she’s not bringing her whole bloody wardrobe.”
Grey directed him to Alexandra’s room, and Thorne left the study. As he pounded up the stairs, he studied the paintings that lined the hallways. Portraits of different ancestors, all related to the Earl of Kent. He wondered how his wife felt, surrounded by reminders of her illegitimacy, of her father’s part in ruining her life. The old Earl was dead—the house and title passed to his heir—but Thorne knew firsthand that death didn’t lessen the pain of memories. It only eased it for a short while.
The door to Alex’s bedchamber was ajar. Thorne pushed it open and froze at the threshold. His wife crouched in the middle of the room, her fingertips on the bare floorboards. The expression on her face was so bleak that he felt it like a blow. It reminded Thorne of the last time he saw her at Stratfield Saye, on the long drive at Roseburn, when she banished him from her life. Her countenance had been bleak then, too, in the understanding that some things stuck with a person for life. Betrayal, murder, love—they all changed you on some fundamental level.
He shut the door quietly, but she didn’t look up. “Alex,” he whispered.
“You can see the blood, can’t you?” she asked him. “It stained the wood.”
Thorne didn’t see anything. The floor glistened where O’Sullivan and the other lads had cleaned it spotless. The air was redolent with the lemon solution they’d used, freshness meant to mask the stench of a corpse. O’Sullivan had returned exhausted in the early hours of the morning; cleaning up a crime quietly was arduous business. It took patience and skill honed from years under Whelan, when covering up murder was a task they performed often and without complaint. So many times that Thorne had lost count.
But the number didn’t matter. Thorne, O’Sullivan, the rest of the lads—they all knew killing left its mark on a person. Did it long enough and the rest came easier; but the first? You never forgot the first time you killed a man. That one stuck with you.
“Alex.” He kept his voice low as he kneeled beside her. “Sweetheart, look at me.”
She didn’t mind him. Her fingernails scraped along the hardwood as if searching for something, some evidence that only she knew. “I killed him right here,” she whispered. “He had me on the ground, and I grabbed my knife, and I killed him right here.”
Alex snatched her hand away, curled it in her lap. The sleeve of her dress revealed her inner wrist, where Thorne could just make out the hint of a bruise.
Christ, but he was some curse, wasn’t he? If it weren’t for him, she would have slept in that bed, safe from danger. She would be writing essays, showing the world her magnificent mind—one a better man deserved. Perhaps she would have given that man her heart, had children if she wanted, travelled across continents and oceans, dazzled everyone she met with a wit Thorne didn’t appreciate enough back in Stratfield Saye.
Whatever that future held, it didn’t involve marriage to a man she loathed. It didn’t include her gazing down at the floor and picturing a corpse.
Thorne swallowed back the bitter taste in his mouth and repeated his words. “Alex. Look at me.” He leaned forward and placed his hands on either side of her face. “Please look at me.”
Her lashes lifted. Were he not holding onto her, Thorne would have felt off balance. She was his anchor. This woman had always been the one thing that kept him grounded to this earth; without her, he’d sink.
“I wish I could take those memories from you,” he murmured. “But I promise you this, I’ll not let harm come to you. Never again. Do you understand?”
