“I promised I would give up my pursuit to marry her.” Mackenzie shot him a cocky smile. “I did no’ say I would no speak to her again . . . no’ touch her—“
Max’s fist flew out before he could stop himself, his knuckles contacting with the man’s jaw.
Mackenzie went down. Chaos erupted, which included Aurelia shouting his name. Max. Not Camden, and for that he was perversely satisfied. Even as several men lunged across the room to restrain him, he was gratified to know that in the heat of passion she thought of him as Max and not Camden as everyone else in the world. She was it, the only one, and for some reason that mattered to him for reasons he refused to examine.
“I’m fine,” he growled, shaking off hands.
The big Scot rose to his feet, gingerly touching his jaw. The crowd shrank back, no doubt assuming Mackenzie would want a crack at him now.
Aurelia was of the same assumption, too. She stepped between them, holding out a hand as though to ward off Mackenzie. “Don’t . . . please . . .”
Something snapped inside Max at having her intervene as though he couldn’t defend himself. Or her.
He stepped around Aurelia, closing his hand around hers and pulling her to his side. “We’re leaving.” He held Mackenzie’s gaze, conveying all his fury, all his possessiveness. In a single look he let the Scotsman know that he would not have his way. He would not have her.
A long moment passed and then something passed over Mackenzie’s eyes. He nodded. One nearly imperceptible nod. He understood.
With one hand still flexing his jaw, he stepped to the side and gestured for them to pass.
Adjusting his clasp on Aurelia’s hand, Max pulled her after him and out of the drawing room. Every pair of eyes followed them and he didn’t care. He didn’t give a bloody damn.
He was going home and he was taking his wife with him.
In moments they were in the carriage. She launched herself into the seat across from him. It was reminiscent of the night he fetched her from Sodom. Now, as then, she didn’t want to touch him.
“Are you out of your mind?” she demanded.
“I told you not to come here.” He shrugged. “What did expect me to do when I learned where you were?”
“Not that! You hit him! In front of all those people! What will people say—”
“Come now.” He tsked. “What others think of you has never mattered.”
She crossed her arms over her chest, which only pushed the generous swell of her breasts higher. The sight made him ache. He wanted to touch her there again. Taste her. Close his mouth around—
“Perhaps it matters now.”
He studied her in the shadowy interior of his rocking carriage. “Oh? What’s changed?”
She said nothing. Her eyes gleamed at him across the distance, deep and full with emotion. The anger was still there but something else lurked, too. Something he had never seen in her before. Whatever it was it made him want to haul her across the carriage and into his arms so she didn’t look that way anymore.
She must have realized she was revealing something of herself because she averted her gaze, looking downward. Her lashes cast dark crescents on her cheeks. “He told me what you did,” she whispered, and damned if she didn’t sound wounded. As though he had damaged her somehow.
She lifted her gaze and there it was. The hurt in her eyes.
“What did he tell you?” Immediately he wondered if Mackenzie had made up some lies.