Four Nights With the Duke(52)

But the ungovernable side of him-the side that never had been a  gentleman-rejected the idea. Hell, maybe the man wouldn't arrive today.  Maybe Vander would have another night with her.

They pulled up at the front entrance, footmen hurrying out to meet them.  Leaving the carriage, he said merely, "I shall settle Jafeer and the  other horses in the stable, Duchess, and I'll be in the house directly."

A smile teased the corners of Mia's mouth, a reminder of their evening  activities. Heat rushed through him, settling low. He nearly reached out  and pulled her into his arms.

Instead, he turned and strode away with a muttered curse.

Vander reached the stables to find that Reeve had indeed arrived,  several hours before. When the horses were once again safely in  Mulberry's hands, he headed back to the house. Despite everything he  knew to be true, a faint hope was beating a rhythm in his chest.

But when Gaunt opened the drawing room door, Vander went cold at the sight of Mia sobbing in Edward Reeve's arms.

His wife's head was nestled against the man's chest, hands clenching his  coat. Reeve's head was bent over Mia, and he was murmuring something,  his arms tight, possessive, around her.

Every fiber in Vander rejected what he saw. Barely contained fury rode  him hard; he scarcely controlled the impulse to kill the man touching  his wife.

But there was the rub: she wasn't really his wife. He was no more than a temporary husband. A means to an end.

If there had been any doubt as to how he should proceed, the scene made  up his mind. He, more than any man, knew that it was impossible to keep a  woman who loved another man. Mia had loved her fiancé. Still loved him,  as was clear from their tender reunion     .

Reeve had been haunting their marriage from the beginning. Now here he  was, back from the dead, having fought his way out of prison to return  to the woman he loved. It was a romantic twist worthy of Lucibella  Delicosa.

Mia didn't notice when Vander entered the room, but Reeve's head came up  and their eyes met. If Vander had bothered to imagine Mia's fiancé, he  would have pictured a weedy academic, a spectacle-wearing professor  stooped from too much reading and too little physical activity. A coward  who had run from the reality of raising a disabled child.

Instead, Reeve was as large as Vander. His nose had recently been  broken, which gave him the air of a boxer. Yet Thorn had described him  as brilliant, and Reeve had the indefinable self-assurance of an Oxford  professor, suggesting Thorn was right.

Reeve clearly caught the murderous look in Vander's eyes, and his own  narrowed. They were the eyes of a man who had just broken out of a  prison designed to hold the kingdom's most violent prisoners. This was a  man who would fight to the death for his woman.

Hell, that was no surprise. Any man would fight for Mia.

She raised her head, putting one of her hands on Reeve's cheek. "I  simply cannot bear to think how much torment you have suffered," she  said, her voice wavering. "I feel terrible that I ever introduced you to  Sir Richard! If it weren't for me, none of this would have happened."

Reeve murmured something inaudible, and Mia turned out of his arms, her  hands falling to her sides. "Vander, you will not believe what has  happened!" she cried. "This is Edward Reeve, who didn't jilt me after  all. Charlie's despicable uncle threw him in prison on false charges,  and he nearly lost his life." Another sob broke from her throat. "He  almost died!"

Vander moved forward the last few paces and bowed. "Reeve," he said flatly.

"Your Grace." Reeve bowed after a calculated delay, just enough to turn his gesture into a challenge.

Mia seemed oblivious to the battle of wills vibrating in the air between  the two men. Her face was anguished, eyes full of tears. "Vander, this  is horrible: Edward escaped from prison just as he was about to be sent  to Botany Bay." She swallowed hard and tears spilled again. "And it was  all my fault!"                       
       
           



       

It was Reeve who stated the obvious. "The fault is Sir Richard's, not yours, Mia."

Use of her first name was, to Vander's mind, a naked declaration of war.

"You could have lost an eye!" Mia cried, reaching out to touch the black  bruise that went down Reeve's face. "To think you might have died in  prison, and no one would ever have known where you were." A sob escaped  and she pressed a handkerchief to her mouth.

Watching her, Vander felt an icy calm move through his veins. He didn't  want a wife who sobbed over another man's pain. She was his on paper,  but her heart was Reeve's.

"I feel so awful that I didn't have faith in you!" Mia gave Reeve a  watery smile. "Yet the whole story is unbelievable. You must admit that  it sounds like something from one of my novels."

"I fully expect to see my adventures in a bookstore one day," Reeve  said. He turned to Vander. "My parents' Runners are still on their way  to India, hoping to find me there. I gather you know that it was your  Runner who learned the truth. He had tracked me to Scotland and was  trying to decide how to proceed when I escaped from prison. I am  indebted to both of you, as he was very helpful in dispersing the guards  on my trail."

Vander saw Mia's brows draw together, and uttered a silent curse.

"Vander's Runner?" she said, her handkerchief falling to the floor. "What on earth are you saying, Edward?"

"I hired a Bow Street Runner to find your fiancé," Vander said. "I  thought it unlikely that the man had voluntarily left you at the altar."

"You did?" She gaped at him. He saw pink coming back into her cheeks.  "And you didn't tell me?" He could see horror dawning in her eyes. "Tell  me you didn't know before today that Edward had escaped from prison.  That he hadn't abandoned me at the altar!"

Judging from her brilliant eyes, her tension and grief had just  transformed to a fury not unlike Vander's own. But before he could  respond, Reeve took her shoulders and gently turned her to face him.

"It doesn't matter, darling," he said. "I am here. I didn't leave you  stranded. I will do everything it takes to make this right."

He looked over Mia's head. "I knew, of course, about the provisions of  John Carrington's will, and Mia has told me of the extreme measures she  employed to force you to marry her. I owe you my gratitude." His jaw  visibly clenched, and then he added, "I have strong doubts about how  long Charlie would have survived in Sir Richard's care."

"I assume you intend to press charges against Sir Richard," Vander stated.

Reeve smiled, and any remaining hint of a well-polished professor  evaporated. His hands dropped from Mia's shoulders, and his face took on  the ferocious anticipation of a lion closing in on a kill. "Of course. I  mean to pay him a visit. But Mia came first." He took one of her hands  in his.

It was a calculated gesture. The metaphorical gauntlet hit the pavement with a clatter.

Mia looked down at the fingers encircling her hand and then up at Reeve. Her lips parted.

Before she could speak, Reeve said, "We must expeditiously unravel the  unfortunate circumstances that resulted from my abduction."

Vander watched, his jaw tight. But it wasn't his wife that he saw: it  was his mother, gazing at Lord Carrington. That tableau put him in the  position of his father, seething with impotent rage.

"I am confident it can be dealt with quickly," Vander confirmed, not  letting on by a flicker of an eyelash that the only thing on his mind  was murder. He refused to become his father.

He felt Mia's eyes on him. "But we're married," she whispered.

Vander looked at her and blessedly, felt nothing. He had closed off that  part of himself. "As you yourself have told me time and again, Duchess,  a divorce can be arranged within six months." He kept his tone easy and  reasonable.

"Especially in this situation, sweetheart," Reeve added. "The king  himself will dissolve the marriage, if my father requests it. The earl  is quite close to His Majesty."

Vander nodded. "In that case, I'll trust your connections to take care  of this." He had had enough of the tender reunion     . "I doubt that you  are carrying a child," he said to Mia. "Barring that, I will raise no  barrier to a dissolution."

Mia pushed away from Reeve, taking a step toward Vander. "That's all you have to say?" Her voice was rising.

"Yes," he said, his lips hardly moving. "The man you love has come back  to you, Duchess. You were never jilted. You no longer have need of my  protection or name."