Three Weeks With Lady X(53)

"I safeguarded her reputation after you allowed it to be savaged by that  harpy," Vander bellowed back. "You can save Lala from a fate worse than  death-living with her despicable mother-but I shall marry India.  Because I was the one who stepped forward to protect her, you  unmitigated bastard!"

Vander's words struck with twice the force of his fists. Thorn's hands  loosened and Vander wrenched himself away, rolling to sit up, back to  the wall.

Thorn's right eye was swelling shut, and remnants of his shirt hung from  his neck. He pulled his collar free and cast it aside. "You shall not  marry her," he said, his voice hoarse. "I don't care what you announced:  I am the only man who will ever marry India."

"You slept with her," Vander said flatly. "You cock-proud arse, you  slept with the most desirable woman in England-don't tell me you didn't,  because a blind man could see the way you look at her-and you didn't  ask for her hand? And when her reputation was trodden into the mud by  the devil herself, you said nothing. Are you out of your bloody mind?"  His voice had risen to a shout again.

"That's none of your business," Thorn replied. Every inch of his body trembled with ferocity.

"Bullshit!" Vander leaned his head back against the wall, chest still  heaving. "I'd marry her with or without Lady Rainsford's provocation,  you jackass. I made up my mind to propose after no more than one look at  her and a single conversation, let alone a kiss. And you slept with her  as if she were a mere doxy, and then let her reputation be smeared into  the ground."

"I asked her to marry me last night," Thorn snarled. "She refused me, so  I could hardly claim to be married to her. I planned to ask her again."

"You asked her to be your wife after you slept with her? You thought  that Lady Xenobia India St. Clair would marry you because you were  gracious enough to offer your hand after bedding her? Why would she want  to marry you?"

"She might have been carrying my child," Thorn said tightly. But a  bitter chill was sweeping through him. Vander was right. Why the hell  would India want to marry him?

Vander made a guttural sound of disgust and spat his words. "You didn't  use a sheath? What in the hell were you thinking?" His eyes glittered at  Thorn in the darkening room.

"I don't think around her," Thorn said, telling him the truth. "When I  asked her to marry me, she refused. She said that she'd give me the  child if we had one." Vander-more than anyone else in the world-would  know what that meant to him. The agony that her comment roused.

But Vander just snorted. "You believed her? Damn it, Thorn, you don't really want her. You don't even know her!"

"I didn't realize she was lying to me until later," Thorn said tightly.

"She baited a trap and you fell into it. You might have had a chance  with her-after all, she took you into her bed-but that's gone."

Images tumbled through Thorn's mind: Rose looking up at India as she  read her a book, and India telling him about her parents' desertion.  Vander was right. She had tested him, and he had failed.

He stood up, slowly, knowing that he would be covered with bruises in a  few hours. They had gone at each other like rabid animals.

Vander still sat against the wall, his arms on his knees. Without  raising his head, he said, "She's mine, Thorn, and the sooner you get  used to it, the better. You treated her like a doxy, and you didn't  protect her when she needed it."

Every word struck Thorn's gut like another blow from a balled-up fist.

Then Vander looked up, pushing back hair soaked with sweat and brandy.  "You had your shot, and you lost. I'm going to marry her. I'll leave it  to you whether we remain friends." He got up, lurching slightly, one  hand pressed against his side, and left without a backward glance.

Thorn walked into his own room reeking of spirits, with vision only in his left eye.

The hell with it. That dream was over. He'd had it for, what, half a  day? The dream that India was his, that he could marry a woman like her:  brilliant, glowing, beautiful . . . funny. As wild in bed as she was  elsewhere, the kind of woman who lunged at life, fear be damned, and  embraced it.                       
       
           



       

But Lady Xenobia India was a lady. And he was a bastard, who had behaved  like a bastard. Of course she didn't want him. She'd let him down  kindly, in fact.

He sank into a steaming bath and forced himself to face the truth. He  would offer his hand in marriage one more time, if only to prove to  India that his proposal was motivated by far more than the possibility  of a baby.

But it was a useless gesture. Daughters of marquesses didn't marry  bastards, not in any part of England that he'd heard of. India would  marry Vander. She was meant to be a duchess. They would be happy  together, shining, beautiful examples of England's peerage.

He got out of the bath and dressed swiftly. If he was going to ask a  future duchess to marry him, he would do it like the gentleman he  wasn't. Not by dragging her into an alcove and treating her like a  whore. No, he would go on one knee, he decided, tying his cravat in a  Gordian knot.

And once she rejected him, that would be that. He would lose his oldest  and truest friend and the woman he loved in one blow. Suffocating  darkness welled inside him at the thought.

By now it was nearly time for the evening meal; presumably India would  be downstairs, sipping a sherry with the others. He briefly wondered if  Lady Rainsford had departed for London or was still cowering in her  room, then he discarded the thought. He didn't give a damn what happened  to the lady or, frankly, to her daughter.

He descended the stairs, planning to draw India to his  study-respectfully-in order to request her hand in marriage. His father  was waiting in the entry.

"I'm sorry, but I can't speak now," Thorn said, heading for the drawing room.

"Son."

Something in Villiers's voice made Thorn pause and turn back.

"You are looking somewhat the worse for wear."

Thorn gestured impatiently. "Surely you heard the uproar."

"Fleming did a fine job of keeping everyone on the ground floor." The  duke's face was expressionless, but his eyes weren't. "They took the  special license, Tobias. If you leave now, you can catch them; they  won't be able to marry until morning. They went to Piggleston, where the  parish church has a resident vicar."

Thorn felt as if a hammer smashed into the back of his neck. The  feelings that coursed through him had nothing to do with civilization  and everything to do with carnage.

He was going to kill Vander. Murder him. Tear him limb from limb.

Blood began pounding through his limbs, and suddenly he knew, with  absolute certainty, that he could murder his closest friend without  turning a hair. The hell with being respectful to India. She was his,  and no damn duke was going to have her, not if he had to rip her away  from Vander at the altar and throw her into his carriage.

"Right," he said, turning to the door, his mind churning. He had to get on the road, find them, kill Vander, and marry India.

Of course she left with Vander. What else could she do? Thorn had never claimed her, not really.

"My carriage is waiting," his father said.

Indeed, the duke's traveling coach stood in the drive, horses stamping their hooves and grooms standing at the ready.

Thorn nodded to his father, caught a flash of wicked amusement in his  eyes-yet another sign of the duke's warped paternal instincts-and  climbed into the carriage, directing the coachman to the largest inn in  Piggleston. He spent the next few hours alternating between berating  himself and suppressing stifling waves of anger at Vander. Finally, the  horses trotted off the post road and moved onto cobbled streets.

When they pulled into the courtyard of the Coach and Horn, Thorn leapt  down and roused the innkeeper. But though he handed out five-pound notes  as if they were ha'pennies, every man he talked to, at all three inns  in Piggleston, swore up and down that no couples resembling Vander and  India had been seen. By that point a muscle was jumping in Thorn's jaw,  and his face was apparently so distorted by rage-not to mention his  black eye-that men fell back as he approached.

There was nothing more he could do. He'd marked the location of the  church, and he would be there in the morning to stop the wedding.

India would not marry Vander, if Thorn had to assault the vicar at the altar.

He took a room, but he couldn't lie down. Every time he pictured Vander  and India on a bed together, scorching pain shot through him. The memory  of her face when she lied to him and he believed her . . . the scorn on  her face when she told him that she'd been a virgin, though he hadn't  noticed.

That was why she would marry Vander. He had broken what they had . . . in fact, he was afraid that he had broken her.