Page 100 of What a Scot Wants
“Ronan will have my head.”
She shrugged. “Ronan will understand, more than anyone, why I have to be the one to do this.”Eventually, she added in her head. After he’d drawn and quartered her.
“Even so,” Niall said, and she could see the desperation etched on his face. “Please, I cannae…”
“Have you ever been told you couldn’t do something, Niall?” She glanced down at his missing hand with a purposeful look. “That you were less than because of who you were? That you were treated differently because of your disability? And just once, you wanted to prove that you weren’t as weak as the naysayers and the bullies pegged you to be?” His blue eyes widened, and Imogen knew she had him when he gave a tiny nod. “Then let me do this. For Belinda, Lady Beatrice,myself.”
“This is no’ a game,” he said.
“My life has never been a game,” she whispered. “Not since that man came into it.”
Niall closed his eyes, as if fighting an internal battle, and then nodded, gritting his teeth. “I’d be honored to be your second, Lady Imogen.”
She shot him a grateful look. “Aisla is lucky to have a husband like you.”
“And my brother needs a woman like ye in his life, so dunnae miss. I want ye for my sister-in-law.” He gave her a grin that was so like Ronan’s that she nearly wept.
Raising his voice, after he’d finished inspecting the pistols, Niall addressed the two other men. “The lady is the duke’s second and has accepted her weapon. Proceed as agreed. Twenty paces, unless either of ye wish to tender an apology and negate the challenge.”
“I tender no apology,” Imogen said.
“Mr. Calder,” the other man sputtered. “Surely you don’t agree with this?”
Silas lifted one shoulder, his pale eyes cool. “If she wants to act like a man, let her. A bullet in the leg will soon curtail any further aggravation. I suppose that lesson will be as effective as a whipping. Proceed. It’s all the same to me.”
With a racing heart, Imogen turned and counted out the paces. She was well aware that should Silas choose, her life could end in a matter of moments, but she was betting that his pride wouldn’t allow him to simply shoot. He still wanted her for his own ends, which meant he needed her alive.
On the twentieth step, she whirled, half expecting to hear a blast, but, as expected, Silas only stared at her with a sneering expression, his pistol pointed right at her. He wouldn’t do the honorable thing and shoot into the air. No, he would punish her, exactly as he said, but he wanted to toy with her first.
Imogen’s eyes slid to the footman, who had somehow managed to palm another weapon that he had hidden in the folds of his cloak. They’d intended to fight dirty all along.
“Go on,” Silas taunted, loud in the quiet of the morning, despite the distance between them. “I’ll give you the first shot.”
She bared her teeth at him. “That’s generous, though shortsighted and quite stupid of you.” Imogen canted her head, watching him. “Did you know that Shane McClintock taught me how to shoot? He didn’t want me to be defenseless, you see.” Her voice hardened. “You had no right to do what you did. To me, to Belinda, to Beatrice, to nameless others. This is your reckoning.”
“By you?” he scoffed. “Once more, I will relish showing you your place. You and that foul-mouthed ward of yours, when I return her to Stormie for a purse full of coin.”
“You will not touch her!”
Silas laughed. “As if you have any say in the matter, Gennie.”
Imogen knew that he was trying to unsettle her, and it was working. She felt sick to her stomach.
“You and Stormie will never get the chance to lay a finger on Rory, not if I can help it,” she said calmly. “And you’re wrong if you think I’m afraid to use my voice to stop men like you.”
“Is that what you’re doing?” he drawled. “That chit’s place is on her back. Yours, too, and once I’m your husband, you’ll see. You’ll finally be mine.”
Something in his voice pricked at her when he said those last words, as their meaning settled into her brain. She recalled Ronan’s question when they’d been together in bed, the sharp pain she’d felt, the unfamiliarity of the act itself.
Good God, had Silas been lying all along?
“What do you mean,finally?”
He blinked, his jaw tightening. “I’ve already had you.”
“The thing is, Silas,” she said slowly, hope and joy filling her. “I don’t think you have. Because, you see, I forgot to apologize for my rumpled appearance earlier, having just come from my duke’s bed, where he availed himself of my virginity.”
“You lying tart,” he growled.
