Page 61 of Rules for Heiresses
“Another island, damn it. Somewhere far from you!” She peeked at her brother when she felt the spike in temperature, the room brimming with two very displeased males. “Can we drop my paltry transgressions and focus on what you’ve all been hiding? That you’re gentlemen vigilantes trying to entrap a criminal?”
Waterstone sniffed. “I take offense at the term ‘vigilante,’ madam! I’ll have you know that I have every confidence of Her Majesty, the Queen.”
“Noted, and while I’m certain I don’t know everything there is to know about my husband, I would know if he were a spy. Rawley, I would bet, used to be a spy or in the military. And Rhystan has always had his fingers in as many troughs as he could manage though he is not currently employed as a spymaster, or his duchess would have his hide.”
“How would you know that I wasn’t?” Courtland asked.
“You wouldn’t serve the monarchy of a place you feel betrayed by,” she replied quietly, watching when her husband’s body went tense, though she’d kept her voice low. “You value your financial worth above all else, and you much prefer to remain king of your island of isolation instead of answering to anyone. No, the only master you serve is yourself unless it suits you, as it does because you have a personal vendetta against Sommers.”
“He killed some laborers who left Antigua to work on his lands. When they refused to work without fair compensation, he beat them to death. Word got back to their families in Antigua and that’s how I learned about it.” Courtland tightened his lips. “Add that to possibly smuggling people under the guise of merchant goods. Sommers is a poor excuse for humanity.”
“I agree, which is why you need my help.” Ravenna gave a grim smile. “As bait.”
Seventeen
Courtland glared at his wife as they stood toe-to-toe in her dressing room, her face resolute, and his wreathed in anger and frustration. The argument about her involvement had not waned from the study earlier that evening, all through dinner, and it now threatened to go well into retiring hours. He dismissed Colleen, who had just finished brushing her mistress’s shining curls into some semblance of submission, and stared at his wife through the mirror above her dresser.
“Ravenna, Sommers is much too dangerous.”
“I agree,” she replied mildly. “Which is why you need my help to speed things along and get him out of our hair as quickly as possible. I’m the last person Sommers will suspect of being involved. And he…desires me.”
Courtland’s fingers clenched at his sides. Oh, he’d seen the gluttonous looks Sommers had sent his wife. He’d had to remind himself to focus on the greater goal of incarcerating Sommers, but having that brute get anywhere near Ravenna made Courtland’s blood boil.
“No. This is absurd. You’re a civilian, a woman.”
His wife sent him a cool stare. “Lady Waterstone is a female.”
“She’s a trained operative. You are—”
“A useless heiress?” Ravenna interjected. “A vapid henwit who should only worry about her soirees, her needlepoint, and her pianoforte? Yes, yes, I know exactly what society expects me to be, Courtland, but that’s not me. I cannot stand by while a disgusting excuse for a man treats human beings like they’re nothing. If I don’t act when I have the power to do so, then that makes me complicit.”
He shook his head, frustrated and unable to refute her admirable argument. It was one of the things he loved about her—how fiercely devoted she was, from befriending an islander on the streets of Antigua to going after a dangerous blackguard who threatened her family. She was passionate about everything she touched. “That’s not what I mean. If the countess is in danger, she can get herself out of it. She signed up for that. You did not.”
“I’m signing up now. I can shoot a pistol, wield a sword, and defend myself, if need be. I can handle Sommers.”
The name was a fan to his fury. Ravenna had no idea what Sommers was capable of, and it wasn’t just murder. He had a perverse enjoyment for cruelty, especially toward women. Courtland could not—would not—expose his wife to that, no matter how capable or daring she was. The thought of her in danger left him cold. If anything happened to her…
“I forbid you to do this.”
A pair of sparking eyes drilled into his. “Youforbidme?”
“I am your husband, damn you, and it’s my right. You vowed to obey, remember?”
She lifted a brow. “I’ll obey a reasonable man, Courtland, and right now, you’re not being reasonable.”
Ravenna rose and turned to face him, her body draped in nearly transparent lawn and lace. He was too agitated to appreciate how perfectly her body was limned by the low light of the candelabra on her bedside table. Normally, the sight of her long legs, trim waist, and the luscious curves of her breasts would send him into instant arousal, but Courtland tried to keep a firm hold on his libido. She wasn’t getting out of their spat so easily.
“And besides,” she went on, closing the distance between them and making the embers of lust spark in his veins, “you’ve insisted time and time again that this marriage is doomed, so I don’t think we have to worry about the vows, do we?”
“I’m in no mood for games, Ravenna,” he grunted, her nearness and heady scent serving to distract him—the king of reason and good sense himself—from even forming a logical reply. “You’re not doing this and that’s final.”
“Our safety is not a game.”
“I mean it. The answer is no.”
“Very well, Duke,” she replied and then turned toward her bed, affording him a wonderful view of her rounded buttocks before she blew out her candle, and then they were shrouded in darkness.
Courtland barely registered the creaking noise of the bed and the rustle of her blankets as she situated herself. Wait, did his headstrong, unruly wife just capitulate to his demands? Frowning, he blinked. And also, did she get into bed while he was still standing there?
