Page 82 of A Virgin for the Icy Highlander
“I have been patient,” he seethed, his lip curling. “I have been honorable, when I could have claimed you by now if I had wanted to. I have been the perfect gentleman to protect your reputation. But after the wedding, youwillbe mine, and what you will not give, I will take.”
Grace’s eyes welled with tears. Her hand and arm were on fire.
“And I will take it until I have my heir,” he continued, his spittle splashing her face. “If you cannot give me my heir and my spare in a timely fashion, as I desire, then and only then will you be released from your wifely duties. There is already a spot for you, beside my first wife, who failed to give me what was owed. A far colder bed than the one you will share with me tonight.”
He let go of her hand, and she staggered backward, gasping for air. Gripping the back of her vanity chair to keep herself upright, she shot him the most withering glare she could muster.
But he just smiled. “I trust we understand each other?”
Behind him, the chamber door opened slowly. “I dinnae ken. Ye might have to repeat it, so I can be sure I heard ye right,” a painfully, wonderfully familiar voice growled. “If I’m nae mistaken, it sounded like ye were confessin’ to killin’ yer first wife. And ye’ll do that to Grace overmedead body.”
Hunter…
“What the devil?” Lord Huston spun around, huffing and puffing, raising his fists as if he had challenged another nobleman to a polite bout, rather than a seasoned warrior who had won a war.
“Aye, there are some who have called me that,” Hunter replied with a dark smile. “And I do mean to send ye straight to Hell.”
Lord Huston backed up, desperately searching the room for something he could use as a weapon.
“I am an earl!” he spat as he searched. “If you lay a finger on me, you will have all of England’s nobility after you!”
“What, to thank me for doin’ them a favor?” Hunter said.
He pulled his dagger from his boot. The bedchamber was too small for swinging a broadsword.
Lord Huston lunged for a hatpin and waved it like a fencing foil. “You cannot have her, you beast!”
“I can do as I like,” Hunter replied, stalking forward. “Ye kidnapped me daughter, lured me bride, and threatened a friend. Ye pointed a pistol at all three… and the kitten. Did ye think ye’d be allowed to breathe after that?”
“You took what was mine first!” Lord Huston barked as his arm shot forward. The hatpin glanced off Hunter’s shoulder as he easily dodged the attack.
With that one mistake from the floundering Earl, Hunter closed the gap between them and drove his blade between the man’s ribs with a startling air of calm. From where Grace stood, it almost looked like an embrace.
“Ye sought trouble from the wrong man,” Hunter whispered in Lord Huston’s ear. “May ye burn for eternity.”
Hunter held the Earl for a short while as the latter coughed and spluttered and struggled. With a rasping, wet breath, the disgusting man finally fell silent. His body went limp in Hunter’s arms. And with greater care than that monster deserved, Hunter lowered him to the floor.
Sliding his dagger back into his boot, Hunter covered the short distance between himself and Grace.
For a glorious, soaring moment, she thought he was going to put his arms around her and kiss her with all the relief and passion that she had dreamed about for a week. So, it came as a confusing, devastating disappointment when he merely grabbed her by the hand, pulled her away from the body, and led her out of the room.
Out in the hallway, she tugged on his hand. “Hunter?”
“What?” he replied gruffly as they drew to a halt. “Do ye nae want to leave yer betrothed’s side, even in death?”
Her eyes narrowed. “No, actually, I don’t.” She jabbed a finger back at the bedchamber door. “Butheis not the betrothed I mean.”
“Lass, Oscar told me everythin’,” he said, his blue eyes cold. “It’s too late for ye to change yer mind, now that the Earl’s dead. If I were what ye wanted, ye shouldnae have left in the first place. I’m just here to avenge me daughter, that’s all.”
It was a sting she hadn’t expected, and his words stabbed her right in the heart.
While she had spent the past week pining for Hunter, he had clearly spent his days cursing her name, hating the womanhehad threatened to send away not so long ago.
“And you would have married me if I had been the reason why Ellie died?” she shot back, wrenching her hand from his. “You would have kissed me, touched me, taken me to your bed, after burying your daughter because I wouldn’t go with him?”
He stared at her and said nothing.
“Well?” she gasped, on the verge of tears. “I had to! He was going to hurt her. Hewouldhave hurt her. I couldn’t let that happen. But if you think for a single second that I wanted to, that anything I said to Oscar was true, then you don’t know me at?—”
