Page 64 of All you need is an Earl (Lords of Pleasure 2)

“My husband doesn’t love me,” Marion said, swallowing hard on the sentence that she hoped, that she prayed, was not really true—even though she had no evidence to suggest otherwise. “He will never release money on my account. Your plan is flawed, Father. I am not a worthy ransom subject in my husband’s eyes. You’ll get no money from him on my account.”

Chapter Twenty-Four

“What do you mean?”

Simon saw the rage in the man’s eyes, the man that Marion had called father. The revelation that his wife was not having an affair, but was being coerced by a dastardly man claiming to be her father was a significant blow, not to his perception of Marion but to his own ego. What kind of husband was he that he had allowed his wife to end up in such a dangerous situation? He knew that he had been blinded by jealousy and hubris. He had already discerned that his lack of openness, his own inability to trust others with his pain, had created a gulf in their marriage. But he had never considered that such behaviour might ultimately lead to Marion being in harm’s way.

He had done her such a disservice by not trusting her fully, trusting her word, trusting the goodness of her heart by revealing his own. How ironic it was to him that a fear of love had led him to be faced with his worst fear—the man in the room could take Marion from him at any moment.

Simon’s hands itched to close around the man’s throat to strangle the life out of him for trying to hurt Marion, but he didn’t move, rapidly assessing the situation. Simon considered Marion’s father carefully. He was older and perhaps stockier, and certainly looked like he was more familiar than Simon with the rough-house hand-to-hand combat that was more common in the criminal world. But Simon was fairly sure he could beat him, man to man, in a fight. Simon was taller, broader, and had his legacy as the boxing champion of Cambridge and his many years sparring with Nathan in all sorts of contact sports to back him up.

However, Marion’s father had a weapon. Any attempt Simon made to breach the room and rescue Marion could possibly end in either his or her death. The risk wasn’t worth it, no matter how much his instincts were screaming at him to burst in and rescue her. It was better to wait for Nathan and the constable. The constable would be armed, and if Nathan was the smart man Simon knew he was, then Nathan would be too. Three men against one was more than enough to sway the tide, but until then, Simon would be forced to sit tight and watch. He loathed every second of it, but held his breath, listening desperately to Marion as she spoke.

“I mean that my marriage is a marriage of convenience only, not of love. Everyone knows that.” Marion spoke clearly but tremulously. Simon found that he was overwhelmed by her poise. The man had a gun to her head, and was standing close behind her, so close that Simon burned with rage, but Marion sat as still as a statue.

“You’re lying,” Marion’s father hissed. Simon had to stop himself from lurching forward as he saw the way that the man’s ugly hand was digging into Marion’s shoulder. “You’re lying to get out of it! It won’t work, daughter.”

“I’m not lying.” Simon could see the tears on Marion’s face. They were falling steadily, but she still spoke clearly, though he could see her hands shaking on the table. “It was the talk of the Ton. We were caught together at a ball.”

“Caught doing what?” Her father leered in a way that made Simon’s hands clench angrily into painful fists on his cane. What kind of man looked at his daughter that way? “Were you being a naughty girl?”

Those words would have been enough for Simon to break the man’s neck, but he held his position. Marion had wrinkled her nose in disgust at his words, but she continued to speak carefully, spinning the tale of their marriage for this man.

“I was inebriated, it was my first ball. I tripped and he caught me,” Marion said curtly. As she spoke, Simon could see each moment playing like a dance inside his mind. Her soft breath on his face, the crimson dress against the dark landscape of the evening, her delicate foot caught the stone on the wall and then her tumble. Her body pressed gently into his arms. Her words didn’t touch upon the truth of that accidental encounter.The best night of my life,Simon thought.

“I’ll bet he did,” her father said sarcastically. “Caught you and held on tight, did he?”

Despite the myriad of ways that this man had wronged Simon was currently in the process of doing him great wrong by threatening the life of his wife and threatening to steal a fortune from him, Simon found himself unreasonably offended by the accusation that he would have taken advantage of Marion in a compromised state.

That’s two,Simon thought grimly. Two counts on which this man was due blows from Simon for strikes against his honour. Simon couldn’t wait to deliver them.

“There would have been terrible gossip,” Marion continued, clearly trying to rise above her father’s lewd innuendos. “If we had not announced our engagement, I would have been ruined, and his reputation would have been diminished. It was a match of obligation, that is all.”

“I think you’re lying,” her father whispered. Simon had to clench his hand even tighter to stop himself cursing as he saw her father raise his hand to stroke his wife’s hair familiarly.

Take your bloody hands off her, you scoundrel!Simon shouted inside his head. Then, out of nowhere, the man was pulling Marion’s head back by her hair. Marion gasped in pain, and Simon saw her face etched with discomfort. He couldn’t help taking an instinctive step forward, lurching to try and help her before catching himself and forcing himself to stand back in the shadows.

“Stop it!” Marion gasped. “Let go!”

“You’re a liar, daughter!” her father said loudly. “Lying children need to be punished!”

Then he struck her. Simon saw it as if they were moving very slowly. He saw the man’s raised hand with the gun in it. He saw him bring it down against the side of Marion’s head. He saw the dramatic twisting of Marion’s body as she fell to the floor, dark hair dislodged from pins by the force of the metal striking the side of her face. He saw her slumped and splayed on the floor, her crimson dress a puddle around her body.

Without even realising it, Simon had moved out of the shadows, walking stealthily down the side of the structure to the back of the building, looking desperately for a door. He didn’t consider if it would be better to wait for the constable. For him, waiting was no longer an option.

His heart was beating furiously and his adrenalin was pumping; in his mind all he could see was red. Marion’s red dress, the red blood on her forehead, the red mist of fury descending upon him like a cold nightmare. He would do anything to save Marion—even kill—and right now, there was nothing he wanted to do more. He tested a mouldy door handle carefully and pulled it open slowly, his cane raised in case there was another man inside he needed to face.

The door moved silently and opened onto a small anteroom to the main room that Marion and her father were in. Simon continued to move slowly, his blood pounding loudly in his ears, so loudly that he worried it would be heard. He walked carefully across the floor, trying not to let the floorboards betray him with their creaking. He could hear the man’s voice coming from the next room, the doorway in the corner of the room had the door hanging off the hinges, and Simon approached it along the wall so he could not be seen. Still, the words he heard made his fury mount.

“You’re a liar!” Marion’s father was shouting. Simon heard a grunt, something like a stamping sound followed by a rough cry, mingled with a cough. With a horrible realisation, Simon recognised it as the sound of someone being kicked.That’s four,Simon thought, gritting his teeth, his hands gripping his cane so tightly that his knuckles were white.

“I’m not!” Marion coughed. Her voice sounded hoarse, and Simon could hear heart-wrenching sobs in between her words. “He - he doesn’t love me!”

“Don’t lie!” Marion’s father roared. “You think I’m stupid? I’ve been watching you since you got married. You think I don’t know what’s gone on in your house? You don’t think I’ve seen the way the two of you look at each other?”

Simon heard a ringing slap and flinched, then steeled himself to peek around the doorframe. Marion was on the floor, and her father was stalking towards her, grasping her hair to pull her up toward him. Marion was gasping in pain. In his eagerness to inflict pain on Marion, the man had made a fatal mistake. He had tucked the gun away at his belt.

Ducking back against the wall, Simon knew that his moment was coming. As soon as he heard the man’s footsteps, he knew the man would be standing up after pushing Marion back to the ground. His back would be fully available to Simon. That would be his moment. He just had to wait for it. Simon held his breath.

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