Page 43 of A Duke Trapped in Desire

The man grabbed her throat, his fingers so strong on her neck that breath was stolen from her body. She tried to gasp for air, but she couldn’t accomplish it. Her hands strained, pulling at his fingers around her neck, only to find he released her a second later.

He tore the necklace she had been wearing from her throat and stuffed it in his pocket, breaking the chain as he did so. Gasping, Marina dropped to her knees once more, pressing herself to the wall of the carriage.

When the assailant moved forward again, she lashed out, lifting her skirt and kicking hard with her feet.

“Argh!” the man cried out in pain with his voice very deep. She struck him hard in the leg and then in the hand that held the pistol. It made the weapon fly out of his grasp and fall into the carriage, landing at Marina’s feet.

“You bastard –” the carriage driver’s voice was suddenly near. Marina looked up as the masked man was tackled from the doorway, driven to the ground. The driver punched hard into the masked man’s face and attempted to grasp the mask, to lift it clear of his features, yet the masked man was too fast. He drove his knee up between the driver’s legs, wounding him and dislodging him from their wrestling match.

The driver struggled to gather himself on the cobbled road on his knees, gasping for breath as the masked man reached for the carriage again.

No. I will not let him come near me again!

Marina grabbed the pistol that had been dropped in the carriage and pointed it out of the door, aware that her hands were shaking, trembling so much that the barrel would not stay still, but it would have to do. She clutched it with both hands, two fingers on the trigger as the masked man halted in the doorway, his head jerking toward her.

“You will not hurt me,” Marina muttered in anger. “Go, now, or I shoot.”

The man didn’t move despite her words, nor did he say anything. He merely looked between her and the driver who was recovering, moving to his knees.

Any further threat Marina wished to make was drowned out by the sounds of more horses. Another carriage was passing down the road, and at the sight before them, the horses must have been spooked.

“Woah! What’s going on here?” the driver of this other carriage called.

“Call for the constable!” Her own driver bellowed the words before launching himself at the masked man again. Yet, he was too slow. The masked man left quickly, darting away, but not before shooting one last look at Marina. He seemed to limp a little as he ran.

The blue eyes were burned onto Marina’s memory as she saw coldness in that look. She wasn’t sure what he had hoped to do. Maybe he had hoped to take her as he had taken her jewels or rob her some more. Then the memory of his hand upon her throat revisited her, and she realized what he hoped to do could have been much worse.

The man ran off, his footsteps loud on the cobbled road as her driver chased him, trying to catch up with him.

Marina slumped down on her knees and lowered the pistol to the floor of the carriage, lifting her free hand to her neck where she found herself wincing at the quickly forming bruises. Swallowing past the pain in her throat, she cursed at what she had done.

She hadn’t taken the threat in the letter seriously, no, and now, it seemed she had every reason to think it was real. Whoever had written that letter was coming after her in order to get to James.

“Who would do this?” Marina muttered to herself as her head dropped forward, and she lowered the pistol to the carriage floor. It thudded loudly in the air. “Why?”

A figure returned to the open door of the coach, his face red and his hair mussed. It was the driver, placing his hands to his knees, trying to catch his breath.

“Are you all right, Your Grace?” he asked in a panicked voice. She nodded, struggling to find her own voice for a minute.

“Did you…?”

“He got away.” The driver cursed with the words. “He cut across the park. He has evaded us, Your Grace.”

* * *

“These are the latest papers on the debtors,” Michael said conversationally, handing over the paperwork. James sat rigidly in his seat behind the desk, looking over the papers as quickly as he could before his eyes darted toward the clock on the mantelpiece in his office. “Or are you planning to return home quickly today?” Michael teased him.

James shot his friend a warning look though it did little good.

“You have spent most of the last three days with your new wife,” Michael observed. “It’s a wonder you’re here at the gambling hall at all.”

“She’s interesting company,” James said, keeping his eyes down on the papers and avoiding looking at his friend. It wasn’t something he could explain very easily though his mind attempted to do so more than once, to justify his attachment to Marina.

The best he could compare it to was an addiction. He had seen men walk these gambling halls for years, addicted to gambling, and he’d seen some men complaining they couldn’t live without other such addictions, opium and laudanum. It wasn’t that James couldn’t be away from his new wife, of course he could, but his mind had a habit of circling back to thinking of her.

The day before, after he had slept beside her once more in her chamber, they had spent much of the day together. Frustrated at having to stay in the house, she’d ask if they could go to an art gallery, but he’d perceived it to be too dangerous. At Somerset Gallery, that letter writer could easily find them. Instead, they’d spent a lot of the day in his own gallery where they discussed the art he had purchased.

She has an eye for art and understands the skills of an artist in ways I have heard few others talk about.

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