Strangers at Dawn (28 page)

His voice turned savage. “And let’s not forget the inestimable Mr. Primrose. Maybe he’d rather you were dead than see you go to another man. With Constance, of course, it could be jealousy or some other motive we have yet to discover. It could be anyone, Sara,
anyone.
Do you understand?”

She put her glass down and slowly got up. Her eyes were naked with pain. Her voice shook so hard, he had to strain to hear her words. “Why are you torturing me like this?
Can’t you see it isn’t necessary? I’m not stupid. I know well enough that if it wasn’t William who left me that note, it must be someone close to me. And do you know something?” Her voice rose shrilly. “I don’t want to know who it is. I don’t want you to investigate. I don’t want you to entrap anyone. I want you to leave it alone, Max. Just leave it alone.”

He’d miscalculated. She was more shaken than he’d realized. He put out his hand in a placating gesture. “Sara, I’m sorry. You’re right. It’s probably William, or someone we haven’t thought about yet. Look, I was only trying to convince you that you mustn’t take foolish risks. It’s too dangerous.”

“Dangerous!” She plowed her hands into her hair. She said bitterly, “There wouldn’t be any danger if I hadn’t listened to you. I should have followed my original plan. I should have married Mr. Townsend. Then this nightmare would be over. Everyone would be happy. Then we could go back to being a family again without all this suspicion poisoning our minds.”

She swung away from him and began to pace. Her hands were still caught in her hair, clasping her head as if she were nursing a monumental headache.

He said quietly, “Sara, we’re not going to leave things as they are. We’ve got to find out who attacked you, no matter who it is. You must see that.”

She whirled on him then, a wild-eyed fury and she quickly crossed to his chair. “Don’t tell me what I have to do! What do you know about it?” Her voice was cracking with emotion. “What good will it do if I find out that Simon or anyone else in my family attacked me tonight? It would destroy us as a family. We’d all have to take sides. Do you think I’m going to let that happen? Besides, you said it yourself. Whoever it was didn’t try to murder me. Maybe all he wanted was to frighten me. I’m not judging him. Oh God, I’d be the last person to judge anyone. My father should have treated us all equally. He shouldn’t have left
everything to me. How can I blame my family for turning against me? No one knows what anyone will do when they’re desperate or put to the test. But it’s not too late. I’m going to put things right. I swear to God, I’m going to put things right.”

She began to pace again. “If I raised my offer, maybe Mr. Townsend would still marry me.” She spoke her thoughts aloud as they occurred to her, either oblivious or uncaring of his presence. “Yes, that’s what I’ll do. I’ll make him an offer he can’t refuse.”

He came out of his chair.

“Should I write to him? No. It would be better to talk to him in person, don’t you think? Tomorrow. I’ll return to Bath tomorrow, then, I’ll … I’ll …”

Suddenly, she covered her face with her hands and her shoulders began to heave. “I can’t breathe,” she choked out.

Max reached her in two strides. He put his glass to her lips and forced her to swallow. She choked, sputtered and pushed his hand away. He tried again, and this time she swallowed, then she let out a long shuddering breath.

“Thank you.”

“Now sit down in that chair and drink every drop of that brandy.”

She obeyed. After a while, she looked up at him. “It’s hopeless, isn’t it? I don’t know what to do, which way to turn.”

He knew that it wasn’t only the attack on her that was tearing her to pieces, but suspicions too painful to admit to anyone. Money was a powerful motive for murder. That’s why she wanted to marry and break the trust. It wasn’t only because she feared William was alive.

He went down on his haunches so that their eyes were level. “Feeling better?”

She nodded. “You’ve seen us at our worst-my family, I mean. Things were different when my father was alive.”

He thought he was on safe ground when he said, “He
was a hard man to live with, wasn’t he?” But again, she surprised him.

“Well, maybe we needed it. The discipline, I mean. You can’t know how much I miss him.”

“You sound as though you loved him.”

“Actually, I
adored
him. We didn’t always see eye-to-eye … but … Oh, Max, what am I going to
do?”

The words jumped out of his mouth before he had a chance to think about them. “You’re going to marry me, of course.”

She was astonished. So was he. Slowly, his lips curled in a bemused smile.
Why,
in heaven’s name
, he asked himself,
does she have to be the one?

She blinked slowly. “What did you say?”

“I
said that you should marry me.”

“You’d marry me, just like that?” She snapped her fingers.

“No. Not just like that. I’ve given this a great deal of thought, and I think it would be the best solution for both of us.”

She said scathingly, “You’d go that far, just to get a story for your newspaper?”

He almost lost his temper before he remembered that she was still shaken from the attack, still confused and in need of comforting. He took the glass from her and set it down, then clasped both her hands. “Listen to me, Sara,” he said. “I don’t have to marry you to get my story. Even if you were to marry Townsend, I’d still hang around. And where would Townsend be? He’d take his money and leave. Someone has to stay here to take care of you.

“I know you think that once the trust fund is broken, the danger will be over. But are you sure? I’m not convinced that this has anything to do with money. If I’m right, it wouldn’t matter if you went into hiding again and waited to come into your fortune when you turn twenty-five. Some
one wants to hurt you. They found you before, and they will find you again.”

“Don’t you think I know that?” she said miserably.

His voice dropped and he stared at the scratches on her hands. “If you marry me,” he said, “we’ll both get what
we
want. If you’re right, the danger will be over because the trust fund will be broken. But if I’m right, whoever wants to harm you will have to deal with me first.”

Her eyes searched his face. “You’d go that far, just to protect me? But why?”

He gave her reasons that he knew she could accept. “Because I feel responsible. Because my newspaper stirred up public opinion against you. Because I was wrong about you and I want to make amends.”

She tried to withdraw her hands. “I don’t know, Max. I just don’t know.”

He felt as if his fate were hanging in the balance. In a voice that was strangely unlike his own, he went on, “And because, if you marry someone else, I’d just have to
kill
him.” He flashed her a crooked smile. “Tell me I’m wrong about us. Tell me you don’t want me as much as I want you, and maybe, just maybe, I’ll find the strength to let you go.”

He pulled on her hands and raised her to her feet. He could see that his little speech had made quite an impression on her. Her eyes were wide, dazed, disbelieving.

He’d never considered himself an unscrupulous man, but he was well aware that he was taking advantage of the situation. She was still suffering from shock. She was lost and confused. As she said herself, she didn’t know which way to turn. He justified what he was doing by telling himself that it was only a matter of time before she came to him of her own free will. But events were moving too fast. Time was something he couldn’t afford to give her.

He wrapped his arms around her. “Say you’ll marry me, Sara.”

Her eyes teared. “It wouldn’t be fair to you, Max.” “I’ll be the judge of what’s fair.”

His lips settled on hers. “Max,” she breathed out, half protest, half plea.

She stopped thinking when he crushed her against his hard length and took her mouth with a passion that sent her senses reeling. She clung to him for support, her head pressed into the crook of his arm as the kiss went on and on.

His hands moved over her, pressing her closer. She felt his arousal, and her own body clenched in response. The part of her mind that could still think told her that she wasn’t being prudent. She didn’t care. She was alive. She’d never felt more alive in her life. No one knew what would happen on the morrow.

When she started struggling, Max released her, but it was only to free her arms so that she could twine them around his neck. Then she dragged his head down to renew the kiss.

Surrender. She was giving into him. And his bed was only a step away. His body was urging him to take her, and so was his common sense. If he took her now, there would be no going back. On the other hand …

He was debating with himself, and that was a fatal mistake. The scrupulous part of his nature won the battle. He’d never taken advantage of any woman, and he certainly wasn’t going to start with the only woman he’d ever wanted to be his wife.

With the greatest reluctance, he raised his lips an inch from hers. “Does this mean you’ll marry me?”

There was a heartbeat of silence as she tried to make sense of his words. “Yes,” she whispered, “yes,” and she gave him her lips again.

He kissed her softly. “You’re sure?”

“I’m sure.”

That was
all
he wanted to hear.

She cried out when he suddenly stooped down, swept her into his arms, and held her high against his chest. “What-?”

“I’m taking you to your room. No. No arguments. You’ve been through a lot tonight. I said that I would protect you and I meant it, even if it means protecting you from myself. What you need is a good night’s sleep, and that’s what you’re going to get.”

For a moment or two, she was totally humiliated, until she saw something in his eyes, banked fires tinged with humor, and she contented herself with burying her head against his chest. Max was right. She was exhausted, too exhausted to put her thoughts in order. All she knew was that Max was here, and just for a little while, she needn’t worry about anything.

He took her to her room, deposited her on her bed and warned her that he’d give her five minutes, ten at the most, to get ready for bed, then he’d return to watch over her. He waited until she’d locked the door, then made for the servants’ quarters upstairs and roused one of the footmen. He had plans to make, things to do, and he needed someone he trusted to watch over Sara. After he’d given the footman his instructions, Max returned to her room.

She was drifting into sleep when the memory of the attack flashed into her mind. “Max?” She hauled herself up and looked wildly around her chamber. He was sitting in the chair beside the fire, reading a book.

He rose at her cry of alarm and quickly crossed to her. “What is it, Sara?”

She shook her head. “Nothing. Just … Max.” Then she snuggled down in the bed and closed her eyes again.

When her breathing was slow and even, Max brushed her hair back from her face and discovered a long deep scratch from her ear to the base of her neck. He traced it with his fingertips, and rage ignited in the pit of his belly.
He wasn’t as forgiving as Sara, not nearly as forgiving. When he found the person who had attacked her, he would exact a fitting revenge.

He was still staring at that scratch when there was a knock on the door. He went to answer it.

Eighteen

S
ARA WAS SITTING UP IN BED DRINKING A
glass of hot chocolate that her maid had brought only a few minutes before. Though Martha had greeted her with the cheery news that it was a beautiful, warm summer day, Sara felt cold and shivery. It was late, almost noon, but she couldn’t summon the will to get up. All she wanted was to pull the blankets over her head and forget that anything existed outside the safety of her own chamber.

No one looking at her would have known that she’d been attacked last night. The only obvious injuries were the long scratch on her throat and the scratches on her hands. If she had to, she could explain them away by saying that she’d been playing with one of the stable cats. There were also grazes on her knees, but no one was likely to see them.

She didn’t want anyone to know about the attack, because she didn’t want to answer awkward questions. But most of all, she didn’t want to raise the kind of suspicions that were going through her own mind.

Much as she wanted to, she couldn’t stop reliving every moment of the terror she’d been through: those powerful masculine hands, grabbing her from behind, imprisoning her arms to her sides. The fear, the panic, when his arms
had tightened around her, cutting off her breath. The mingled smells of sweat and cologne-or was it only the fragrance from the climbing roses and honeysuckle?

The details were becoming blurred, but she would never forget her terror.

She was shaking again.

There was so much to think about, so much to worry about. She didn’t know which way to turn, what to do next. She hated this feeling of helplessness. Max was offering her a way out, but she was reluctant to take it. She didn’t know what to do for the best.