The Blackmailed Bride (18 page)

Nick had only to glimpse her tears before bolting upright and wrapping her in his arms. He murmured words to her she couldn’t make out—ones undoubtedly meant to comfort. And Olivia wanted nothing more than to lose herself in the embrace, to forget about Finley and his threats.

But that was impossible. She knew, better than anyone, the serious ramifications of marrying Nick, or even agreeing to an engagement. How then could she feel anything but sorrow?

Stemming the tide of tears and composing herself took several moments. It was better by far for her to be angry rather than sad, Olivia decided. If she were able to convince herself Nick cared nothing for her wishes, she could remain distant and aloof. But the Nick who thought enough to procure a ring, even for their sham of an engagement, was too complicated for her to handle.

Olivia needed to buy some time until she figured out how she was going to undo this mess.

“I think we should discuss the terms of our arrangement.” Her voice was shaky, and she coughed to cover the fact.

Nick looked at her warily but nodded his assent. “All right.”

“My first term,” she began, “is for you to walk into the other room and find a way to pry your aunt away from my table. I’ve no wish to discuss wedding plans today.”

He smiled. “Do I get to propose a counterterm?”

Olivia thought about this. “I suppose.”

Nick’s grin grew wider. “A kiss?”

“Certainly,” she agreed.

“Really?”

“I assume you wish the kiss first?” she asked.

Nick nodded slowly, still looking ill at ease.

“And if I grant your request, you’ll handle mine?”

He nodded again.

“Very well,” she said on a sigh, rising from her seat and standing in front of him. “Whenever you are ready,” she announced. She daintily held out the back of her hand.

Nick laughed but took her hand and pressed his lips to her bare skin. “You have bested me,” he said with a smile. “Now, I shall go slay the dragon for your fair ladyship.”

He left the room, and Olivia flopped into a chair. She held the back of her hand to her own lips.

And she pretended—just for a moment—she wasn’t going to have to ruin everything.

O
livia tossed and turned for several hours that evening. She could tell the moment the rest of the house went silent and retired for the night. But she remained awake and lucid. Marcus would be home in less than a week. And she had no ready excuse to give him for the chaos he was sure to discover when he returned.

She was no closer to a solution that involved not marrying the marquess, nor was she anywhere near a plan that meant she’d not have to honor the agreement she’d struck with Finley. It had been a dangerous bargain with the baron. She’d known it from the beginning but hadn’t realized how much she’d be losing in the end.

When she closed her eyes, hoping nerves and pure exhaustion would win in the epic battle between sleeping and not, Nick’s was the face she saw. She envisioned the way his mouth quirked when he found something funny. And his were the hands she felt lingering against her cheek though they were physically far apart.

Would it be that way after she and Finley married? Would she look at her husband and instead see the man she was growing to wish she
could
marry?

A commotion from downstairs caught her attention just as her eyes were closing on something promisingly like sleep.

Olivia pushed her unbound hair back from her face as she sat up. “What?” she asked the empty room.

Throwing on a robe and belting it securely, she opened the door to her bedroom, looked both ways down the hall and stepped out when she found it empty.
Should I grab a candelabrum, a weapon against whomever might be intruding?
But she discarded the thought. Creeping unnoticed downstairs would be difficult enough without having to heft the weight of a heavy weapon.

“His lordship has given me explicit instructions not to let you enter,” Gibbons’s voice rose up the expansive stairwell to her.

Finley.

It had to be. Marcus wouldn’t deny entrance to anyone else, and the baron was the only person with enough gall to come to her house at—she looked at the clock—one in the morning.

Finley’s voice was lower in his response, but Olivia could still make out the words. They sent chills skittering across her back.

“Your lordship has no authority over me,” he informed the butler. “I demand an audience with your mistress, now.”

Olivia, struck for a moment by the very unlikely humor in the situation, wished she could see Gibbons’s face after being dismissed so summarily.

“You, sir, are drunk,” Gibbons declared. “And I no more intend on letting you see my mistress than I plan on letting you sleep off your drink on the front steps.”

After Gibbons’s observation, Olivia noticed Finley’s words
did
sound slurred. It was difficult to tell where one syllable ended and another began.
Wonderful,
Finley in her house at all was more than she wanted to deal with. Finley after he’d been imbibing was another thing entirely.

“You should probably let your mistress decide if she wants to see me or not,” she heard Finley saying. “I believe you’ll find she’s most eager to oblige me.”

Olivia, poised at the top of the stairs, warred with indecision on whether she should descend. Or, like a coward, retreat to her chambers and allow Gibbons and the able-bodied footmen to deal with the problem of the drunken baron.

Before Gibbons could edge in a retort, Finley’s voice came in clearer, as though he had turned his head toward the stairs—knowing she was at the top, listening in.

“I think you’ll find she’s most agreeable to come down. And if she hasn’t done so in two minutes after you deliver my request to see her, then I think she’ll realize she’s misjudged my generous nature,” he said, now sounding threateningly lucid.

“I’ll not be delivering any kind of message for you.” Gibbons’s outrage rang through every word.

Olivia gave the ends of her sash a yank, fortifying herself against what was likely going to be an unpleasant confrontation. The twenty-six stairs down to the entryway suddenly seemed thrice the number, and Olivia thought of about as many reasons why she should turn around and lock herself back in her room. But she forced one foot in front of the other until she’d made it down the flight.

Gibbons had his back to her, and without wanting to startle him, she laid her hand on his shoulder. The butler whirled to face her. “It’s all right. I’ll see him.”

“I don’t think it’s wise, my lady.” His words were clipped.

Olivia tried to look imperious, which was rather difficult considering she was attired in nothing but her nightgown and robe. She also tried to ignore Finley’s eyes on her, scorching through the layers of clothing she wore.

“Am I not in charge of this house when my brother is away?” she asked Gibbons.

His nod was curt.

She turned her attention to Finley. “I’ll see you in the morning room.” Then she turned her back on him as though he ceased to exist to her.

Once Finley had stalked off, Olivia looked back at Gibbons. “I can handle him,” she assured the butler, but she wished her voice sounded more confident.

“Your brother won’t be happy to hear of this,” Gibbons said. But the ominous words didn’t have the desired effect. Marcus was either going to come back home to discover she was engaged to his best friend, or he’d eventually find out she was marrying Finley. She could hardly fear her brother’s inevitable displeasure now.

“Go to bed, Gibbons,” she said kindly. “He won’t hurt me,” she told the still-skeptical-looking servant.

At least she hoped he wouldn’t.

Olivia didn’t wait for Gibbons to move away before she went to join Finley in the morning room. But she did have enough presence of mind to call out, “No eavesdropping,” over her shoulder as she walked away.

She had no delusions Gibbons would obey her command.

“What do you think you’re doing here?” she asked Finley without preamble, as she closed the door behind her.

“That’s a nice look for you,” the baron said instead, taking in her appearance with a long, lingering look. “You’ll wear that once we’re married.” It wasn’t a request but a command.

“Let’s talk about why you’re here right now, and not what you think of my attire.” She crossed her arms over herself in an attempt to add an extra barrier between herself and her future husband’s probing eyes.

Finley dropped any pretense of good humor. “You know why I’m here.”

Of course she did. But she wasn’t going to be the one to begin the conversation.

Apparently, Finley didn’t mind leading the discussion on her
indiscretion and accidental betrothal to another man. “Did you not think I would hear about you and Huntsford?”

Olivia refused to cower from the anger in his tone. Finley was the one responsible for the disastrous scene in the garden. She wouldn’t take the blame for something he had begun. “No, I knew you would find out.”

Her frankness must have flustered the baron because he blinked at her several times. “How could you allow such a story to circulate?”

The baron was perilously close to seeing her temper ignite. “What exactly did you think would happen after you led me out there and then tried to maul me against a tree?” she growled.

“You should never have left with Huntsford,” he accused. “
You ran!
Need I remind you it took nothing more than an angry look from Lord Huntsford for you to flee….”

He stalked up to her, grabbing her shoulder with a bruising grip. “I. Did. Not. Run.”

Olivia had passed the point where her tongue was guarded by her better sense. “Yes, you did,” she goaded. “You were frightened as soon as Nick looked at you.”

She could tell she’d spoken too much by the look in his eyes.

Finley called her a word she’d only ever heard a few of the servants whisper to one another. He grabbed her face in one hand, squeezing until her lips puckered, and she felt as though he would loosen some of her teeth. “Did you call him Nick?”

It must have been a burst of insanity, but she found it funny he would fixate on that. “I did,
Lord Finley
.” His grip on her face mangled the words, but he understood well enough.

With no warning, he released his hold and slammed the back of his hand against her cheek. Her head snapped to the side, and she gasped for breath. The air in the room seemed to grow thin and sparse. Her hand went automatically to the throbbing skin. She tasted the warm bitterness of her own blood.

Finley stood a foot from her, his shoulders heaving and his face an ugly, mottled red.

Olivia could think of a hundred things to say to him. A hundred different ways to convey her disdain and anger, but she bit each hateful word back. Instead, she raised her chin and smiled.

“You may make me your bride,” she said slowly, clearly. “But you will never have me.” She didn’t understand her own words, but apparently, Finley did because he reared back his hand again.

The sound of a pistol being cocked stopped the newest threat.

“If you so much as try,” a voice said, “it will be the last thing you ever do.”

Olivia could have fainted in relief at Nick’s unexpected presence. Finley froze, his arm suspended in mid-swing. She felt, rather than saw, Nick moving closer to her, stepping between her and Finley.

The pistol in his grip didn’t waver, nor did his voice. “Leave.
Now
.”

Olivia’s accusations of cowardice must have been playing through Finley’s mind because he refused to budge. “You’re the one who needs to be leaving.”

“Olivia is my betrothed. She is also under my protection while her brother is away. You have no right or claim to be here. She is
mine.
” Nick’s gun moved the smallest bit toward the baron’s chest.

“Plan on calling a magistrate to send me away?” Finley asked, clearly torn somewhere on the line between bravado and insanity.

“No.” Nick’s voice was a calm, rational counterpart to Olivia’s mounting hysteria. “I’ll kill you.”

The marquess’s voice was cold, devoid of any emotion, of any logic telling him he couldn’t very well follow through on
his threat. She began to fear for him, wondering how much of the man she saw right now was a remnant from his war experiences. She could only see him in profile, and then solely by the dim light of the candles flickering in the room.

Nick’s jaw was clenched so tightly it looked as though his teeth might shatter. Olivia’s feet moved toward him before her mind could caution her against the wisdom of her actions. Her only concern was to keep Nick from blowing Finley’s fool head off his shoulders.

Her hand touched the arm of his coat. “Nick,” she said quietly, but he didn’t turn to look at her. “Let’s put the gun down. Finley’s leaving now.”

“No, I’m not,” Finley called out.

Olivia silenced the baron with a wave of her hand.

Nick still had not moved, his features and stance as rigid as any marble statue. So Olivia, much like Nick had done for her, moved to put herself between the two men. She doubted Nick would shoot
her.
And hopefully, Finley would be quiet once he realized how dangerous this situation could be for him.

But what she had not thought about was Nick would actually get the opportunity to see her face. Her face that was bruised and cut from Finley’s earlier strike.

Nick noticed immediately. The gun didn’t drop or waver, but his eyes fell to her cheek. “He’s already struck you?” The voice was strangled, mingled with anger and violence.

Her rescuer didn’t wait for her to answer. The condemning evidence made her confirmation unnecessary. Nick was around her before Olivia knew what was happening.

Nick pressed his gun under Finley’s chin, tilting the baron’s head back with the weapon until Finley looked most uncomfortable. Olivia began praying diligently that Nick would find the restraint not to shoot the baron. Not that he probably didn’t deserve some sort of punishment, but Nick didn’t need a death on his conscience.

God must have agreed with her.

Rather than pulling the hair trigger, Nick jammed Finley’s head backward a bit more. “I could shoot you,” he threatened in a deceptively soft voice. “And I probably should.”

But the gun was gone as quickly as it had been there. “Get out, before I change my mind.”

Finley must have decided during the interchange that he had no more desire to risk his life because he stalked past the marquess. As he attempted to shoulder past Olivia, he muttered, “I’ll return later to finish our discussion.”

The warning was the last thing she could be concerned about. Though the front door had slammed closed, Nick stood in the center of the room, rigid and staring as though he could see through the wall and out to where Finley had departed. As she watched him, Olivia took in his attire. He wore a greatcoat over a rumpled lawn shirt. And while his breeches and boots didn’t seem out of order, the entire ensemble had the look of something hastily thrown together.

“How did you know to come?” she asked. The words broke the silence, but didn’t break through his haze. Olivia wondered if he was going to answer.

“Gibbons sent for me when he saw Finley’s coach pull up outside.” He turned to face her finally. “You should have waited for me to get here.”

“I didn’t know you were coming,” she defended, trying to dispel some of his anger. “Then
you
should have sent for me.”

He never would have gotten her message because he would have already been on his way. Olivia decided not to mention that.

“Come here,” he said, but his voice was a question, not a demand. He moved to sit on the settee, leaving her enough room to sit beside him.

She could think of many, exhaustive reasons to refuse.

But she didn’t.

“Does it hurt much?” Nick asked as he touched the side of her face. Vainly, she wondered how badly it would bruise, and then, practically, wondered how she was going to explain its presence to other people. Her brother especially.

She supposed, however, Nick would be more than willing to pass the story on to her brother.

“Not too much,” she answered, then hesitated. “Please don’t tell Marcus.”

Nick nodded, giving her his vow. He stroked her face with the back of his fingers, and the light touch elicited a small flinch of pain from her. “I could kill him,” Nick said.