Lord Deverill's Heir, Catherine Coulter [the best motivational books .TXT] 📗

what she’d done to him. He wanted desperately for her to tell him she’d made a mistake, that she was sorry, that she regretted it, that she would spend her life making it up to him.

He also wanted to see her, just see her, perhaps even tell her that he understood. He shook his head at himself. He was changing. He was easing.

He was ready to forgive her. He wanted to kill the comte, but not her, not Arabella. He didn’t understand himself, but there it was.

Well, damnation.

The moon hung as a slim crescent, barely lighting the vague outlines of the country road. The earl rode, head down, nearly touching his horse’s glossy neck, his body molding into the form of the animal. His intense demanding pace brought back memories of another ride in the night, so long ago in faraway Portugal, the critical dispatch folded carefully in the lining of his boot. He felt the same sense of purpose and urgency. He had been elated with the success of his mission when horse and man had very nearly dropped from fatigue at the end of the eight endless hours.

Rickety turnstiles, unpainted wooden fences, small rutted paths—all flew past in a blur of semidarkness. The earl knew of a certainty that Arabella would stay to the main road. She would want nothing to slow her escape.

As he rode, he remembered again her outburst at Dr. Branyon’s announcement. Yes, he understood, but it didn’t lessen his anger, not really.

At first he couldn’t believe his eyes. Were he not so very angry with her, he would have been sorely tempted to laugh aloud at the very undramatic scene before him. Arabella was walking in the middle of the road in full evening dress, leading a limping Lucifer.

She halted as he reined in beside her. She looked up at him with dull eyes. She said nothing, damn her. “Well, madam, I see that you have ended your own merry escape.” He swung from the saddle and faced her, legs apart, his hands on his hips.

She seemed oblivious of his anger, of the ferocious irony of his words.

“Yes,” she said, still not looking at him, “Lucifer threw a shoe. I shall have to speak to James. It is quite ridiculous that he should throw a shoe. Don’t you think that is ridiculous?”

“Yes, I shall speak to James as well.” The earl stopped and frowned. This was not at all what he had expected. “Of course, such a tame ending to your thoughtless ride must be a letdown. Just look at you. Dressed for dinner and walking beside your damned horse. Didn’t it occur to you that there are bad men out here? That they could have come upon you? You can wager that they would have licked their chops at the sight of you.

Beautiful and rich, yes, they would have believed they’d died and gone to heaven.”

“No,” she said finally, her eyes still on the road directly in front of her next step, “I didn’t think about robbers at all. You say there are bad men out here? I think there are bad men everywhere. What difference where they are? Why don’t you ride back to Evesham Abbey, my lord. There is nothing for you here. Not a single thing.” He made no answer, just walked beside her, the look on his face so forbidding that surely she would be shaking in her evening slippers.

Soldiers had quaked in their boots at that look. But she wasn’t. It baffled him. He admired her greatly in that moment.

Finally, she stopped and looked up at him. “Ah, I see now. You wish to yell at me, to strike me, perhaps? Perhaps even kill me? Well there’s not much I can do about it, is there? Have at it, my lord.” She patted Lucifer’s nose, spoke softly to him, then dropped his reins. She turned to face her husband. Lucifer neighed softly but didn’t move.

He ground his teeth and advanced a measured step toward her. She stood her ground and regarded him with at best casual interest. “Do you plan another rape scene, my lord, or perhaps a beating? If you will allow me a choice, I would far prefer the beating.” He had expected anger on her part, indeed rather looked forward to her termagant’s tongue. But there seemed to be no passion left in her. Her voice and very stance seemed uncaring, remote.

It made him so angry he wanted to spit, he wanted to push her to anger.

He said with contempt, “Despite what you may think, raping you would bring me no pleasure. I did not rape you before, but you will pretend I did, won’t you? Aye, you’ll claim I raped you on our wedding night and hold it in my face for the rest of our lives. Damn you, madam, I did not rape you; stop shaking your head at me. I wasn’t as gentle as I could have been, but you didn’t deserve anything gentle from me. You deserved to be raped, yet as a gentleman, I refrained.

“As to beating you, I would as soon waste my energies flailing a spiritless old horse. Just look at you, all flattened down and looking pathetic. Damn you, Arabella, say something, do something!” Instead, she turned away from him indifferently, saying over her shoulder, “That was quite a speech. Now, if you have done with me, then, my lord, it is a long walk back to Evesham Abbey.” She picked up Lucifer’s reins.

It sent him right over the edge. He grabbed her arm and whirled her around to face him. “Oh no, I am by no means done with you, and what I have to say to you is best done far away from the ears of your family.” She dropped Lucifer’s reins again, walked to the side of the road, and sat down on the grassy bank. She began pulling up blades of grass. She shrugged, enraging him. “Very well,” she said, “be done with