Chapter 28 #2
She chewed on her lip for a moment, and Owen was sorely tempted to soothe the bite of her teeth with his thumb.
“Yes. My mother lived in miserable fear of my father. We all did. Once, after I had had a particularly… fraught interaction with my father, I vowed that I would never follow in my mother’s footsteps.
No woman should be consigned to that sort of hell, and I knew I could help others if given the chance. ”
His admiration for the spritely, compact woman beside him knew no bounds.
She was everything good in this world: selfless, determined, and giving.
She fought her way figuratively and literally out of constraints designed to imprison her, and she made her own way with a ferociousness that it would have done many men well to possess.
And still, even as fearsome as she was, when she let her guard down, she was beautifully open. And soft. And sweet.
Owen suddenly had the discomfiting realization that he would do absolutely anything in his power to keep her safe and happy.
If for some reason Lord Hartford was too stupid to ask for her hand in marriage, he would do it himself.
If the choice was to remain a bachelor while Ivy suffered under her father’s rule—well, that was simply no choice at all.
And in that brief moment where he allowed himself to imagine a scenario where she was his wife, something lightened in his chest.
She was smiling up at him, her eyes warm with feeling, and because he was drowning in them, he almost missed the carriage barreling straight toward them.
The horse’s black coat was gleaming, his mouth frothing as he careened wildly through the intersection.
He dragged behind him a gig with its hood up, concealing the driver in shadow.
People cried out in alarm, and Owen reacted out of pure instinct, shoving Ivy roughly to the ground and throwing himself over her, landing heavily on her chest.
Ivy cried out as her back hit the cobblestones and Owen’s body forced the air from her lungs. He caged his arms over her head and tensed his body, bracing for impact. When the carriage ran over him, it would kill him, but would Ivy survive? That was all that mattered.
He vaguely registered the screams of passersby, the snuffing of the horse right above his head, and the hooves pounding so close that one struck the extra fabric of his frock coat splayed on the road.
There were shouts of outrage as the carriage wheel roared inches past him.
From the corner of his eye, he witnessed the carriage take a sharp, controlled turn, and race off without stopping to see if anyone was hurt.
Owen’s heart hammered against his rib cage and energy coursed through his muscles as he lifted his head to look down at Ivy. Her light brown lashes fanned across her bloodless cheeks, and his heart ceased to beat.
“Ivy, Ivy!” He roughly gripped her chin, and her eyes opened, her pupils swallowing her irises. “My God, Ivy, are you all right? Are you hurt anywhere?”
“I—I am fine, I think. Are you?”
He could not answer her question. His blood was slush, his hands still flexing with the panic of seeing the carriage race full speed at her. If he had not looked up in time, if they had landed even two inches more to the right, if she had been alone…
He grasped her face between his palms and pressed his lips to her forehead, then both of her cheeks, trying to reassure himself that she was still breathing and alive.
“You are all right? You are all right?” he murmured the question over and over between featherlight kisses on her face, even as she stroked his shoulders in reassurance.
“I am fine, Owen. I am—Owen, we are—” Her eyes widened and he whipped his head upward. Had the carriage come back? If the driver knew what was good for him, he would run that horse far and hard.
There was no carriage, but there was a small crowd gathered around them.
It was comprised of the grim faces of men who had witnessed the near-accident, women pressing sachets to their noses, and the shrewd and disapproving eyes of a number of gentry watching as he kissed Ivy’s face in public while still pressing her into the cobblestones.
“My God, Owen.” She tried to shove him off, and he obliged, rolling to the side and reaching down to help her up.
“Are you all right, madame?” A man in a top hat stepped forward, his mouth grooved with concern.
Ivy nodded, and the gentleman’s companion, a woman dressed in finery, fussed over her, exclaiming with dismay as she helped brush off her dress.
“Did you see the carriage driver?” Owen asked the man while he readjusted his cravat, trying not to flinch at the streak of heat in his shoulder.
The man shook his head. “He sat in shadow.” He hesitated and then said in a low voice, “I do not want to frighten the women, but I do not think that was an accident.”
Owen’s hand froze as he tried to recall the image of the carriage roaring toward them.
Black gloves on reins, steady hands. There had been no shouts from the carriage driver, no warnings, no panic.
He thought of the sharp turn it had made afterward, and the fact that the driver had not stopped to make sure he and Ivy were alive.
“What did you see?”
The man described the gig and the same gloves Owen had spotted, then commented on the expert control of the driver after he had nearly run them over. It was exactly as Owen had feared.
He looked past the man to Ivy, who was in the center of a gaggle of women fretting over her, her hands still finely trembling from the close call. Once again, Ivy had almost died because of him. It had not been an accident, but another attempt on his life.
Ivy must have felt the heaviness of his gaze, because she lifted her chin and gave him a tight smile. Always so brave, this woman he was faux courting.
His chest tightened as all of a sudden the stunning consequence of his actions slammed into him.
Any gentleman would have saved Ivy, but Owen had gone beyond that.
Instead of helping her to her feet when the danger had passed, he had cradled her head and kissed her over and over in full view of everyone on the street.
He had well and thoroughly compromised her.
There was no longer anything fake about their courtship. Ivy Bennett may have wanted Lord Hartford, but it was Lord Brackley who would be her husband.