Chapter Twenty-Nine #2
Mari did not like his clipped tone nor his lack of even a pence’s worth of sympathy.
She looked at him as if seeing him for the first time.
And maybe she was seeing him for the first time.
His eyes were cold, not warm like Jamie’s.
Now that she thought of it, Nicholas had not once come to her rescue.
When she’d sent him the note conveying Jillian was ill and she was leaving for Scotland, he had not come by to see her off or even voiced any concern.
What was worse, he had used a piece of private information to paint that ghastly portrait.
Jamie had tried to purchase it and then gallantly defended her honor with the duel and finally, cut the thing to shreds when she said she never wanted to see it again.
Jamie had done that for her. Memories flooded her mind of all the times she’d been annoyed with him for protecting her when—at least most of the time—he’d been rescuing her from her own foolishness.
Why had she never noticed? She glanced across the room again. Maddie was smiling and nodding at something Jamie said. He caught her gaze just as she was about to look away, and for just a moment, she thought she saw something spark in his eyes before he returned to his conversation with Maddie.
Mari took a deep breath. It might be too late to get Jamie back, but she was not going to compound one mistake by making another. She turned to Nicholas whose eyes were hard as daggers.
“I cannot marry you,” she said.
Nicholas seethed with cold fury as he pounded on the flimsy door to his father’s flat close to midnight. Several people shouted at him to hold down the noise, and one middle-aged woman leaned out an upstairs window, exposing most of her ample breasts.
“Why don’t ya come to see me, lovey?” she asked, showing missing teeth.
He ignored her as the door opened and he pushed his way past Wesley. “Are you alone?”
“Of course I am. Why would I keep a doxy around after I’d used her?” Wesley lit several candles and stared at his son. “What is wrong?”
“What is wrong?” Nicholas echoed, pacing the small room. “Every god-damn thing is what’s wrong! Where is the brandy?”
“I’m out.”
Nicholas spewed a string of obscenities and finally sank onto the lumpy sofa. “That fool bitch has refused to marry me.”
Wesley sat down in an equally lumpy armchair across from Nicholas. “Was it the portrait? I heard it created quite—”
“Not the damn portrait. The damn Highlander. The chit fancies herself in love with the batard. Why is he not dead?”
Wesley shrugged. “I do not know. One of the men I employed is dead and the other disappeared. Not unusual, given the type of work they do. Do you want me to hire someone else?”
Nicholas shook his head. “Not for MacLeod. He will be on his guard now, but I will make him pay in more ways than one.”
His father looked amused, making Nicholas even angrier. He’d almost had MacLeod at the duel. He had not expected the Highlander to try a trick like stumbling. Nicholas would not make that mistake again.
Cold fury washed over him as he recalled the earlier events of the evening.
The ungrateful little chit did not even realize how he had made himself grovel to those pompous patronesses—and to her shrew of an aunt—to convince everyone he would do the honorable thing in light of the gossip their excursion to the gardens had caused.
An excursion made scandalous by putting the laudanum in the wizened maid’s chocolates.
At least that had gone according to plan.
Really, the Barclay girl should appreciate his offer to marry her.
Did she? No. Nicholas simply could have left her to face the consequences of her foolishness.
Her reputation would have been in tatters.
And what had she done with his portrait?
The painting was worth enough money to live quite well for six months at least. Had she appreciated that?
No. Instead, she had played the part of the distressed, na?ve ingénue, and the hulking Highlander had come to her rescue—and destroyed Nicholas’s work.
They would pay for that too, in more ways than one.
He became aware his father was speaking. “What?”
“I said, what do you intend to do now that the dowry is no longer an option?”
Nicholas smiled coldly. “We will get our money. Abduction was always a second option. I suspect a ransom will be paid quite rapidly if the note includes the threat of the girl being sold to one of the Eastern sultans who like blonde women in their harems. Quite a number of ships put into port here.”
Wesley chuckled. “Actually, a virgin would command a good price.”
This time, Nicholas gave a genuine laugh. “Marissa Barclay will not be a virgin by the time the ransom is paid. I intend to make sure of that.” He stood to go. “This time, when you hire the abductors, tell the men they will have the bonus of rutting one of the ton’s snobbish debutantes.”
But first, Nicholas would make sure taking Marissa Barclay’s maidenhead would be a very painful event. Then he would screw her raw until her ass bled as well.