Chapter 13 - Stephen #2
“And how do you repay my generosity? With disdain. With avoidance. With this ridiculous pretense that you’re too refined, too educated, too special to accept reality.
” A cruel smile settled over his features.
“But you’re not special, Charlotte. You’re desperate.
And you will learn to accept your position.
To be grateful for it, even. To be grateful for me. ”
The sight of Charlotte’s body tensing against his grip, the way she fought to maintain dignity while trapped in his grasp, shattered Stephen’s restraint.
His vision narrowed to those cruel fingers marking her skin, the edges of his sight bleeding crimson with a rage so pure it threatened to consume him entirely.
He moved without conscious thought, crossing the distance in swift strides.
“The lady asked you to release her.”
The words emerged low and deadly, each syllable carrying a threat that made the night air seem to vibrate with danger. Penrose spun toward him, swaying slightly. From the corner of his eye, Stephen caught the shock in Charlotte’s expression before it softened into something closer to relief.
“Who the devil are you?” Penrose demanded, his eyes trying to focus on Stephen’s face.
Stephen moved closer, forcing his hands to remain at his sides as he fought every instinct to wrap them around Penrose’s throat. “Someone who believes a gentleman doesn’t manhandle ladies.”
The man’s laugh held genuine amusement, though he didn’t release Charlotte. “And what makes you think you have any say in this matter? She and I have an understanding.”
“Really?” Stephen’s gaze flicked to Charlotte, who stood silent and pale as marble. “Perhaps the lady should speak for herself.”
“The lady,” he snarled, his grip tightening more on Charlotte’s wrist until she gasped, “belongs to me. We’re to be married.”
“She doesn’t look particularly happy about that arrangement.” Stephen took another step closer, never breaking eye contact. “Take. Your. Hands. Off. Her.”
Penrose’s face flushed dark with humiliation and rage. “How dare you—“ He shoved Charlotte aside and rounded on Stephen with fists raised, his movements clumsy with drink and fury. “I’ll teach you some manners!”
He lunged forward with a wild swing, his movements uncoordinated. Stephen sidestepped the blow easily, watching as the man stumbled past him. When he spun around and swung again, Stephen caught his wrist mid-strike, applying just enough pressure to make him yelp in pain.
“Unhand me!” He struggled against Stephen’s grip, face still flushed. “Do you have any idea who I am?”
“Someone who’s had too much to drink and should go home,” Stephen said, releasing him.
He stumbled backward, rubbing his injured arm. “I’ll see you ruined for this! I’ll—“
“You’ll what?” Stephen’s voice dropped to a mocking whisper. “Tell everyone how you were found drunk and threatening a grieving woman at her mother’s grave? How you had to be physically restrained from assaulting a lady?”
He went very still, his alcohol-clouded mind finally grasping the implications. Any scandal from tonight would paint him as a brute, and in society’s merciless game of reputation, being known as someone who threatened ladies could cost him far more than just Charlotte’s hand.
“This isn’t over,” he said finally, straightening his coat before walking toward the gate. Stephen turned his attention back to Charlotte. She was rubbing her wrist where Penrose had gripped her, and when their eyes met, the world around him ceased to exist.
The scent of wet earth, the whisper of wind through the trees, even the sound of retreating footsteps—all of it faded into nothing.
For a moment it was just the two of them.
He could see her pain, not just physical but something deeper, and everything in him demanded he close the distance, check for injuries, gather her in his arms and promise that no one would ever hurt her again.
The pull toward her was magnetic, undeniable.
A fist caught him across the temple without warning. Stephen staggered, pressing his hand to the sudden bloom of pain, something warm seeping between his fingers.
“You know, my dear,” Penrose sneered, his voice dripping with venom, “your mother would be ashamed of the whore you’ve become. Meeting strange men in graveyards like some common—“
Something primal and violent snapped inside Stephen. It was one thing for the man to strike him, but to attack the memory of her mother, to defile her grave with such vile words?
The pain from his temple vanished, consumed by a rage so pure it burned through his veins.
His fist connected with the lord’s jaw before the insult was finished, all his strength behind the blow, sending Penrose sprawling backward into the wet grass.
“Don’t you ever speak to her that way again,” Stephen snarled, standing over the prone form as he groaned. “Don’t come near her, don’t touch her, don’t even look in her direction. If I see you within ten feet of her again, what happened tonight will seem like a gentle warning.”
He raised his fist again, ready to ensure the man would never threaten her again, when gentle hands caught his arm.
“Please.”
Stephen froze, her voice cutting through his fury like a blade. She wasn’t commanding him to stop, she was pleading, and the raw vulnerability in that single word made his chest constrict with a pain that had nothing to do with Penrose’s fist.
He couldn’t quite meet her eyes, didn’t trust what he’d see there after she’d witnessed the violence he’d barely kept contained. His gaze landed somewhere lower instead, on her cheekbones, her jaw, anywhere that let him look at her without facing her full reaction.
A small constellation of freckles scattered across her skin caught his attention then, so faint he’d somehow missed them in every other moment.
He counted them without meaning to, his racing pulse gradually slowing as he cataloged each one—a few scattered along her cheekbone, more dotted across the bridge of her nose, all of them so faint they might have been painted there by someone with the lightest possible touch.
He wanted to be the one she allowed to learn them, until he knew their placement better than his own name.
“He’s not worth it.”
Her quiet words cut through the fog that had settled over his thoughts, and Stephen blinked, finally meeting her eyes. There was no fear there despite what she’d just witnessed, no revulsion. Just something that looked remarkably like trust, steady and unshakeable.
He looked down at Penrose’s dazed form, then back at her. He had never raised his hand against another soul before tonight, and he found, somewhat to his own surprise, that he felt no remorse for having done so now. What unsettled him was that Charlotte had witnessed all of it.
“Come,” he said quietly, his voice still rough with emotion. He spared one last look at Penrose, who groaned and shifted in the grass. “I’m taking you home.”
The walk back to Berkeley Square passed in tense silence.
Stephen kept a protective hand on Charlotte’s arm, his longer strides forcing her to hurry to keep pace.
His blood still pounded in his ears, but with each step beside her, the rage that had consumed him began to cool.
The reassuring warmth of her beneath his fingers, the simple fact that she was safe now, slowly anchored him back to himself.
They reached the Fairmont house too quickly and not quickly enough.
Stephen guided her into the small garden beside the house, away from the street where they might be seen.
Only then did he force himself to release her, stepping back into the shadows cast by a nearby tree, the familiar distance between their worlds reasserting itself.
Charlotte studied his face. “That was foolish,” she said quietly, absently rubbing her wrist. “Getting involved like that—“
“Foolish?” His voice came out harsher than intended. “Walking alone at night through London’s streets, that’s what’s foolish. Anything could have happened. Anyone could have—“ He broke off, raking back the strands of hair that had fallen across his face.
“I can take care of myself,” Charlotte said, lifting her chin.
“Can you?” Stephen’s voice carried an edge, his fear for her safety bleeding through as anger. “Because from where I stood, it looked like you needed help.”
Her eyes flashed dangerously in the moonlight. “I’ve been managing quite well without a guardian, thank you.”
Stephen clenched his jaw, exhaling sharply. He knew this wasn’t worth fighting over—she was safe now, and that was what mattered. His gaze was drawn downward to where she continued massaging her wrist, her fingers circling the angry red marks Lord Penrose had left.
“Your wrist,” he said, his voice softening as he stepped closer. “Let me see.”
“It’s nothing.” But even as she said it, she winced slightly as she pulled her arm away from his reaching hand.
“It’s not nothing.” He moved closer still, his protective instincts overriding everything else. “He had no right to handle you that way.”
Charlotte looked up at him, something shifting in her expression. “You’re bleeding,” she whispered, reaching toward the cut above his temple.
Stephen moved to touch the wound at the same moment, their fingers colliding in the narrow space between them. The contact sent fire racing up his arm, and he watched Charlotte jerk her hand back as if burned, her breath catching in the quiet garden.
He touched the wound, dark blood staining his skin. “Just a scratch.”
“Don’t be stubborn.” He watched her clear her throat and look away. “I’ve tended worse injuries from my own embroidery needle, so I am more than qualified to manage this.” she added, regaining some of her composure.
“How reassuring,” he said dryly. “I’m to be doctored by someone who regularly wounds herself with needlework.”
“Are you questioning my abilities?” There was a spark of challenge in her voice that made his pulse quicken.