Chapter 22 #3
“Save your lies, Camille,” he interrupted harshly, grabbing her forearm more cruelly than Dominick had held her.
“I don’t want to hear any more. Remember?
I know what a mistress of deception you are.
I should have known that the moment you heard Dominick was at Westover you would conjure up some way to speak with him alone.
And how expertly you accomplished it. You fooled even me. Now come on.”
“Wh-where are we going?” she asked in confusion, running to keep up with him as he strode with her around the house toward the driveway.
“Home to Briarwood. I’m sure Elias is waiting for us with the carriage by now, our bags loaded.”
“But why, Adam? What about the ball…and the festivities tomorrow, the picnic brunch and then the horse races? The Byrds prepared a lovely guest room for us—”
“I’m sure by now it’s been offered to someone else.
I gave Mr. Byrd and his wife our excuses after I discovered Dominick was also missing from the game room.
I told them you weren’t feeling well and that I thought it best we leave at once.
I had already concluded that you were with that bastard, plotting against me. I had only to find you.”
Thoroughly shaken by his irrational accusation, Susanna nonetheless attempted to reason with him as he hurried her toward their waiting carriage.
“Adam, you’re not making any sense. I would never plot with Dominick against you!
” She lowered her voice as they passed some guests strolling along the lantern-lit walkway in front of the house.
“Please listen to me. He forced me into the garden. He told me how disappointed he was that I had married you, how I should have been his bride, not yours, and that he loved me.”
“How touching.”
“No, you don’t understand. He told me that if anything ever happened, he would still want me to become his wife. Adam, look at me! He meant that if anything should happen to you…you were right about him! I think he’s planning to kill you—”
“And no doubt he assured you that it wouldn’t be long before you were freed from your forced marriage, didn’t he, Camille?
” Adam lifted her into the coach with such anger that she fell hard against the seat.
Joining her, he slammed the door with jarring finality as the carriage jolted into motion.
“Is that what your precious Dominick meant when he told you so reassuringly not to forget what he had said…and you answered that you wouldn’t? ”
Susanna shook her head numbly, seeing that it was futile to argue with him. His fury had driven him beyond reason. She should have known that if he saw her with Dominick, he would think the worst.
“Did you tell him that I was seeking revenge against him?” he demanded, not bothering to keep his voice down as the golden light spilling from Westover’s many windows and the merry strains of a country dance faded into the distance.
“No.”
“You’ve never believed a thing I’ve told you about Dominick, have you? Not a single blessed word. No doubt you think I earned the scars on my body from my own insolence and disrespect for my gracious, aristocratic employer!”
Susanna couldn’t answer for the sudden tears choking her. How could she ever have believed Adam might grow to love her? His behavior now proved that he hated her. Why else would he say and think such terrible things about her?
“God help me, woman, you will see on Monday that I have told you the truth! You’re going to accompany me to Raven’s Point with my attorney and witness the downfall Dominick Spencer has brought upon himself through his wretched excess and incalculable cruelty.
Then perhaps you will finally understand that plotting alongside that monster and harboring any hope that he might yet become your husband would have brought you nothing but ruin! ”
As tears tumbled down Susanna’s flushed cheeks, Adam drew her roughly against him, his hard lips covering hers in a crushing kiss.
Desire flared hot within her as acute as the bitter pain in her heart, and when he lifted her skirts and dragged her onto his lap so that she now faced him, her stocking-clad legs spread wide and straddling him, she knew that he meant to take her right there in the carriage.
His tongue ravaging her mouth, his panting breaths as ragged as her own, she heard the impatient tearing of fabric as her lower body was made bare to him.
She felt him working at the flap of his breeches, the back of his hand brushing her inner thighs.
Then he guided his massive arousal to that slick, hot place that despite his callous haste was crying out for him, and lifted her to receive him, impaling her body.
“Dammit, woman, you are my wife. No one else shall have you!” he swore against her lips, thrusting inside her even as she desperately bore down to meet him.
Their thunderous, shared release was instantaneous and overwhelming, their cries of ecstasy and anguish drowned out by the sharp clattering of hooves and the deafening rumble of wheels upon the road leading back to Briarwood.