Chapter 25 #3
“So this is how it’s going to be from now on,” Adam said, a dangerous gleam in his eyes as he wiped the back of his hand over his mouth. “Biting, kicking, scratching. I can’t say that the challenge doesn’t intrigue me—”
“It’s not going to be any way!” Susanna broke in defiantly, trying to choke back the scalding tears that were almost blinding her. Trembling with hurt and fury, her embittered words tumbled from her lips in a wild, agonized torrent.
“You don’t deserve to touch me, Adam Thornton, and you never will again!
I refuse to spend the rest of my life with a man such as you, a man who can’t love, a man who won’t relinquish his insane lust for revenge.
I should have known that no matter what I did and no matter what I said, you would always think the worst of me.
Well, you can have your precious Briarwood and the Cary fortune and Dominick’s blackmail of you, and you’re welcome to them!
I don’t want any part of this charade, and I don’t want any part of you! ”
“You’re confusing matters here,” Adam said, moving slowly toward her, his gaze stormy as he stepped from the shade of the room into the bright sunshine streaming through the open doors. “Love has never been a concern between us, only desire, yet you hurl it at me like an accusation.”
“You’re right, it never was a concern!” Susanna cried, retreating onto the balcony as he kept advancing on her until she could go no further, halting abruptly against the wooden railing.
Her heart breaking, she could not stop herself from flinging at him, “That’s why I can’t believe I ever fell in love with a man like you!
How could I have ever been such a bloody fool as to hope that someday you might come to love me, too?
You’re too full of hate to care about anything but your revenge! ”
Adam stopped cold, feeling as if he had been struck hard in the face.
He stared at her in total astonishment, at those beautiful green eyes which were filled with such torment and defiance, at the tears streaming down her flushed cheeks, at the palpable tension in her stance, as if she was about to flee past him for the door.
“What did you say?” he demanded softly, wanting to hear her startling words again so that he would know he hadn’t imagined them.
“It doesn’t matter!” she threw back at him, swiping a damp tendril from her face.
“You have nothing to fear from me anymore, Adam Thornton. No more foul plots to uncover, no more worries that I might go to the constable and tell him the truth about Camille. I’m leaving for England on the next ship sailing out of Yorktown, and then you’ll not have Susanna Jane Guthrie to worry about any longer.
You can tell your fine Tidewater friends that I’ve gone back to my aunt’s at Fairford, or tell them I died suddenly, I don’t care! Just get out of my bloody way!”
“You’re not going anywhere,” Adam said, his heart thundering. God help him, she had said she loved him! He had heard it! Yet was it the truth, or just another of her many lies? Dammit, he had to know! “You’re going to stay right here and answer me—”
“No, you can’t stop me!”
She dashed past him with such agile quickness that he almost didn’t catch her; grabbing a handful of jade silk he hauled her back and enfolded her thrashing body in his arms. He wasn’t prepared for the wild ferocity of her struggles, and when she kicked him hard in the shin, he lost his balance, pitching into her.
He saw a blur of green silk and white flailing arms as Susanna lurched backwards…heard wood cracking and splitting, and her terrified gasp of surprise. Then she was gone and he was left alone on the balcony surrounded by an eerie, ominous silence.
Feeling as if his heart had stopped beating, Adam rushed to the shattered railing. She lay on her stomach twelve feet below him, her body inert and limbs askew, her face deadly white against the green grass.
“Susanna!”
He didn’t think, only reacted. Wrenching aside the splintered wood, he jumped, feeling excruciating pain shoot through his right ankle as he landed.
But he paid it no heed, falling to his knees and gathering her unconscious form into his arms. Her breathing was frighteningly shallow.
Tears stung his eyes when he saw the scarlet blood matting her glistening hair where her head had grazed the edge of the bricked path.
“Oh, God. Susanna…”
In shock, he rose with her and, hugging her to his chest, he limped on his badly turned ankle to the double French doors.
He couldn’t believe they were bolted, then he remembered he had ordered all doors and downstairs windows to be locked, just in case Dominick decided to pay them an unwelcome call…
Wasting no time, Adam smashed his fist through the glass and, ignoring the stinging cuts in his knuckles, he unfastened the bolt and flung open the door.
Swallowing against the fear and terrible anguish that gripped him, he staggered inside and began to yell…
for Ertha, for Corliss, and for the footman to run like hell to the stable and saddle his horse so he could ride into Yorktown for the physician.