The housekeeper blinked. “Did she not send you word? Oh, dear. I thought she would—” “My wife,” he barked.

“She’s gone.”

Gone. He felt as though he just took a punch to his chest with those words. “Where?”

“Her father fetched her.” Mrs. Harkens twisted one shoulder in an awkward shrug. “Thought it a bit odd, but Mrs. Courtland told me not to worry. Though I must say she didn’t look too happy to see him.”

Bloody hell. Apparently, Jack had gotten wind that he and Marguerite were back in Town—and married. No surprise that he hadn’t been pleased with the news. With Jack’s connections, Ash should have expected something like this. It was his own damn fault he’d left her alone.

Without a word, he stormed past his gaping housekeeper and out of the house, intent on reclaiming his wife, and doing a better job of keeping her.

Chapter 20

Marguerite paced the bedchamber she had been given for the night. A servant had arrived earlier to invite her downstairs to dinner. She had refused, too angry to sit across from her father and abide the sight of him. How had her mother ever loved such an arrogant wretch?

Wearing a night rail she presumed belonged to one of her sisters, she resigned herself to the fact that she would have to stay the night. At least one night. Whether Ash came for her or not, she refused to stay a second night in her father’s house. Simply begetting her did not make him her father—did not give him any rights as a parent. A knock at the door brought her pacing to a halt.

“Who is it?” she called out.

“Grier and Cleo,” a voice called.

A feeling of both elation and dread stole over her. The last visit with her half sisters had been awkward, mostly because she had wanted the encounter to be … well, something. Everything.

Foolish, she knew. How can a lifetime bond be formed in a first meeting? It was too much to expect. Also, she had rushed from the room with such haste they probably thought she wanted nothing to do with them.

“Come in,” she called.

They tumbled into the room, reminding her of a pair of anxious little girls tripping over each other in their haste to reach a table laden with cakes and biscuits.

“The prodigal daughter has returned,” Grier exclaimed, stepping forward, larger than life with her hands on her hips. She no doubt stood out in any group. She possessed that sort of presence. She was hard to miss, even without her unfashionably sun-browned freckled skin and deep auburn hair.

“Don’t you mean the prodigal son?” Cleo asked.

Grier rolled her eyes. “Have some imagination.”

“You’ve more than enough for all of us,” Cleo returned.

Marguerite glanced back and forth. They seemed even better acquainted than before. A situation that only made her feel more distant from them.

As if she read her mind, Cleo stepped forward and hugged Marguerite. “We’re so glad you’ve returned. Forgive us for intruding on your privacy. Jack said you were not feeling quite the thing, but we could not resist checking on you. Our last visit was dreadfully brief. Oh, but I confess I’m thrilled you did not go to Spain. But then what a shame,” she clucked. “We could have spent Christmas together.”

Grier dropped inelegantly upon the bed as if she planned to remain for a good while. “I hope you plan to stay longer this time.” Grier plucked at an invisible thread on the counterpane. “Jack would no doubt appreciate a daughter more accommodating to his matchmaking efforts. We haven’t been the most successful.”

“Grier,” Cleo admonished. “Give it time. He’s paraded a score of gentlemen before us.”

“Then I suppose he should parade a score more, because thus far, this entire endeavor has been quite the disappointment. Why not toss a real man our way and cease with all these sniveling dandies?”

“I’m certain we shall meet acceptable gentlemen in due time,” Cleo assured her. “Jack is determined, if nothing else.”

Marguerite glanced around the elegant bedchamber that served as her prison. Indeed, they possessed no notion how determined their father could be.

Grier pulled a face. “Yes, well, we aren’t all as young as you. And this city air is making me itch.” She rubbed her arm. “I can’t stay here forever.”

Cleo rolled her eyes. “I suppose we must yet again narrow your excessive criteria. Shall you now require a gentleman in possession of a country estate?”

“Not a bad idea, that,” Grier muttered, still chafing her arm, either missing or ignoring Cleo’s derision. “Wouldn’t hurt you to raise your standards a bit, too. Don’t you want more than to simply escape that overcrowded nest you call home? As unpleasant as it is to share your bed with two little sisters, don’t forget you’ll be sharing your bed with some man … best take care he’s someone you can tolerate for the next fifty years.”

Marguerite watched the pair, listening raptly, fascinated with the notion that they had turned their lives over so readily to Jack Hadley. And yet it made sense. From their remarks, she gathered that their lives fell short on opportunities.

Cleo caught her looking and lifted one slim shoulder in a fatalistic shrug.

A loud commotion from somewhere within the house drew their attention. Marguerite cocked her head to the side, straining to listen to the distant voices.

“What’s that?” Grier asked, moving to the door. Feet pounded up the stairs like stampeding horses.

“Holy hellfire!” Grier sputtered, peering out into the corridor.

Almost in answer to this, a masculine voice shouted, “Marguerite! Marguerite, where are you?”

Her heart tripped at the familiar voice.

“Ash,” she murmured, her chest seizing.

Grier swung her incredulous gaze to Marguerite. “You know him?” she demanded. “Who’s Ash?”

“My husband,” Marguerite volunteered, the words easier to say than she had ever imagined. Especially now that she knew he had not forgotten her.

“Your husband?” Cleo shook her head. “Since when?”

“Since he abducted me on my last visit here.” She refrained from adding that it could have been any one of them he snatched that evening.

Cleo gasped, eyes rounding in horror.

“The wretch! Shall I dispatch him for you?” Grier’s hands curled into fists at her sides as if she would pummel the offending man herself. And somehow, Marguerite didn’t doubt she would. There was something very capable about the woman.

“Fetch the Guard!” Cleo exclaimed, looking prepared to bolt from the room to do that very thing.

Jack’s voice rang out then, loud and intractable, booming at the end of the corridor as he commanded his men to remove Ash from the house.

“Marguerite!” Ash bellowed yet again, and this time there was a desperate quality to his voice.

Marguerite squeezed past Grier in the doorway, her breath falling fast and hard, anxious to reach her husband. He had come. Ash had come for her.

Her stomach plummeted at the sight of him. He thrashed in the arms of several of her father’s men. Jack stood near, face mottled red with fury.

Ash surged with unsuppressed violence in the arms of his captors. Eyes locked Jack, he growled, spitting the words, “Marguerite is mine. You’ll have to bury me to stop me from coming for her.” One corner of his mouth curled with wicked threat. “And even then I may come for her.”

A shiver raced through Marguerite at that heated avowal.

Jack only looked more enraged at this. He swung a finger back in the direction of the stairs. “Get him out of here!”

Ash’s eyes found her, bright and alive, glittering darkly in his harshly handsome face. He brought to mind an avenging angel, fearsome and deadly in his beauty.

His lips moved, mouthing her name so quietly, appealing to her alone.

Her chest squeezed, an aching, twisting mass at its center. She stumbled forward, rushed into her fate with full awareness that she might be rushing to her doom. And not caring. She had to have him, craved him like a woman denied air for far too long. “Ash, wait!”

“Marguerite, get back in your room!” Jack barked.

She turned on her father, snarling. “You mistake yourself to think you have any authority over me.”

He blinked at her hissed words and waved roughly at Ash. “You can’t think he cares for you.”

“He’s here, is he not?” she retorted, thinking that meant something. To her, at that moment, it meant everything.

Jack laughed harshly, his eyes cold and pitying as they swept over her. “This isn’t about you. This is about me. About him and me. He’s here to protect his interests, to secure only a greater share of our business. You play no part, stupid girl.”

Ash broke from his captors then, charged Jack with a roar, connecting his fist to her father’s face with a sickening crack.

Marguerite jumped from the force of the blow, wincing.

Her sisters yelped behind her.

She blinked, frozen to stone, shocked at the image of her father crashing against the wall. A painting rattled loose, tumbling with a bang alongside him.

Even Jack’s henchmen didn’t move, gaping at their employer, the great King of St. Giles a broken pile upon the floor. Jack glared up at Ash, gingerly touching his bloodied lip.

Ash stood over her father. “You’ll not speak to her like that again,” Ash gasped, broad chest heaving with serrated breaths. Somehow in the scuffle his cheek had been scratched. A thin line of blood oozed just beneath his eye, making him look all the more feral, dangerous.

“What?” he bit. “The truth?”

“You’re the one who knows nothing. This isn’t about you anymore. Marguerite’s my wife now. Forever. You can’t undo that.”

Jack stared unblinkingly, as if he were seeing Ash for the first time. In some ways, she felt she was seeing him for the first time. Seeing and believing that this man cared for her. Needed her. Not because he wanted to prove something to her father, not because he wished to protect his assets, but because he needed her for himself.

Marguerite moved to Ash’s side. He wrapped a strong arm around her and pulled her closer, leading her away. She sent a small wave to her gawking sisters. They waved back, both wearing similar expressions of astonishment.

Marguerite and Ash walked down the corridor, descending the stairs side by side. She shivered when they stepped out into the chill night. Only then did she recall she wore a night rail.

Ash pulled her close and folded her within his greatcoat. At the door to his waiting carriage, he swept her inside.

Sinking onto the comfortable squabs, she permitted him to bundle her up in a blanket. She was shaking, but it had little to do with the cold and everything to do with him.

He came for me.

She opened her mouth to speak, mutter some flippant remark about overprotective fathers, something to bring levity to the tension that weighed the air between them, but she didn’t get the chance. He finished tucking the blanket around her and lifted his hands to her face in one smooth movement, hauling her toward his mouth for a kiss that robbed her of words, breath, thought.

He slanted his lips over hers again and again, his tongue slipping inside her mouth, tasting of spicy drink and all that was him.

His kiss burned, consumed her, desperate and hungry like it was the first time, the last time they would ever kiss each other.

She arched against him with a restless mewl, sliding her fingers through his hair, drinking desire from the hot melding of their lips.

He groaned, deepening the kiss, lips fusing. Their teeth clanged with violent need. Pleasure raced through her, scalding her blood when he bit down on her lip. She bit him back. A shudder racked him, rippling through her. Their fingers moved over each other, roving, touching, groping with ungentle hands.