'I've invested twelve years of my life in you,' Radnor said between clenched teeth, taking a step forward. 'And I will be repaid for those years one way or another.'
Lottie glanced incredulously at her parents. 'You can't truly mean to give her to him! How can you have slipped so far beyond decency? My husband said that he would take care of you and assume your debts-'
'Ellie will have a better life this way,' her father mumbled. 'Lord Radnor will provide well for her-'
'You don't mind the fact that he intends to make her his mistress?' Lottie glared at them all, while Ellie cowered behind her and sobbed against her back. 'Well, I won't have it! I'm leaving now, and taking Ellie with me- and if anyone dares to lay a finger on us, he will answer to Lord Sydney.'
The mention of Nick seemed to infuriate Lord Radnor. 'How dare you? You have cheated, betrayed, and insulted me beyond all bearing, and now you mean to deprive me of the one recompense I ask for.'
'You don't want Ellie,' Lottie said, staring at him steadily. 'You want to strike back at me. To punish me for marrying someone else.'
'Yes,' Radnor exploded fiercely, seeming to lose all self-control. 'Yes, I want to punish you. I raised you up from the mud, and you have brought yourself low again. You have corrupted yourself, and in doing so, you have deprived me of the only thing I have ever desired.' He came to her in a few aggressive strides. 'Every night I lie abed imagining you with that swine,' he shouted into her face. 'How could you choose that loathsome animal over me? The filthiest, most debauched man on-'
Lottie drew back her hand and struck him hard, her palm smacking the side of his face with numbing force. 'You aren't fit to speak his name!'
Their gazes locked, and Lottie saw the last remnants of sanity disappear from Radnor's eyes. He reached out for her, his hands closing around her like a hawk's talons, and he jerked her off her feet until she fell against him. Behind her, Ellie gave a fearful shriek.
Lottie's parents appeared too stunned to move as Lord Radnor dragged her from the house. Caught fast in his grip, Lottie stumbled and tripped down the front steps. Radnor shouted something to his footmen, while she fought and twisted in Radnor's arms, until he cuffed the side of her head, landing a painful blow on her ear. Lottie reared and shook her head to clear a shower of brilliant sparks. Her gaze found Daniel, who had been beset by Radnor's footmen. Despite Daniel's size, he was no match for two of them.
'My lady,' Daniel cried, and reeled backward as a heavy fist smashed into his face.
Radnor sank his hand into Lottie's hair and tangled his fingers tightly in the pinned-up locks. Locking his other arm around her neck, he forced her to go with him to his carriage.
'See here, Radnor-' came her father's anxious voice. 'We've said you can have Ellie. Release Lottie, and we'll-'
'Thisis what I want,' Lord Radnor raged, dragging Lottie with his forearm clamped around her throat, making her choke and gag as she was deprived of air. 'No more bargains. No substitutes. I will have Charlotte and be damned to all of you!'
Lottie clawed frantically at the crushing vise of his arm, her lungs feeling as if they would burst. She couldn't breathe...she needed air...black and red streaks blurred her vision, and she felt herself go limp in Radnor's punishing embrace.
CHAPTER 15
Lottie did not fully regain her senses until she felt herself being half-dragged, half-carried into Lord Radnor's London home. Her head pounded viciously, and her throat ached as she struggled against his unrelenting grasp. Somewhere beneath her fear and fury, she was aware of a deep relief that Ellie had been spared. Her sister was safe, and now everything had boiled down to the confrontation that Lottie had always known would happen, between her and the man who had dominated most of her life.
Although Lottie was aware of a few exclamations from nearby servants, none of them dared to interfere. They were all fearful of Radnor, and they would not lift a finger to prevent him from doing as he wished. She wondered what his purpose was in bringing her here. His London residence was the first place that would be investigated when it was discovered that she was missing. She would have expected him to take her to a remote place where they could not easily be found.
Radnor hauled her to the library, locked the door shut, and shoved Lottie into a chair. Holding one hand to her bruised throat, she crumpled into the seat. A few moments later, she felt something hard and cold prod against her temple, while one of his hands pulled her head to the back of the chair.
Lottie's heart stopped beating as she understood the reason that Lord Radnor had brought her here. Since he could not have her, he intended to destroy her.
'I loved you,' Radnor said quietly, sounding perfectly sane, even as the end of the pistol barrel trembled against her head. 'I would have given you everything.'
Strangely, Lottie found that she was able to answer in just as rational a tone, as though they were having an ordinary conversation and her life was not about to end with the pull of his finger on the trigger. 'You never loved me.' It hurt her throat to speak, but she forced herself to continue. 'You don't know the meaning of the word.'
The pistol shook harder. 'How can you say that after all that I have sacrificed for you? Are you really so ignorant?'
'In all the years that we've known each other, you've demonstrated domination, obsession, and desire...but those things aren't love.'
'Then tell me what love is.' His voice was thick with scorn.
'Respect. Acceptance. Selflessness. All the things my husband has shown me in just a few short weeks. My flaws don't matter to him. He loves me without conditions. And I love him the same way.'
'You owe your love tome,' he said harshly.
'Perhaps I could have felt something for you had you ever tried to be kind.' Lottie paused, closing her eyes as she felt the pistol nudge harder into her temple. 'Strange, but I've never thought it mattered to you, whether I cared for you or not.'
'It does,' Radnor said furiously. 'I deserve that much from you, at least!'
'How ironic.' A humorless smile tugged at her dry lips. 'You demanded perfection from me-something I could never attain. And yet the one thing I might have given you-affection-you never seemed to want.'
'I want it now,' Radnor stunned Lottie by saying. Keeping the pistol pressed to her head, he moved in front of her and knelt until their faces were level. His face was ruddy with color that burned not on the surface of his skin but from deep underneath. His eyes were black with rage, or perhaps despair, and his thin mouth was contorted by some powerful emotion. Lottie had never seen him like this. She did not understand what moved him, why he should seem so ravaged by loss, when she knew to the bottom of her soul that he was not capable of love.
His clawlike hand took hers, brought her resisting fingers to his perspiring cheek. She realized with amazement that he was trying to make her caress him...here, like this, with a gun held to her head. 'Touch me,' he muttered feverishly. 'Tell me that you love me.'
Lottie kept her fingers still and lifeless in his. 'I love my husband.'
Radnor flushed with baffled anger. 'You cannot!'
She almost pitied him as she stared into his uncomprehending eyes. 'I'm sorry for you,' she said. 'You can't conceive of loving anyone who is less than perfect. What a lonely fate that must be.'
'Idid love you,' he shouted, his voice striated with rage. 'I did, damn your cheating soul!'
'Then you loved someone who never existed. You loved an impossible ideal. Not me.' She licked at the beads of sweat on her upper lip. 'You don't know anything about me, my lord.'
'I know you better than anyone,' he said vehemently. 'You would be nothing without me.You belong to me .'
'No. I am Lord Sydney's wife.' She hesitated before giving voice to the thought that had occurred to her more than once in the past few days. 'And I am fairly certain that by now I am carrying his child.'
Lord Radnor's eyes became two wells of utter darkness in a face that was skull white. She perceived that she had shocked him deeply, that the thought of her being pregnant with another man's child had never even occurred to him.
Delicately Radnor's fingers withdrew from hers, and he stood. The cold barrel of the gun never left Lottie's temple as he moved behind her once more. She felt the perspiring flat of his palm catch slightly on her hair as he
