Joseph blinked. “You just asked me to bar the door. Now you want me to unbar it? No one is there other than the groundsman—who else would be out in this freeze? The way the wind is gusting off the icy Severn, I fear we’re in for a storm—”
“I need to know if Sir Leonard followed me—just look!”
At twenty, Joseph already knew that he’d never understand females. But he could tell that this one was on the edge of hysteria. “Very well.” Hands held up in surrender, he backed away until he hit the door, then turned, opened it, and quickly shut and barred it again. “There’s no one. It’s so damned cold—” He broke off as he turned back to peer at her. “And yet, you wear no cloak. Did you walk here from Moore Manor with no cloak? Over a mile in the freezing cold?”
“There was no time to fetch a cloak. And I didn’t walk here, I ran, which warmed me some.” Although all four fireplaces were lit, and the oiled canvas overhead held in the heat to keep his plants alive, she shivered. “I feel cold now, though. I cannot go through with it, Joseph. I cannot marry Sir Leonard. I just cannot.”
Sir Leonard Moore, the rather distant cousin who had recently inherited her father’s baronetcy, expected to wed her on the second of January, the day before she turned eighteen. He coveted her holdings—acres of valuable land that weren’t included in the baronetcy’s entail, as they’d come from her mother’s family and now belonged to Creath. Unfortunately for her, Cromwell had seen fit to appoint Sir Leonard her guardian, which meant she couldn’t refuse to marry him. As long as she was underage, her marriage rights were his to bestow.
But up until now, she hadn’t objected to the match. When Joseph had questioned her, Creath had claimed she didn’t mind wedding a man more than twice her age. She’d always been destined to be a lady of the manor, and her mother had trained her well. Though she wished Moore Manor weren’t Sir Leonard’s manor, at least it was home. She’d told Joseph she would be content loving her children and caring for her tenants and ancestral lands. And one day, her son would be the next baronet, bringing the title back to her branch of the family where it belonged.
He’d believed her. He’d believed she’d make the best of her passionless marriage and take pleasure in the tasks expected of a lady. Because Creath was the kind of woman who would compromise her very soul in order to avoid conflict. The kind of woman who would square her shoulders, lift her chin, and get on with her life no matter what happened.
Clearly something had changed.
“What on earth happened?” Joseph reached to smooth the straight reddish-blond hairs that had escaped her usually neat bun.
Creath flinched from him, her arms wrapping around her middle. “He tried to bed me,” she stated bluntly. The girl could be honest to a fault. “He said he wanted to make sure I wouldn’t change my mind, make sure no other man would want me if I did change my mind.” Her lower lip quivered. “If you’d seen the look in his eyes, Joseph—I believe he is insane.”
“Holy Hades.” Something had changed, all right: The man had proved himself an animal. “He…he didn’t succeed, though?”
She shook her head, biting her lip to stop the quivering. “I begged, and then I fought, and he was hurting me. I grabbed one of Father’s heavy bronze statues and brought it down on his head. He dropped like a sack of flour…and I ran.”
It wrenched at his guts, watching her struggle for control. She clearly wanted to act like her normal, levelheaded self. But she didn’t seem to know how.
The bastard had really shaken her. Joseph wasn’t a violent man, but right then, he’d never felt more capable of murder.
“May I hide here?” she asked.
“Of course you can,” he told her, though he knew that was his father’s decision to make.
Joseph’s title was just a courtesy title. Someday he’d be the Earl of Trentingham, but until then his father was the lord and head of the family. Still, he knew his parents would agree to give Creath safe harbor. They loved her like a daughter.
“We’ll keep you safe,” he promised, hoping they could. “I think we can assume Sir Leonard didn’t follow you, since he would have arrived by now.”
“I hope he’s still knocked out,” she said darkly.
“Do you think he’ll guess where you’ve gone?”
“Maybe. I’m not sure. He doesn’t know me very well.” It had taken quite some time for the authorities to trace the Moore lineage back far enough to find and verify her father’s heir—Sir Leonard had arrived only last month. “I’m hoping he doesn’t know which neighbors are my friends. If I can hide for ten days, I’ll turn eighteen, and he won’t be my guardian anymore. He won’t be able to make me marry him then.”
“I’m not so sure, Creath. He’s a Justice of the Peace.” That appointment was another reward from Cromwell—Sir Leonard claimed to have fought beside him in the war. “Marriage is a civil matter now, no longer any business of God’s. If a Justice of the Peace can marry others, who’s to say he can’t also marry himself? He just has to write your two names in his register. The old ways are gone…”
“Oh, God, they’re all corrupt, aren’t they?”
“Not all. But certainly some.” Probably most. And he strongly suspected Sir Leonard was among the corrupt ones.
“I cannot marry him. I cannot.” Creath had always been a lovely pale English beauty, but now she looked positively white. “I’ve seen his true colors. He came from nothing, and he’s not a nice man. He’s a baronet now and has a government post, a solid position in society. But he wants more. He’ll always want more. He thinks marrying me will satisfy him, but it won’t, because
