“This is unconscionable!” Fairbrother staggered upright to block the doorway. The fact that his trousers were still fastened did nothing to calm Richard’s rage.
Fairbrother’s bulk prevented Richard getting a good look at Genevieve. Why hadn’t she spoken? What had this pig done to her?
“Genevieve, are you all right?”
Fairbrother puffed up. “Refrain from addressing my intended bride.”
“That’s a damned lie.” Richard gestured with one gun. “Step down or take the consequences.”
Fairbrother’s lips curled in a gloating smile. “I’m unarmed.”
“I don’t give a rat’s arse.”
Richard was almost sorry when Fairbrother descended to shuffle toward Greengrass.
He heard a rustle from inside the carriage. Then Genevieve stood swaying on the step. Anguish speared Richard’s gut. She looked as though every hope had been stripped away. Her glorious hair flowed about her shoulders. Shaking hands clutched her torn bodice. Abrasions marked her shoulders and neck. When her stricken gaze sought Richard, he almost forgot the danger and swept her into his arms. She hunched against his stare. He was appalled to read shame in her beautiful face.
Richard made himself smile, although his soul bayed for Fairbrother’s liver. It took every ounce of will to sound reassuring. “Let me take you home, Miss Barrett.”
Slowly she straightened and raised her chin. Richard’s heart swelled with love as he watched her gather tattered courage. Staggering slightly and catching at the doorframe, she stepped from the carriage.
Richard wound his arm around her waist. She trembled as reaction set in. Much as Richard burned to make Fairbrother suffer, he needed to get her away. In this light, he couldn’t see how badly she was hurt. Any injury at all made him feel like he’d swallowed a volcano.
He turned to Fairbrother. “If you touch her again, I’ll kill you. Nothing, not pity, not the law of the land, will save you. And if you or your henchman utters one word about what happened tonight, I’ll hunt you down and end your miserable lives. Do you understand?”
Fairbrother regarded Richard with virulent hatred. “Roast in hell, you bastard. Nobody makes a fool of Neville Fairbrother, let alone some trumped-up cit who thinks the gold in his pocket compensates for breeding.”
All his life, people had called Richard bastard and mongrel. He waited for the familiar anger. Instead he found he couldn’t care what this evil, selfish old man thought of him. All that mattered was to get Genevieve to safety and place himself at her service.
“Can you walk?” he asked softly, backing her into the shadows and keeping his guns trained on Greengrass and Fairbrother.
“Yes,” she whispered, although he felt her unsteadiness as she moved.
His hold firmed. “Let’s get out of here.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
Once they were well clear of the carriage and Genevieve had stopped mistaking every noise for pursuit, she wriggled free. She dearly needed to bolster her pride, although Christopher’s embrace offered the only sanity in a world gone mad. “Where are we going?”
He stepped back, granting her distance as he pocketed his pistol. “To Leighton Court. Your father and aunt are there.”
Terror had lodged behind her tonsils. “I want to go home.”
She waited for an argument, but didn’t get one. “Very well. But you can’t be alone.”
Still that annoying lump wouldn’t vacate her throat. “Dorcas is there.”
“Dorcas can’t look after you.”
“I don’t need looking after.” Even as her soul cried out for him to wrap his arms around her forever.
The compassion in Christopher’s face brought her closer to crying than Lord Neville’s assault had. He touched the hands she twined together at her waist. Her belly, only just settling, lurched in reaction. His hand, there against her solar plexus, felt breathtakingly intimate.
“Just tell me if you’re hurt,” he said quietly. “You don’t have to say anything else.”
She closed her eyes, reliving those hideous moments before the door opened and the man she believed was a scoundrel transformed into a hero. “You don’t want to know what happened?”
His fingers curled around hers. He’d touched her so often, but this was different. Calm. Reassuring. Comforting. No trace of seduction. “I want what you want.”