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There was a harsh silence, punctuated only by James’s ragged, uneven breathing. He was staring intently at Fellport, but his eyes looked strangely distant as he whispered, “I’ve waited for this moment. I’ve been waiting years to pay you back.”
“Me?” Fellport squeaked.
“All of you,” James ground out. “Every last one of you. I couldn’t save—” He choked on his words, and no one breathed as the muscles of his face jerked.
“I can save Elizabeth,” he whispered. “I won’t let you take her dignity.”
“James?” Elizabeth whispered. Dear God, he was going to kill him. And Elizabeth, God save her soul, wanted to watch. She wanted James to tear the man in two.
But she didn’t want to see James hang, which would almost certainly be the outcome. Fellport was a baronet. An estate manager couldn’t kill a baronet and get away with it. “James,” she said, more loudly, “you must stop.”
James paused, just long enough for Fellport to get a good look at his face. “You!” Fellport grunted.
James’s body was shaking, but he held his voice low and steady as he said, “Apologize to the lady.”
“That whore?”
Fellport’s head slammed against the ground.
“Apologize to the lady.”
Fellport said nothing.
And then, in a whir of movement so quick that Elizabeth couldn’t quite believe her eyes, James pulled out a gun.
Elizabeth’s breath caught, and her quivering hand flew up to cover her mouth.
There was a loud click, and James pressed the muzzle of the gun to Fellport’s head.
“Apologize to the lady.”
“I—I—” Fellport began to shake uncontrollably, and he couldn’t get the words out.
James moved the gun slowly, almost lovingly, against Fellport’s temple.
“Apologize to the lady.”
“James,” Elizabeth said, terror evident in her voice, “you must stop. It’s all right. I don’t need—”
“It’s not all right!” he roared. “It will never be all right! And this man will apologize or I’ll—”
“I’m sorry!” The words exploded from Fellport’s mouth, high-pitched and panicked.
James grabbed Fellport’s shirt collar and hauled him off the floor. Fellport gasped as the fabric bit into his skin. “You will be leaving this party,” James said in a deadly voice.
Fellport just made a choking sound.
James turned to Elizabeth, never once loosening his grip on Fellport. “I will be right back.”
She nodded tremulously, clutching her hands together in an effort to stem their shaking.
James dragged Fellport outside, leaving Elizabeth alone in the stall. Alone with a thousand questions.
Why had James been carrying a gun? And where had he learned to fight with such deadly precision? James’s punches hadn’t been influenced by friendly, sporting pugilism; they had been designed to kill.
And then there were the scarier questions, the ones that wouldn’t allow her heart to stop racing, her body to stop trembling. What if James hadn’t come across them in time? What if Fellport had turned brutal? What if…?
Life couldn’t be lived according to “what ifs?” and Elizabeth knew she was only prolonging her misery by dwelling on what might have happened rather than what did, but she couldn’t stop replaying the attack over and over in her mind. And whenever she got to the point where James had saved her, he didn’t appear, and Fellport pushed further, tearing off her clothes, bruising her skin, taking her—
