Page 25 of Unbound Duchess

Solomon sneered.

“What a cowardly lecher,” he spat out. “Willing to sell his own betrothed as a punishment.”

He expelled a heavy breath, then shook his head before he took a sip of his own drink.

“When she caught me in Benedict’s office that first night, I asked her if she wanted help. At the time she took great offense to it, but last night, at the auction, when she saw who I was…she must have remembered my offer, and it was then she decided to take it. You saw the other men bidding on her. I could not, in good conscience, just let her be taken home with one of them. With me, I knew she would not be forced into anything. But with them…”

He didn’t finish his sentence, didn’t need to. He and Solomon both knew what would have happened.

“I suppose,” Solomon said after a moment of silence, “I cannot fault you for winning her bid then. But you must know that it is only a temporary solution. Benedict expects to get her back at some point.”

Laurence didn’t look up at his friend as he walked to the drink cart and poured himself another drink.

“That is why I am marrying her,” he muttered.

He flicked his gaze toward Solomon, just in time to see his friend’s eye begin to twitch.

“You’re what?”

“It is the only way to keep her from having to go back to him,” Laurence countered, feeling his defenses rise. “You saw her bruises. The fear in her eyes. I could not let her go back to that! He could kill her!”

Solomon flinched.

“She is not Annabel, Laurence,” Solomon said quietly.

Laurence scowled as he looked down into his drink.

“I am perfectly aware,” he grumbled. “Annabel is dead.”

He drained his glass and slammed it down, cracking the bottom.

“Saving Ellen is not going to bring her back,” Solomon said with an edge of warning.

“I have not gone mad,” Laurence snapped.

Yet, as he said the words, his guarded heart shuddered. He sneered at the feeling and looked anywhere but Solomon’s studying gaze.

“I am worried for you,” Solomon said after a tense moment. “I fear you are getting too close to Benedict with this. It was one thing to get the better of him for a night. But if you take his bride and make her your own, this could put us in serious danger.”

Laurence shook his head as his lips set into a grim line.

“I cannot allow him to hurt her again,” he gritted out.

He cast a glance toward Solomon and, as he suspected, found him with his head cocked and his eyes narrowed, as if Laurence were a puzzle he was trying to solve.

“Do you have feelings for this woman?” Solomon asked. “Is there something you are not telling me?”

Laurence scoffed as a tremor passed through his body.

“Do not be ridiculous; I do not even know her,” he replied.

When Solomon’s intense gaze did not waver, Laurence shifted on his feet awkwardly and looked down again.

“Though I must confess I do feel immensely protective of her; Her father recently disceased , her mother long gone. Benedict is her only remaining family, her guardian, and he was trying to blur those familial lines into marital ones that she did not want. I cannot imagine what it would be like to feel so trapped.”

Solomon’s expression softened.

“I had not thought about it that way,” he confessed. “You are right, of course. She needed help.”