AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“I told you you’d be mine - and you had no choice in the matter,” the Earl of Carteret bellowed as he grasped at Anne’s dress, trying to tug her off of her steed. “You should have listened to me. The harder you make this, the worse things will be for you, and for your father.”
“Just go away,” she pleaded. “Please.”
“I will HAVE what’s MINE! And not you, or Lawrence, or ANYONE will get in my way!” the Earl roared as he flung himself from the carriage, landing on the back of Anne’s horse. Her heart beat hard as she tried to shake him off, pulling away from the road and into the trees. The devil was not deterred, and grasped at Midnight’s reins; the creature cried out and bucked and tried everything it could to free itself of the man, as he struggled with poor Anne.
Anne closed her eyes as they converged back onto the main road - praying someone, anyone, would see them. Someone would stop this.
“Stop this damnable beast and speak to me! LOOK AT ME!” the earl shouted into her ear.
All she cared about was him. All she could see when she closed her eyes was him. Even with this demon of a man trying to control her, to have her for his own twisted and nefarious purposes, with her life and freedom on the line.
Would she ever see him again?
Chapter Sixteen
“So I try not to pry in to m’lord’s affairs too deeply, of course,” the driver said; his voice broke in to Lawrence’s sense of broken self-defeat, interrupting another dangerous reverie. “And of course, the lord is free not to answer, should he find it pushes too deep into his own personal situation, but... could I inquire as to who the... pretty young lady in the nightgown was, back at that manor we left?”
Lawrence had known the driver, Colby, for most of his life; the man was only a year or thereabouts younger than he, and had grown up as a daughter of one of the older maidservants, playing amid the fields of the Amhurst estate. When he came of age he worked in the Amhurst stables, and moved then on to learning the art of maneuvering carriages through the moors, carriages which had once carried the previous Lord Strauss through the paths and fields on late nights. Colby had never pried so much into Lawrence’s life; he had been a loyal servant, though, and Lawrence saw in him someone who had come up much the same as he himself had. Lawrence considered not answering the question - certainly such an inquiry from a servant or driver would provoke the fabulous rebuke of any other noble of good standing, but Lawrence had never been quite like other nobles of good standing, had he?
“She is... a lovely young woman, Colby,” Lawrence said, deftly avoiding a confrontation with the heart of the matter. He knew full well what the driver’s question had intended, but he had no desire to give the answer the chauffeur had truly wanted.
“Indeed, from the look of her she seemed to be quite a lovely woman, and one I can only guess has quite the station among the nobles, yes?” Colby asked, pushing forward as the carriage trotted along a dark and lonely road. A lantern, hung at the side of the vehicle, burned a soft orange light to guide the path along the cobblestones. It was not much to go by, but it helped abate some of the oppressive darkness; even on the night of a full moon, the hills and trees obscured much of its silvery glow, and one could scarcely see beyond the length of one’s own feet.
“She is indeed a lovely woman, and the woman due to inherit the title and lands and wealth of the viscount of Roxborough, her father, we he passes, if that gives an answer to your question,” the duke responded weakly. He looked out the window and a gossamer figure in the distance; his eye twitched as he narrowed his gaze, and he could see the figure vanish. He closed his eyes, and her face appeared; this time, not a face stricken in tears and pain, but a face gripped with passion; with want, the same face he had seen her give to him when she saw his body for the first time. A face he had never expected to see; a face full and bright, just for him.
Had he been hallucinating?
“And I’m certain that none of that matters much to you at all, does it, m’lord?” Colby asked with a wry smile, looking back over his shoulder through the window connecting the carriage to the chill of the outdoors. “I know you’ve never been a man for title or wealth or station. Not power-hungry, nor a silly social climber wearing a suit of paper.”
“You know me well, Colby, perhaps more so than I had thought,” the duke responded.
“It’s the only reason I can manage in thinking on why you’ve reached an age as old as you have without taking a wife, as would be expected of you,” Colby continued.
“Is it? Most simply assume I have unconventional tastes, instead,” the duke laughed. “That’s what they tell me the circles of gossip whisper, anyway.”
“I certainly know that you’ve known affection, or at least as close as could ever be said to be that sort of romantic affection, in the way you’ve cared for women you’ve been with in the past, but...” Colby opined. “I think you simply had n
ot truly seen in them what you long for.”
“Perhaps,” the duke said dismissively.
“But you saw it in that girl, didn’t you, m’lord?” Colby dared, as the carriage came to a tall forest, the road cutting away from clustered trees.
“That’s quite a statement for you to make,” the duke retorted. He couldn’t stop seeing her. He couldn’t stop thinking about her - once more he saw the image of a woman on a black steed, dress white as snow, laughing and calling out across the hills, before the lantern light flickered and she was gone.
“I think it’s an accurate one, though, don’t you?” Colby asked. “She said she loved you, after all. And I know that’s far from the only sign of truth to be seen, m’lord, but the manner in which she said it shook me down to my core. And I’m sure it did the same to you.”
“She’s a lovely woman, but...” the duke stammered.
“But?” Colby questioned. “I think there are few buts to be had when it comes to matters of love, m’lord.”
“You knew my father, Colby,” the duke announced with a sigh. “You knew the... manner, in which he acted. I’m certain you’re not privy to every detail, but the stories are there, and I’m certain you heard a few in your youth from the serving-girls and the butlers, and the like.”
“I knew him to be a flawed man, yes,” Colby admitted. “I do not yet see how those flaws have changed you, m’lord, or influenced your relationship with this girl who seems just right for you.”
“Don’t you see, Colby? What would happen if I took that girl’s hand? Do you think I could make her happy, with the things my father did? Do you think she’d leave my manor with anything save tears staining her eyes, the same way my mother did?” the duke responded.
“M’lord, you are not destined to be your father,” Colby stated simply. “No one is destined to be anything, except what they wish to be.”
