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8
A Bullet in Your Manhood
“Annabel, sweetheart,you have to wake up.”
It was the quiet earnestness in Ezra’s voice–and the fact it was Ezra’s voice–that roused Annabel from the deepest, most relaxing sleep she’d ever experienced. With a loud, jaw-cracking yawn, she woke in degrees.
First, she stretched out her limbs, still pleasantly aching from being wound around Ezra’s muscular body like knotted bread. Next, she ran her tongue across her lips. Lips that were dry and swollen from all of the attention they’d received. Finally, she opened her eyes. Then opened them wider when she saw where she was.
Not in her bedroom, where she should have been. Not even in Clarenmore Park. Instead, she was right where she’d fallen asleep after Ezra had coaxed her to heights she hadn’t even known were possible. On a pile of cushions, on the floor, in front of a hearth that had dwindled to ash and coals.
“What time is it?” she gasped, scrambling to her feet. Looking around wildly for her cloak and scarf, she found the garments folded neatly on the armrest of a chaise lounge and yanked them on while she awaited Ezra’s reply. But instead of giving her an answer, he just stood in the middle of the empty room, his countenance guarded.
“It’s late,” he said grimly, and she didn’t understand that his words held a double entendre until he glanced at the closed door. “It’s too late, Annabel. I’m sorry. It’s my fault. I shouldn’t have…well, I shouldn’t have done a lot of things last night. But I especially shouldn’t have gone to sleep.”
She gaped at him. “Youwent to sleep, too? But that means–”
“Your sister is here to fetch you.”
A bucket of ice water thrown in her face would have been kinder than those seven damning words.
“No. This–this cannot be happening.” She pressed a hand to her throat as she edged away from the door, her mind whirling with plausible excuses for what she was doing here. She could say that she had gone for an early morning walk, and gotten lost. Or gone for a late night walk, and gotten lost. But it didn’t matter. Either way, she was lost. Her reputation was lost. Her good name was lost. Unless…by some miniscule chance… “Is it Eloise? My sister with the red hair?”
Ezra shook his head. He’d put on a different shirt than the one he’d taken off the night before, as well as a satin vest and forest green frockcoat. But it wasn’t enough. It wouldn’tbeenough to distract from her disheveled hair or wrinkled gown or the glaring fact that she’d slept with a man alone, in his house, with nary a chaperone, or a relative, or a servant to be found.
“Bridget?” she said hopefully. “Please,pleasesay it’s Bridget.”
Before he had time to reply, the door swung open with an ominous creak and Lenora strode in, her face as white as the snow outside the window. She wore an elegant beige riding habit, indicating she’d arrived on horseback, and her ebony hair was drawn back from her temple in a severe twist that emphasized the lines of disapproval that bracketed either side of her mouth.
“Annabel,” she said, and it was the weary disappointment in her tone that cut the deepest. “Howcouldyou?”
Annabel’s stomach plummeted like a rock. “I didn’t…we didn’t…that is, I can–”
“No,” her sister cut in sharply. “Youcannotexplain. Your being here speaks for itself. I might have expected this of Eloise, or maybe James. But you, Annabel…there is no explanation you can give that would excuse your abominable behavior.”
“Your Grace,” said Ezra, “I’d like a word in private.”
It wasn’t until he spoke that Annabel realized he’d stepped between her and her sister, and she didn’t know whether she ought to be grateful for his protection or worried that he was just going to make her terrible blunder a thousand times worse.
“It’s all right, Ezra,” she said softly. “You don’t have to–”
“I do,” he said without glancing away from Lenora’s frosty blue eyes. “I want to, and I will. This is only take a moment, Your Grace. You’ve my word.”
“Your word,” Lenora spat. “You’ve defiled my sister, potentially thrown our entire family into scandal, and I’m to take you at yourword?I have gravely misjudged you, Lord Whitmore. There is nothing you could possibly say that I would want to hear.”
“I think there is,” he said evenly. “Annabel, could you leave us?”
“But–”
“Please.”
She left the room reluctantly, unable to meet Lenora’s gaze as she walked past. No sooner had she shut the door behind her than she cupped her ear against it, but even though she closed her eyes and listened intently, she was unable to hear a word of what was being said…
“You’ve a greatdeal of nerve,” Lenora began, “asking anything of me, Lord Whitmore. Particularly my time. I’ve only two questions for you, and if I suspect that you have not answered honestly, I will permit my husband to come here, as he’d already like to do, and shoot you through the heart. Admittedly, he’s not a very good aim, so it would probably take a few attempts. Your arms. Your legs. Your manhood. You understand.”
Ezra swallowed. He deserved that and more. While he’d prefer not starting the day off riddled with bullets, he had nothing but appreciation for any person–man or woman–who would defend their family with such bold, unapologetic fierceness.
Lenora Rosewood Stewart was a lioness. In her eyes, he’d hurt one of her cubs. All things considered, it was a small miracle he wasn’t already holding his own intestines.
