Impulse. Candace Camp
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had worked well so far, but she was getting tired of having to escape from her own home, and when she saw the purplish irises, she had given in to an urge to draw them.
Her usual companions were sprawled around her. The sun was pleasantly warm on her face, and she felt lazy and contented. It was almost the way it was normally, the way it had been before Cam and Mr. Pettigrew came. The way it would be again, if only they would leave. She let out a little groan at the fact that she had allowed him to intrude upon her thoughts.
She closed her eyes and turned sideways on the bench, leaning back against the arched trellis that formed the arbor, and tried to recapture the feeling of content she had had earlier. She told herself that everything would be better later—except that Jeremy was going to be ruined financially, as well as socially. Firmly she pushed that thought from her mind. But she could not make it stay away. Angela knew that she could not let Jeremy be destroyed on her account. It was entirely within her power to save him. She hated that fact. She hated Cam for having put her in such a position. She wondered what marriage to Cam might be like, whether he would keep his promise not to seek her bed.
Years ago, she would have trusted him with her life, she knew. He had been her god, her idol; she had loved him with a child’s worshiping heart long before they fell in love as adults. Her father had died when she was young, and her mother had usually been sick, which had left her in the company of her grandparents, who were too old and not of the disposition, anyway, to enjoy talking to or playing with a child. She had been left primarily in the charge of her governess after she got old enough to leave Nurse’s care, and that prim woman had provided little affection or attention to a girl hungry for it. But Cam had had time for her. He had listened to her, talked to her, been her friend.
Hot tears welled in Angela’s eyes, surprising her, and seeped out beneath her lids.
“Crying at the prospect of your wedding, my dear?” a familiar voice drawled, not three feet away from her. “Can’t say that I blame you.”
Angela gasped, her eyes flying open, her entire body suddenly chilled to the marrow. Lord Dunstan was standing on the narrow dirt pathway that led to the arbor.
CHAPTER FOUR
SHE HAD NOT seen him in four years. She had thought—hoped and prayed—never to see him again. It was such a shock to have him there in front of her, without warning, that for a moment she felt as if she could not breathe. She simply stared at him, unable to move or to speak, her insides turned to ice.
“Ah, I can tell that you are surprised to see me,” he continued coolly. He looked much the same. Dissipation had yet to mar his well-proportioned face. He looked cold and perfect, as if he had been carved out of marble, and his clothes were in the height of fashion and of the best material. Lord Dunstan allowed nothing but the finest around him.
Angela forced herself to stand up and face him. She could not let him see that she still feared him; nothing would please him more. “What are you doing here?”
She was pleased that her voice did not tremble. She clenched her fists at her side. Her entire body was rigid. Would anyone hear her inside the house if she screamed? The walls of Bridbury Castle had been built to withstand sieges. Beside her, Wellington lumbered to his feet, eyeing their visitor distrustfully.
“I came because I was concerned about you,” Dunstan told her, his voice mockingly sympathetic. “I could not believe the rumors I heard. I had to see for myself.”
“I can’t see why. Nothing about me is any longer of your concern.”
“But you are my wife! Of course what you do is my concern.”
“Was,” Angela pointed out firmly. “I was your wife.”
“Perhaps I am old-fashioned, but, though the legal bonds between us may be broken, I still feel that you belong to me.” His pale green eyes swept down her body knowingly. Angela shivered; it was as if a snake had slithered across her path. “You see, I am very familiar with every inch of you.”
“Go away, Dunstan. You have no right to be here.”
“I cannot leave until I learn what I came here for. I heard that your brother, not the most discriminating of men, as we both know—” again there was a knowing leer in his eyes, and Angela was certain that he, too, knew about Jeremy’s sexual habits “—that Jeremy was entertaining your former stable boy in his home. Odd, I thought. It couldn’t be true, but I heard it so frequently, I decided I must drop by and see if it was true.”
“Cameron Monroe is visiting here, if that is what you mean.” Angela tried for a haughty tone, but the icy amusement in Dunstan’s eyes told her that he saw right through her pose.
“My dear girl, really, you can’t mean you still have your predilection for low types. I would have thought you had lost that by now.” He sighed. “Ah, well, one would have hoped that Jeremy, at least, would have more thought to the Stanhope name.”
“What do you care about the Stanhope name? It is none of your business who is visiting us, anyway.”
“It is my business when my wife—all right, my former wife—is rumored to be marrying a servant. How do you think that looks, for you to go from me to a stable lad?”
“I don’t care how it looks! It has nothing to do with you!”
“Ah, but everything about you has to do with me,” he replied, reaching out and stroking his knuckles down her cheek. Angela flinched instinctively. “I see you still remember.”
“Of course I remember,” Angela replied in a choked voice. “How could I possibly forget?”
“Then you must remember how completely I owned you, my dear. I still do. Whatever other man might have you, you will always have my stamp upon you.”
Bile rose in Angela’s throat, and she swallowed hard to keep from gagging. Dunstan, watching her, smiled.
“I wouldn’t mind having you back,” he continued. “It takes so many years to school a woman as adequately as I had schooled you, you know. ‘Tis such a chore, having to train others. And, I find, there are few who are quite as … titillating as you are.”
Angela could not hide the convulsive shiver that ran down her spine at his words. She felt pinned between Dunstan and the arbor bench behind her. She wanted to run around the bench and up the path to the house, but she hated to turn her back to him almost as much as she hated facing him. Besides, it galled her to let him know how much he scared her. That had always been one of the things from which he derived the most pleasure.
“You will never have me back.”
“Won’t I?” Dunstan’s mouth twisted in a smile. “I told you, it is all over London that Jeremy is on the threshold of debtor’s prison. Everyone knows you are for sale to the highest bidder. Why else would Jeremy entertain the notion of allying your family to that of a servant? I should think he would be grateful to me if I were to save him from denigrating the Stanhope name in such a fashion. I can pay off his debts, and I would think he would be suitably grateful to me. Don’t you? Of course, marriage would be out of the question now. An Asquith could have a divorcée as no more than a mistress, say.”
Angela sucked in her breath and stiffened. A white-hot rage swept through her. Dunstan watched her with a faint smile on his lips, enjoying the reaction his words had caused in her.
“Angela?” Her brother’s voice came across the yard.
Angela whirled. Jeremy was hurrying toward her along the path from the house, a worried frown on his face. Cam Monroe was beside him, looking wonderfully solid and safe. A feeling of power surged up in Angela. Suddenly she felt stronger and more confident. She glanced at Dunstan. There was something in his eyes that told her the thought of her marrying Cam Monroe galled him. It was pride, she decided, pride and possessiveness. He hated to think that another man—worst of all, someone of lowly birth—might own something that had been his, for