The Bridegroom by Linda Lael Miller

Author:Linda Lael Miller [Miller, Linda Lael]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HQN
Published: 2009-11-07T23:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER ELEVEN

LYDIA STARED AT JACOB, stunned, though after a few moments of reflection, she decided she shouldn’t have been at all surprised by the encounter. On some level, she’d known all along that she hadn’t seen the last of her spurned bridegroom.

“Mr. Fitch,” she said, in stiff greeting, flustered and quite unable to hide the fact from him or the imposing deputies, one standing with his back to the fireplace, the other perched on the edge of a chair seat, as though prepared to leap up and give chase if she fled.

Thank heaven Rowdy was there, and clearly had no intention of leaving her alone with two strangers and the last man on the face of the earth she wanted to see.

Fitch approached her, stood so close that she could feel his breath on her face, fetid and hot. “‘Mr. Fitch’?” he countered, speaking gently for Rowdy’s benefit, and that of the deputy marshals. But she could see the dangerous fury in his eyes, the passion, not for her, but for revenge. “Come now, Lydia dear. You’ve never addressed me so formally before.” This was untrue; she’d never addressed him by his Christian name, but she did not refute the statement.

He lowered his voice then, to a whisper, a bare breath of air. “Are you—are you untouched?”

Color surged into Lydia’s face, but the source of it was indignation, not shame. Her first impulse was to lash out, to say that she had been thoroughly touched, but common sense warned her against it. In any case, it was none of Jacob Fitch’s affair, what had and hadn’t gone on between her and Gideon, nor was it something she would air in front of Rowdy and the deputies.

She remained stubbornly silent.

And something more frightening than fury moved in Mr. Fitch’s eyes then—a coldness that sent icy chills through Lydia. Of course he had interpreted her silence as an acknowledgment that she was no longer the virgin he’d reserved for himself.

In the next instant, he’d changed again. Become the magnanimous gentleman, willing to overlook an indiscretion. “Either way,” Jacob Fitch said, his voice swelling to fill the room again, “this silly little escapade is over.” He drew his watch from the pocket of his brocade vest, flicked open the case with a quick motion of his thumb. “If we hurry, my dear, we can gather the aunts and that housekeeper you seem to hold in such high regard, and catch the afternoon train back to Phoenix—where we belong.”

“I’m not going anywhere,” Lydia said, knowing she might not have been brave enough to utter those words if Rowdy hadn’t been there, but equally certain that she would fight to the death if Jacob Fitch tried to remove her from that house by force.

“Don’t be stubborn,” Fitch crooned, taking Lydia’s chin between his fingers. Although the gesture probably looked like one of affectionate tolerance to the deputies and possibly even to Rowdy, it was, instead, a subtle show of power—only a shade more pressure, and he would have left bruises.

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