Bonds of Matrimony (29 page)

She turned her back to the
window and reached for a stool beside one of Mr. Wainwright’s tables.
 
“I need to sit—” she had barely
gotten the words out before her legs buckled beneath her.
 
Both men rushed to her side to keep her
from hitting the floor.
 
Marcus
helped her onto a stool.

“I knew it,” he muttered
between clenched teeth.
 
“You need
to see a doctor.
 
You are not
well.”

“I’m fine, Marcus.
 
But there are things you don’t know
about.
 
There are things that we
never told you about England.”

“About England?
 
What are you talking about?”

“Father arranged for Reese
and I to be betrothed to these two…” Chase hesitated and shivered visibly,
“these two bastards.
 
We tried to
refuse, but you can imagine how that was received.”

“But wh—?”

“Allow me to explain!” she interrupted.
 
Mr. Wainwright cleared his throat
uncomfortably and disappeared through the curtain in the back of the shop.
 
“Jackson Booth was to wed Reese.
 
He was a philandering fool.
 
He only agreed to take a wife in an
effort to clear his name.
 
He was
named in a number of divorces.
 
He
had a liking for married women.
 
And I was to wed a man named Jett Stockton.
 
He—”

“Father would never arrange
such a foolish match,” Marcus argued, this time interrupting her.

“So you’re familiar with
him,” she sneered.
 
“And Father
did
arrange such a foolish match.
 
I begged him not to.
 
But he did.
 
The two of them were planning to announce the betrothal
during the Season.
 
When I tried to
appeal to Stockton, he threatened me.
 
I then learned that he had some substantial gambling debts.
 
When I confronted him and threatened to
tell Father, he attacked me.”
 
She
hurried to spit these words out before she could stop herself.
 
           
“He
attacked you?
 
Did he…?”

“He would have.
 
But his father walked in and ordered
that he show me out of the house.”
 
Chase paused and took a deep breath.
 
“He made it clear that he was desperate.
 
There was no way out for me.
 
Grandmother was fully aware of the
danger, and she was the one to first tell me about you being here.
 
She suggested we run.
 
She said that we could come to be with
you.
 
But it seemed impossible.
 
We would have to leave Mother and Father
behind.
 
But they betrayed us.
 
It was a simple choice.”

He stood speechless for a
moment.
 
“You should have told
me.
 
Are you sure you’re okay?” he
whispered.

“He’s here, Marcus.
 
He just got off that train,” she told
him evenly and quietly.

“Who?” he asked idiotically.

“Jett Stockton.
 
And he has a number of men with him.”

“You think they’re here for
you?”
 

George Wainwright picked
that moment to return to the room.
 
He stood dumbly watching the two of them.

“Why else would he show up
in Slaughter, Texas?”

“But that is simply too
extreme,” he argued.

“He’s a desperate man,
Marcus.
 
I cannot tell you what
lengths he will go to in order to get what he thinks he deserves.
 
He needs to repay his debts.”

“What does he want with
you?” Mr. Wainwright asked.

Chastity looked at him for a
moment before deciding that he could be trusted.
 
“He wants to force a marriage contract that was made back in
London,” she told him.
 
“Unfortunately, it’s a contract that my father agreed to and insists on
honoring.”

“How did he know you were
here?” Marcus asked, still trying to make sense of it all.

“Lord only knows, Marcus.
 
But he’s here, all right.” Her fear and
fury were making her lose patience quickly with her brother.
 
Why was he so damned slow?

“Where is he now?” Mr.
Wainwright asked.

Her shoulders sagged and she
shook her head.
 
“He may be in
Chantal’s,” she answered softly.
 
“I’m not certain.”

Mr. Wainwright nodded and
took off his ink-stained apron.
 
“I’m goin’ over there.
 
I’m
goin’ to spread the word that this man is not to be trusted.
 
We’ll send him on his way.
 
He’ll leave here believin’ that there
are no Fairfaxes in this town.
 
The
two of you need to get home and stay out of town.
 
Send Tom if you need anything.”

“Thanks, George,” Marcus answered.

The portly man stopped in
the doorway and placed a beefy hand on Chase’s shoulder.
 
“You have nothin’ to worry about, Miz
Fairfax.
 
We’ll see that the
bastard finds his way out of town.
 
You’re too much lady for trash like that.”

“Thank you, Mr. Wainwright,”
she answered with a genuine smile at him.

“George,” Marcus called out
before the door closed behind him.

He grabbed the door and held
it open, turning back to meet her brother’s now serious, cold eyes.

“Have one of the men bring
our horses to your back door, won’t you?
 
They’re tied up at the station.”

Mr. Wainwright nodded and
let the door swing shut behind him.

Her brother took one of her
hands in his own and squeezed it reassuringly.
 
“This is a small town, Chase, but it’s full of good people.
 
We watch out for each other in times
like this.
 
I’m sure this fool will
be gone on tomorrow’s train.”

“Underestimating Jett
Stockton would be a very foolish mistake, Marcus.
 
When I say that he is a desperate man, I mean that he is
dangerous.
 
For whatever reason, he
has his mind set on marrying me, and he will not stand by idly waiting for me
to come around.
 
He came all this
way, and I don’t see him leaving peacefully when I refuse him.”

“I understand now why you’ve
been so distracted.
 
This must be a
nightmare for you,” Marcus sympathized.

She did not respond.
 
Instead, Chase thought of Webb and what
he would say about this situation.
 
Unknowingly, he had just complicated her life even more the night
before.
 
Marrying Stockton was no
longer an option, not that she had ever considered it a possibility.
 
He would discover on their wedding
night that she had been with another, and he would make no bones about
announcing the deception.
 
In other
rare instances, promiscuous women have had to forfeit their dowries or
inheritances to the wronged husbands.
 
The marriage would be annulled, and she would be ruined.
 
Then Stockton would certainly want
revenge…on her, her family, and Webb, too.

And as long as she refused
to marry him, Chase put everyone she loved in danger.
 
She had no doubts of what the man was capable of doing.
 
She had only to remember their
encounter in the library and the fury in his eyes.
 
He was insane.
 
There
was also no doubt in her mind that he would do anything to get what he
wanted.
 

***

Webb worked hard all day,
hoping that he would stop thinking about Chase Fairfax with every new endeavor he
took on.
 
But he could still see
her and smell her.
 
And worst of
all, he could still taste her and feel her body around his own.

She had taken him by
surprise.
 
He knew that she was a
passionate woman, but he expected her to be more timid and shy.
 
Instead, she had clung to his body and
moved with him to bring even greater pleasure to both of them.
 
Get her out of his system?
 

He snorted and quickly
looked around to see if any of the men had heard him.
 

Webb couldn’t get her out of
his mind, much less out of his system.
 
He hadn’t made things easier.
 
He had made things damn near impossible.
 
And on some level, he had known all along that one time
would not be enough.
 
Instead, he
only wanted her more.
 
He felt the
stirrings in his body and tried to focus on the work and shove Chase and the arousal
she inspired out of his mind.
 
But
damned if she didn’t keep creeping back in.

He needed a nice cold swim
at the pond to cool off and get her out of his mind.
 
And unless he was prepared to endure this agony on a daily
basis, he was going to need to keep as far away as possible from Chase
Fairfax.
 

And with his very next
thoughts, he found himself hoping she would be at the pond when he got there.

CHAPTER 15

As Marcus and Chastity raced
up the driveway, she tested a couple of different ways to break the news to
Reese and their grandmother.
 
She
couldn’t even imagine how she would explain the situation to Webb.
 
But to his credit, he had already
rescued one woman from an undesirable betrothal.
 

They slowed and guided their
horses to the stables.
 
But before they
could stop and dismount, two ranch hands rushed toward them yelling.

“Fairfax!
 
It’s Lawson!”

Marcus dropped to the ground
before his horse came to a stop.
 
“What happened?” he asked worriedly.
 

The men quickly explained
that Tom had been trampled by one of the bulls.
 
“It looks like his leg is broke,” the taller of the two
finished.
 

“Dammit!” Marcus
cursed.
 
“I need him today.”

“Bells already rode for Doc
Burns.
 
We helped Lawson to the
house.
 
Your sister and grandmother
are tending to him.
 
So we’re two
men short today.”

“I can help,” Chase
suggested, though even she knew that her help could hardly make up for the loss
of Tom and the ranch hand, Bells.

“Have you checked on the
infected cow?” Marcus asked, handing his sister the reigns of his horse.
 
She dismounted and led both animals
into the stables to be rubbed down and watered.
 
They had ridden them hard in their hurry to get home.

“She was the same this
morning.”

The sound of their voices
faded as they moved away from the horse stables and headed for the cattle
barn.
 
Chase put Artemis into her
stall and began to tend to Marcus’s horse.
 
She tried to focus on the task at hand, but her mind kept
returning to Jett Stockton and his reasons for sailing across the Atlantic and
taking a train across a foreign country.
 
He had traveled a long way, as she well knew from her own
experiences.
 
But she had chosen to
take that journey out of necessity.
 
She came to be with her family, who was already established.
 

In spite of the sweltering
heat in the stables, Chase shivered and forced herself to think of other
things.
 
“Colton,” she whispered to
herself.
 
She needed to see him and
explain her situation to him.
 
On
some level, she knew that he couldn’t possibly do anything to help her.
 
But lying in his arms the night before,
she had never felt safer in her life.
 

She remembered the day he
had discovered who she was on the Mauretania.
 
He had forced her against the ship’s railing, threatening to
throw her overboard.
 
She had
hardly felt safe that day, Chase smiled to herself.
 
From sharing a cigar and beer at the poker table to sharing their
bodies in the hayloft, Colton Webb had never been predictable.
 
But she knew without question that he
would do what he could to help her.
 

But Marcus was missing two
men.
 
Chase wouldn’t have an
opportunity to ride to Webb’s pond today.
 
And if, as George Wainwright promised, the town of Slaughter sent Jett
Stockton out of town on the morning train, she would try to ride to see him
tomorrow.
 
And hopefully by then, she
wouldn’t need his help anymore.