ROMANCE: Lion Protector (Paranormal Shifter BBW Military Romance) (Shapeshifter Alpha Male Short Stories Book 2) (113 page)

Packing covertly was difficult. Annabelle and Jason’s bedroom was precisely laid out and he’d always had an eye for detail. It was what made her so justifiably cautious in her affair, and kept her from indulging in the usual slip ups with Chris that married lovers occasionally do.

She had to find a bag that he wouldn’t notice was missing, and fill it with just enough clothing that he wouldn’t notice a change in the wardrobe. It was easier than she thought it would be when she realized that most of her clothes soon wouldn’t fit her anyway. But she had to bring a few things, so she reached the furthest back into the closet that she could and ended up with all the oldest of her clothing.

She smiled to herself. What she’d ended up with, quite accidentally, was what Chris would remember her in from their days together, or perhaps from the photos she sent with her letters just after he left.

She was determined she would take only a few things in her wallet. She was taking his reputation. She was taking his heart. She didn’t need to be accused of taking his money as well. She left all the cards to their joint accounts. She’d have no access to their funds, but she didn’t care. She had a small account her mother had opened in her name when she was younger as a savings account that she’d never ended up using. It’d always just been there, not merged into the marital finances. Now that it was happening, Annabelle wondered if it had been
for
this all along. She hadn’t planned anything consciously, but had she meant it? Had some part of her been preparing for this?

A divorce would be messy. She would leave him with everything and take only the clothes she could bring with her, a few keepsakes from a box in a closet that wouldn’t be noticed, and the little money she had solely in her name.

And the ring, she thought to herself. She would have to leave him the ring.

She served dinner to the men, and avoided looking at Chris. She didn’t want to know if he was looking at her.

After dinner the conversation with Jason was spare. They watched television together. They talked about little. Over these past few months they’d grown more and more distant, and she knew he noticed. She wondered, briefly, what would be his first thought when he woke in the morning and found her gone. And then she decided she didn’t want to know.

-------------------------------------

At midnight, Annabelle stood beneath the tree. It wasn’t at all very similar, she realized now. It was only the same kind of tree. They weren’t even really the same size. They were just close enough that it reminded them both of it, and that had been good enough.

The summer had been turning cold, and in the dark of the night Annabelle was chilly, and her faith was waning. Would she be heading back to the house? Had she chosen wrongly? Could she go back to the house?

But then she saw it. There was movement in the darkness. When it drew closer, she saw it was Chris’ rusted truck. He must have coasted it with the clutch down and the engine off all the way down the long sloping drive to avoid detection.

Annabelle smiled. She climbed in when he stopped in front of her. Then Chris started the truck, and they drove wordlessly together out into the night.

THE END

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Charlotte Gordon winced as her maid brushed out yet another snarl from her curls, coiffing each lock into place to form an elaborate hairstyle that tugged on Charlotte's temples. Heavy and time-consuming as it was, Charlotte bore with the pain -- tonight was the Duchess of Devonshire's ball and her mother would quite literally murder her if she didn't look perfect.

Charlotte sighed and waved the maid away as soon as she was finished, and with a hurried bow the girl scurried off, leaving Charlotte alone in her room.

At last. Charlotte let herself bask in the refreshing sense of being completely alone, with no one and nothing to attend to but herself. In a few hours, she would once again have to be Charlotte, daughter of the Duchess of Gordon, the
ton's
beautiful and charming "Flower of Galloway" -- but for now, she would have paid her father's fortune for the entire world to just leave her be.

Flower of Galloway indeed!
Charlotte snorted in a way that would have given her mother, ever the ambitious social climber, the faints. She rose and crossed the room, flinging open the door to the balcony and breathing in the cool air of yet another passing day. Another day she had spent laughing and chatting about Lady Worthington's unfashionable dress, or whispering about yet another of Earl Liben's indiscretions, or what a crude, insensible twit the new debutants were.

Yet another day of being trapped in this elaborate, gilded cage. Sooner or later the bars would suffocate her.

Stolen moments like this were breaths of fresh air. She slipped off her silk gloves so she could actually feel the cool breeze on her skin. It whispered secrets of mysterious, far away lands; of djinns and incense and white-faced geishas, where lanterns still burned instead of lamps and legends still rang true.

Charlotte let her eyes slip closed, willing away the rest of the world, if only for a little while. A thud shook her meditations, and in her surprise her glove slipped away from her grasp.

Before Charlotte could do little more than gasp, the expensive silk was nothing more than a white glimmer below. Schooling her face so none of her distress would show through, Charlotte turned around to meet her mother face-to-face.

Lady Gordon stood in the doorway, looking supremely unimpressed as she always did, staring down at Charlotte as if she was in her nightwear and not freshly made up in the latest Parisian fashions.

"I'm not too fond of the print. Tell the seamstress to go with a less...bruised silk come spring. And put on your other glove, what is the matter with you?" Lady Gordon sniffed and, criticisms finished, suddenly smiled. Her whole face lit up in delight. "Your father wants to see you in the drawing room immediately. It's about your marriage."

Marriage
! Charlotte stood up on wooden legs, following her mother down the hall only by sheer willpower. She'd always known this day would come, but so soon? She was only starting on her second season! She was barely more than an untrained debutante!

A tiny optimistic voice rang in her mind.
Maybe he won't care about me? Maybe he'll have a mistress and will allow me free reign.
She didn't even dare hope for someone she would be able to love. All throughout the past year, she'd met every single eligible bachelor from small gentry ("Practically peasants," her mother had sneered) to dukes of every title and reputation imaginable. None of them had been able to stir her heart.

Lady Gordon and Charlotte gracefully entered the drawing room, the picture of civility and grace. Lady Gordon perched herself near her husband, who nodded imperceptibly to his wife before turning his attention to his daughter.

"Charlotte, Lady Gordon --" A slight grimace here, the Duke hated to be reminded of his wife, "has most graciously arranged a fantastic match for you. Using her connections from when she, ah,
dallied
with his Majesty, she asked that you be entered into consideration as Prince George IV's wife. After viewing your performance as a debutante, the Prince himself declared that he would take you on."

The Crown Prince!
Charlotte was shocked, her head spinning.
The prince regent himself!

Her mother and father looked at her expectantly, obviously expecting Charlotte to break down in gratitude, maybe even fall to the floor in a clear faint.

"I...I can scarcely believe it." Charlotte managed to force out while she felt the ground fall out from under her feet, dreams of unwatched carriage rides, whole nights to herself, maybe a country estate where she could ride her steed freely flying out of her grasp. “It’s a great honor.”

“A great honor?” Her mother repeated incredulously. “It’s a miracle that his Majesty didn’t ask for that insipid French princess or, god forbid, yet another Princess of Wales!”

Yes, I wonder what kind of strings you had to pull to arrange this one, Mother?
Charlotte thought bitterly. It had only been a few short years since her mother had been his Majesty’s favorite mistress and Handmaiden to the Queen, and her exile from the court was a disgrace that still haunted their family.

A marriage to the Prince Regent would mean power, status, people fawning left and right, never having to lift a finger again. Everything her mother, not Charlotte, was interested in. She didn’t care for political intrigues or power games or the constant surveillance she’d be under and, dear god, she was about to
suffocate
.

Suddenly, Charlotte felt an irrepressible need to run, run run
run
right out of this mansion. She stood abruptly, cutting off her mother’s diatribe of the Prince’s many accomplishments.

“Apologies, I...I dropped my glove outside. I won’t be but a moment.”

Her mother looked vaguely horrified at her rudeness, but refrained from saying anything in front of her husband to Charlotte’s utter relief. Her father also frowned but waved her off. “Go on then. The Prince will be at the ball tonight -- you’ll need both gloves to impress him, I’m sure.”

Charlotte thanked her father and hurried off, fighting the need to run until she was clear of the parlor. As soon as she was away from the watchful eyes of her parents, she hitched up her skirts and flew through the grand halls, past a flurry of maids and out the stately front door.

Her lungs begging for air and her side in stitches, Charlotte was forced to shamble to a stop somewhere in the sprawl of London. She had no idea where she was or where she wanted to go, but the tightness in her chest loosened with every step she took away from that accursed gilded cage.

Here on the streets of London she could entertain fanciful ideas of escape. Of selling her dress, buying a pair of slops and a coat with the money before stowing away onto a departing ship. She mapped the route she’d take in her mind while she wandered aimlessly, too engrossed in her thoughts to notice the streets slowly emptying of respectable folk as she turned onto one alley after another.

When she snapped back to reality, she was the only one heading down a slowly darkening, unfamiliar street.

“Oi there!” A gruff male voice called from behind her, accompanied by a chorus of wolf-whistles and low snickers. “Who’s this fancy little chit then?”

Charlotte sped up, heart hammering in her chest as the footsteps behind her drew closer.
This is what you get for being foolish,
she scolded herself to distract from the fear that was rising in her throat like bile.
Why would you ever think you could handle a bit of adventure?

The street seemed to stretch on for miles, with no end in sight and her pursuers gaining on her by the second. No matter how fast she walked the pack of men -- sailors from the sound of it -- seemed to move faster, each sneer and taunt sticking to her skin and covering her in their filth.

One of the men finally got close enough to grab her arm, tugging her in his vice-like grip towards his friends. She breathed in, deep, before leaning close to the man’s head and letting out the highest, loudest, most alarming scream she could muster straight into his ear.

He howled and let her go, leaving her free to leap away. She took off like a shot, veins singing with adrenaline and heart pumping harder than it had ever worked before. It was like all her senses, dulled from countless evenings of useless conversation and routine, had suddenly sharpened. She could see the seams of every brick, the signs of every shop, the ginger cat that crossed the street in front of her. She could taste the wind in her mouth, feel it in her hair. And under the cacophony of shouts and cries of “Get her!”, she could hear...laughter?

Good God, was she laughing?

She barely had time to think about it before she saw a hidden alleyway the cat had sprung into and she followed it mindlessly, too intent on getting away from the scoundrels to think about what lay ahead of her.

A strong hand gripped her waist as soon as she entered the shade of the alley and swung her back, stepping in front of her just in time to meet the sailors in hot pursuit.

“Mate, move outta the way. We gots some business with this li’l broad…” The man she’d deafened visibly paled as her protector stepped out into the dusky early evening light. Likewise, the rest of the pack scrambled backwards as the mystery man stood calmly in front of them, suddenly so quiet you couldn’t hear a squeak from any of the bunch.

Who was this man?
Charlotte knew that he couldn’t be part of high society -- his coat, though obviously made from expensive material, was too large on him and wasn’t in any discernible style or shape that Charlotte could recognize -- and being the trendsetter she was, that was saying something. Besides, it was weather-beaten and battered, and no respectable man would be caught dead in such attire.

Yet his outfit was far too expensive for anyone else but the
haut monde
to afford. A merchant perhaps?

When the man finally spoke, his voice sent shivers down Charlotte’s spine. It was deep, rough in a way that reminded Charlotte of tobacco smoke and the stormy sea. Hypnotic, with a gravity of its own, and before Charlotte could stop herself she had taken a step towards his broad back.

“Well, boys, seems like this little lady doesn’t want to play.” He said with a tinge of amusement. “Why don’t you go find yourselves some decent toffers in the rookeries?”

The men left as one, slinking away without even a word of protest. A couple of the bunch even muttered some apologies before leaving. Them gone, the man turned around to face Charlotte, who met his scrutinizing gaze head-on.

“I can see why they chased you,” was the first thing he said after what seemed to be an eternity. “How’d the daughter of…”

“The Duke of Gordon.” Charlotte finished for him. Rather than seeming impressed, he snorted derisively.

“...the Duke of Gordon end up in this part of town?”

Charlotte felt a bit sheepish, and worried the edge of her glove. "I was...wandering."

"Wandering? I've heard the Duke of Gordon was a dodding old fool, but surely even he must disapprove of his famed daughter
wandering
around rookeries. Is this a habit for you then?" Charlotte could
feel
the man watching her, his dark eyes taking in her dress, her hair, even her missing glove. She shuddered.

"Hardly," Charlotte replied hurriedly, if only to distract the man's attention. "And I must thank you for --"

The man impatiently waved away the thanks. "Isn't saving a beautiful lady any man's dream?"

He flashed her a smile then, and proffered his arm. "If the lady wishes, would she take a walk with this poor soul?"

Charlotte hesitated, horror stories of strangers and murders and kidnappings running through her head. Her common sense shrilled at her to stop, to find a police station or some such respectable institution, but the adrenaline still flowed in her veins from her earlier encounter and she felt reckless. Stupid, even. What did she care if she made it back home? Nothing was waiting for her but a life she'd rather leave behind.

The mystery man waited for her patiently, seemingly reading her every emotion as if she was transparent. Charlotte reached out and slid her arm in his, her hands wrapped around a hard bicep.