Stranger in My Arms(71)

Lara’s searching gaze meshed with his furious one.

He didn’t want to appear the chivalrous knight, she realized, and he was trying to make it clear that his motives were more selfish than benevolent.

But it wasn’t working. Nothing could disguise the fact that once again Hunter was doing the right thing. Silently Lara marveled at how he had changed. “I must confess something,” she said.

“What?” he asked icily.

“Once, years ago… I actually envied Rachel because…” Her gaze dropped from his wrathful face and fixed on the carpet. “When Rachel married Lonsdale, she thought herself to be in love with him.

Lonsdale seemed so dashing and romantic, and when I compared the two of you in my mind, you came off rather… worse. You were so infinitely serious and self-absorbed, and you had little of Lonsdale’s charm.

Certainly it’s no surprise that I didn’t love you. My parents arranged our marriage and I accepted it as a sensible choice. But I couldn’t help thinking, when I saw the affection between Rachel and Lonsdale, that she had made the better match. I never intended to admit such a thing to you, it’s only that now-” Lara twisted her hands into a tight, white knot. “Now I see how wrong I was. You’ve become so…” She stopped and flushed, before gratitude and some deeper, more dynamic emotion forced her to finish. “You’re more than I hoped you could be.

Somehow you’ve changed into a man I can trust and rely on. A man I could love.”

She didn’t dare look at him, having no idea whether her admission was something he wanted or not. Hunter walked past her, his boots moving across the edge of her field of vision, and he went through the half-open doorway… leaving her alone with the echo of her own impetuous confession.

Chapter 16

IT SEEMED THAT the servants of the Lonsdale estate had chosen sides by gender, the males supporting the master while the females were in sympathy with the lady of the manor. A pair of footmen and a stoic butler did their best to prevent Hunter from entering the Lonsdale mansion, while the housekeeper and lady’s maid hovered nearby, watching anxiously. Hunter sensed that the women were more than willing to show him to his sister-in-law’s room.

Hunter made his face expressionless as he locked stares with the butler, an elderly man who had given decades of loyalty to the Lonsdales. No doubt he had seen or helped to conceal many a misdeed committed by the family. The man was polite and dignified as he greeted Hunter, but a flicker of uneasiness in his eyes revealed that something was not as it should be.

He was flanked by a pair of towering footmen who seemed prepared to carry Hunter bodily from the mansion.

“Where is Lonsdale?” Hunter asked tersely.

“The master is away, my lord.”

“I’ve been told that Lady Lonsdale is ill. I came to ascertain her condition for myself.”

The butler spoke with the requisite hauteur, but it seemed that his color heightened slightly. “I cannot confirm any details regarding Lady Lonsdale’s health, my lord. Naturally it is a private matter.

Perhaps you could take it up with Lord Lonsdale when he returns’ Hunter glanced at the footmen and the two women by the stairs. Their frozen expressions made him realize that Rachel was ill indeed.

The situation reminded him of an occasion in india when he visited the house of a dying friend and found the place filled with relatives from both sides of the family. Their silent despair had hung in the air like a haze of smoke. They had all known that if the man died, his wife would be burned alive with his corpse. Hunter remembered the red-paint handprint the bereaved wife had left on the doorway just before going to fulfill the ancient tradition of sati. The mark was all that had remained to remind the world of her existence. To Hunter’s sickening frustration, he could do nothing to help her. The Indians felt so strongly about sati that they were apt to kill a foreigner who dared to interfere.

How little a woman’s life was valued in so many cultures. Even in this one, supposedly so modern and enlightened. Hunter hadn’t been able to argue with Lara’s assessment that in the eyes of English law a man’s wife was his property to do with as he saw fit.

Judging from the anxious gloom hovering in this place, the unfortunate Lady Lonsdale was about to fall victim to society’s callous disregard.

Unless someone intervened. Hunter spoke to the butler, though his words were directed to all of them. “If she dies,” he said quietly, “you’ll likely be charged as accomplices to murder.”

He could feel, even without looking, how the comment affected the group. A current of fear, guilt, and concern rippled through the room.

They all remained motionless, even the butler, as Hunter went to the stairs. He stopped before the plump housekeeper.

“Show me to Lady Lonsdale’s room.”

“Yes, my lord.” She ascended the stairs with such swiftness that Hunter was obliged to take them two at a time.

It was dim and still in Rachel’s bedroom, a sweet, dry note of perfume in the air, the velvet curtains closed except for a six-inch space that allowed a hint of sunlight. Rachel reclined on large lace-trimmed pillows, her hair long and loose, her fragile body swathed in a white gown. There were no bruises apparent on her face or arms, but she had a strangely waxen complexion, and her lips were chapped and bloodless.

Becoming aware that someone was in the room, Rachel opened her eyes and squinted at Hunter’s dark shape. A whimper of fright escaped her, and he realized that she thought he was Lonsdale.