Surrender to Me (The Derrings #4)(68)

Her gaze snapped back up to Petra’s face, awareness hitting her. “Good heavens! You’re not—”

“Please, Astrid!” Petra rushed forward, seizing her arm in a surprisingly fierce grip. The birthmark on her face seemed to darken with the depth of her emotion. “Don’t try to stop me. I can’t remain here. I thought I could, but I can’t.” She looked to Andrew then. Releasing Astrid, she moved back to his side.

Astrid tried to wrap her thoughts around the fact that Petra was actually running away. “But Griffin—”

“Is a good man,” she broke in, “but not for me. I appreciate his offer of marriage, but I don’t want to marry him.”

“Are you sure you know what you’re doing?”

“All my life I’ve done as I was bid and it has brought me nothing but pain.” She looked to the man at her side. He smiled tenderly and pressed the back of Petra’s hand to his mouth. “Andrew has kin in Glasgow. He thinks he can find work at one of the factories there. Perhaps we can save enough for passage to America.” Dark eyes shining, she added in a broken whisper, “I’ll follow my instincts for a change and take a chance on love.”

Astrid studied the couple in the dim corridor, feeling a stab of envy. Not because they loved each other. It was a simple matter to love someone. She loved Griffin. No great feat, that. Loving was the easy part. It took no strength or courage. The strength came in how one showed that love, what they chose to do with it, whether it survived life’s storms.

She had thought herself strong and brave to love Griffin and walk away from him, to encourage his marriage to Petra. She had thought herself so different from her mother, someone who surrendered to her love of another man and deserted her child.

Astrid swallowed, fighting down the sour taste filling her mouth as realization washed over her.

Petra possessed true strength. Astrid did not.

Petra loved and was willing to take a chance on that love, to follow it wherever it led. Astrid felt small standing before her.

Behind her, footsteps thudded over the corridor. Fast approaching. Petra’s face tightened with panic. She pressed closer to Andrew, looking left and right, clearly uncertain whether to flee down the rest of the corridor or take shelter in one of the nearby rooms.

Without stopping to think, Astrid motioned the couple down the corridor, “Go! Hurry. I’ll distract them.”

Petra slanted her head and looked at her strangely.

“Go,” Astrid repeated, waving them on.

With a grateful smile, Petra and her lover fled.

Astrid hastened in the opposite direction, ready to stall the new arrival. Rounding the corridor, she stopped abruptly at the man heading her way, suddenly gratified with her split-second decision.

“My, you’re up early,” Osborn announced with a leer. “Did Shaw fail to properly tire you out last night?” He stopped before her. “You know, I would be more than happy to accommodate if you find yourself hungry for more—”

“How kind of you,” Astrid broke in with false charm. “I can think of no one whose company I would rather have than a remorseless killer such as yourself.”

The smug grin disappeared from his face in a flash. “I would think you would thank me for ridding you of that worthless cur. It has certainly left you free to squeeze your thighs around the first buck to cross your path.”

She sucked in a sharp breath and resisted the impulse to turn on her heels and leave him and all his crude insults where he stood. No matter how revolting his words, she stayed put, her fingers twitching at her side, itching to make contact with his face. She took comfort in the fact that with every moment that passed, she helped Petra thwart him and all his ruthless ambitions for her.

“You, sir, are a pig.”

His gaze crawled over her, glinting with mirthful spite. “And you, Duchess, are little more than a whore…no matter your fancy airs.”

She flinched.

“And you mustn’t be very good,” he continued with an arrogant cock of his dark head. “First one husband. Now Griffin. You can’t keep a man to save your life, can you?” He flashed her a cruel smile. “Whatever you have beneath your skirts mustn’t be very appealing or Shaw would not have roused himself so early to leave your bed and fetch the reverend to wed him to my daughter.”

Stepping nearer, he ran the backs of his fingers against her cheek and down the column of her neck. She turned her face sideways, closing her eyes against the feel of him.

“That must have pricked your pride,” he continued, his voice a slow, insidious murmur that skimmed over her skin as nimbly as his hand. “Perhaps the right man could teach you how to properly please a man.” He stood so close now that she could smell the onions from last night’s dinner on his breath. Her stomach churned. Opening her eyes, she glared at him.

“What say you?” he murmured. “Would you like that? To learn what a real man is like?”

This time she could not stop herself. She flung his hand off her neck and stepped around him. With one hand rubbing her skin as if she could rub out the stain of him on her flesh, she backed away.

“Never put a hand on me again,” she hissed.

“No?” Straightening, he brushed away the invisible wrinkles in his coat. “Pity. Then it appears you’re quite finished here. Why not salvage your pride and leave? Today, in fact. Don’t be here when Griffin returns.” The last suggestion was uttered somewhat ominously. “His whore needn’t be standing on while he weds my daughter.” Shaking his head, he clicked his tongue. “That wouldn’t do at all. Not at all.”