the last few days, a man had been watching Stamford’s home, while another ferreted out every detail of information about the earl’s coming and goings, which an overworked but ill-favored scullery maid had gladly provided for a few coins.
Nicolas waited until after midnight before stealing inside the man’s residence. The information gathered said Stamford would be home tonight, and that a lady from a bordello would soon appear in a carriage and spend the night being debauched by the earl. Nicolas had an hour before she would arrive.
He only needed five minutes.
He twisted the doorknob and opened the door soundlessly. The earl stood by the fire dressed only in a red silk banyan, sipping from a glass. Brandy perhaps. Nicolas deliberately allowed the door to creak when he pushed it wider, but Stamford did not turn around.
“You are early,” he said, sounding repulsively displeased.
Nicolas padded over to the shadows cast by the man’s massive four-poster bed, arching a brow at the sexual instruments laid out in a neat row on the mattress. An ivory dildo, a flogger, and a jar of cream.
“I have intruded,” Nicolas said, keeping his voice low.
Stamford was not a man easily startled, for he displayed an admirably calm composure at the sound of someone in his private rooms. He turned slowly, still drinking his liquor, but his gaze unerringly went to the spot Nicolas stood. Nor did Stamford waste any time with inane questions as to how he had gained entry.
“Now that you have intruded, state what it is that you want.”
“You will remove the offer you made to a certain lady’s parents tomorrow. Whatever monies were paid over I will see returned to you. And this meeting will be kept in the strictest of confidence, of course.”
“I see,” the earl said, arching a brow.
“Do you?” Nicolas murmured.
“You have intentions in regard to my fiancée,” the earl said flatly.
He pondered that cold murmur and decided the man was right. “Yes.” And it settled deep inside him, Maryann was his friend, his woman, and one day she would be his countess. “It is best you understand them fully.”
“I am all ears,” the earl said with a mocking twist to his lips.
“You placed your hands on her and deliberately and cruelly hurt her. It shall never happen again.”
The man smiled as if amused. “And she ran to you and blabbered, did she? How charming that you should sneak in here like a thief to defend her honor. Am I to name my seconds and you name our dueling location, Rothbury?”
Nicolas stepped into the light. “Turn your covetous eyes elsewhere, Stamford. She is too good for your predilections. Let this be your only warning. Should you lay your hands on her again, you will suffer more than just a broken arm.”
“A broken arm? What are you blathering—”
Nicolas moved faster than the earl could anticipate, grasping his right arm and twisting with harsh strength. The snap echoed in the room, and to the earl’s credit, save for a pained scream that ended abruptly, he made no other sound. Nicolas met his eyes, and whatever the man saw in his face, he blanched. Sweat beaded on his forehead and upper lip.
“This broken arm,” he said with soft menace. “You are a bullying brute who would dare to try and break her spirit. How can you see something so precious and want to hurt it?”
Stamford shook his head sharply. Nicolas released him and melted away in the dark, leaving the house the way he entered. Once outside, he pinched the bridge of his nose. He had made himself another enemy tonight, one who was immensely powerful and possessed well-connected friends. The memory of Maryann soaking her wrist in warm water, the paleness of her features, and her courage in the face of another bully had stayed with him. If anything, the most she should be was another pawn in his game, but somehow, he made her to be more. And that awareness was his most profound truth.
Wait for me.
She had become so much more, something he could not stop just as he could not make water flow uphill. It was inexplicable, this need to protect her, when she had shown she was a lady of indomitable wit and strength who could walk by his side and not falter.
The day felt long, and the night promised to be longer…torturous, for he did not want to go home to his empty bed. Nor did he want to go to a gambling hell or a