The Unexpected Wife - Jess Michaels Page 0,88

point a pistol at me? At me? The man who has done all this to give you what you wanted?”

“It was never about what I wanted. I lived in your house in Bath and I listened to you bed her—” She pointed the hand that didn’t hold the gun toward Pippa. “—again and again. I watched you waste all their dowries on your frivolities while you promised it was for me. And you convinced me to bear you a child. I thought it was because you loved me, but…you don’t love anyone but yourself, do you?”

“Christ but you run your mouth,” Erasmus barked at Rosie, but Celeste blocked him out. She focused instead on Owen. Owen’s handsome face, Owen’s fear that lit up his beautiful pale brown eyes.

I love you, she mouthed.

Those eyes widened and he swallowed hard. Nodded once. And then looked hard at Erasmus. She glanced up at her once husband. He was so busy screeching at Rosie, berating her, that he had loosened his grip on Celeste a fraction. Owen was practically spelling out to her that this was her chance.

Her only chance.

She drew in a deep breath and then swung her elbow back. She hit Erasmus in the center of his chest and he gasped in surprised pain. She dove out of his arms, flattening on the floor.

Not a moment too soon, because just as she did Rosie shook her head. “You are the worst thing that has ever happened to me.”

She fired the gun as Celeste covered her ears and screamed. A weight hit her, and for a moment she thought it was Erasmus, falling over her as he died. But it wasn’t. It was Owen, and he was warm and real as he covered her.

There was a deafening silence in the room for what couldn’t have been more than a few seconds but felt like a lifetime. Owen rolled away, allowing Celeste to see what had transpired. Abigail was barely rising from the floor in front of the settee. Leighton had grabbed for Pippa and was holding her against his chest, turned away from Erasmus’s body.

Dead. This time in reality, if the glazed emptiness of his stare was any indication.

“Miss Stanton,” Owen said softy, his voice gentle. He held out a hand. “Give me the gun.”

Rosie stared at the dead body, then at the gun in her hand. She let out a keening cry that seemed to tear the room down as she dropped the weapon with a clatter.

“What have I done?” she gasped out. And then she ran from the room.

Leighton released Pippa and took a long step after her. “Wait there!” he called out.

“Go with him,” Celeste whispered. “I’m fine. I’m fine.”

Owen didn’t seem to believe that, but he squeezed her gently and then took off after Leighton and Rosie. Which left the three wives of Erasmus Montgomery to stare at his dead body on the floor.

“Oh, Ras,” Abigail said, sinking down on her haunches. She felt for his pulse. After a moment, she shook her head. “He is well and truly gone this time.”

Pippa covered her mouth. “I cannot believe it.”

Celeste didn’t add her voice to their chorus. They had loved the handsome, selfish, cruel man who lay at their feet. Or loved something he had presented to them, something he had offered in order to save himself. But Celeste hadn’t. And she felt almost nothing as she looked down at him.

“What he said about how he faked the death….” She shook her head.

Abigail pressed his eyes closed and got to her feet, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand. “He was always…clever, despite himself.”

“Yes,” Pippa said softly. “Despite himself.”

Leighton and Owen returned to the room, panting but long faced. “Rosie is gone. She raced off and we lost her in the crowd.” Owen crossed back to Celeste as if he couldn’t stand not to be near her. As she wrapped an arm around him, she leaned into him, feeling the steady thud of his heartbeat, the warmth of his presence that somehow made the horrific events of this long day bearable.

Leighton sank to his knees before the body of his brother and stared. “We were never brothers,” he whispered. “His mother made certain of it. And yet I feel…”

Pippa stepped toward him, rested her hand on his shoulder. “Rhys,” she whispered. His given name, not his title. He glanced up at her, held her stare for a long, charged moment, and then shook his head.

“I would suggest that