Winner Takes All - Anna Harrington Page 0,20

Shaw from killing him. “You all saw it.” He gestured angrily but was wise enough not to fight back. “I have witnesses! You’ll be sent to prison for this, Shaw, or pilloried. I promise you!”

One of the grooms behind Shaw spat on the ground at Charles’s feet. “I didn’t see nothing.” He swung his gaze around the crowd, as if challenging anyone to contradict him. After all, Shaw was one of their own. “Neither did the rest of you.”

Shaw stepped back, not daring to touch Frankie. Not daring even to look at her. Because he knew just as well as she did that one look would give away the affection between them and turn tonight’s fight into something far more scandalous.

“Take her home,” he ordered Jonas and backed away, his furious gaze never leaving Charles. “Be certain to tell the viscount exactly how this gentleman treated his daughter tonight.” He flexed his hands in and out of tight fists, as if he were still considering charging straight back and beating Charles senseless. “I’m certain Darlington will want to rethink his future plans.”

Then he turned and strode off into the darkness. The suddenly somber crowd stared awkwardly between Charles and Frankie. The party was over.

Shaw shoved open the double doors of his barn, stepped into the welcoming shadows, and blew out a hard breath of frustration. Frankie had stirred up all kinds of old jealousies and fresh yearnings tonight, all of which were better left unacknowledged. Christ! He’d nearly pulped a man for daring to touch her and would have gotten himself tossed into prison over it if she hadn’t stopped him. Yet he’d had no business interfering at all.

She wasn’t his. She would never be his. The sooner he accepted that, the better for both of them.

They had one morning left when they would be forced to be together. One morning when he had to pretend that he didn’t want her, that he possessed no feelings for her. Then it would be over, and he’d never have to see her again.

He would survive it. Somehow.

Needing to move before he punched his fist into the wall, he walked through the dark barn. All the grooms were still at the bonfire and wouldn’t be back until dawn. Only one of the horses swung its head over its stall door in curiosity that he was there, then decided he wasn’t worth the attention and turned back inside its stall. Shaw checked that the slide bolts on each of the stalls were secure for the night, that all lanterns and lamps had been extinguished—

The tack room door stood open and unlocked. Cursing whatever groom had left it that way, he crossed the wide aisle to close it.

“Running away again, are you?”

The soft voice floated to him through the shadows, and Shaw froze with his hand on the door, ready to push it closed. He glanced over his shoulder toward the front of the barn.

Frankie stood just inside the open doorway, lit by a slant of moonlight. A vision of ebony and silver, she resembled a ghost wandering the night. But wasn’t that truly what she was? A ghost from his past who still haunted him, a reminder of all he could never have?

“You shouldn’t be here,” he dodged as he turned to face her. He crossed his arms over his chest in a pose that should have been a battle stance but in the end only felt defensive. Yet he couldn’t help himself, because open arms meant arms capable of reaching for her, holding her, and making love to her the way his soul ached to do.

“Uncle Jonas is making excuses for me. I won’t be missed until morning.” Undeterred, she pressed softly, “But you…you’re running away, just like you ran away from Willow Wood.”

Her accusation grated. “I left Willow Wood to start my own business.”

The moonlight washed over her shoulders as she stepped slowly toward him like an angel emerging from the midnight darkness. Her eyes gleamed at his attempt to walk that knife’s edge between admitting the truth and saving his pride.

“You ran away from Willow Wood,” she corrected, taking another step toward him. Her ankle was healing, but she couldn’t hide a faint limp. Of course she’d ridden all the way here on her own, despite that. The little minx was as stubborn as ever and refused to be ignored. “You’re doing it again tonight.”

“Exactly,” he bit out, staying where he was, just out of reach of the moonlight. He didn’t