A Most Sinful Proposal (The Husband Hunters Club 2)

“Perhaps he wouldn’t have harmed me after all,” she said, without much conviction.

“He would have tried, but I wouldn’t have allowed it. He’d have had to shoot me first.” His words sounded heroic, very different from the man he’d always thought himself, but Marissa made him feel like a hero—capable of anything.

She gave a woebegone smile, tears sparkling in her eyes, and wished everyone would just go away so that he could hold her as he longed to.

“I have hopes he’ll recover,” the doctor interrupted. “I’ve done what I can but I’d be happier if he could be seen by someone more, hmm, specialized.”

“Of course. We will see to it,” Valentine spoke with authority. “Can he be moved?”

“Better not,” the old man said. He reached out and placed his gnarled hand on the baron’s brow, and it was like a caress. “Is what you’ve said really true? Did he say those things about his mother?”

Valentine nodded. “Yes.”

Doctor Arnold shook his head. “I blame his grandmother for filling his head with such nonsense. I know there was talk of Augustus being a by-blow from his mother’s affair with a fellow officer of his father’s, but it had nothing to do with your father, my lord. That was his grandmother’s doing, trying to make a silk purse from a sow’s ear. I think Augustus must have imagined the rest. Poor troubled boy.”

“What’s important now is to help him recover physically,” Valentine said.

“And then what? I have heard of the terrible thing he did to Lady Longhurst. Perhaps it would be better if he died.”

Valentine felt Marissa’s fingers tighten involuntarily in his, and knew the baron dying wouldn’t be better for her. He’d cursed himself for going off to capture Augustus. He’d been furious, eager to come to blows with the man, hoping he would not meekly hand himself over until Valentine had got a few good blows in. What he hadn’t expected to feel was pity. The baron might be a dangerous lunatic but he was also a lost soul.

His quest to find the Crusader’s Rose would never seem the same again. It was time to put it away and concentrate on the here and now, the people in his life who mattered, the woman he loved.

The crackle of the fire brought him back from his thoughts.

“We will see to his comfort, whatever happens,” Valentine assured Doctor Arnold. “I will take responsibility for him, never fear.”

“You are very good, my lord.”

Comforted, the old man rose and after another glance at his young relation, left the room. Valentine followed him out, and when he returned he found Marissa seated by the bed. She looked up, and there were dark shadows under her eyes.

“George has gone to London to bring the best medical man he can find back to Bentley Green,” Valentine said. “The innkeeper’s wife is a good and reliable woman, and she will watch Von Hautt. Doctor Arnold is nearby as well. There is nothing more we can do, my love.”

“I know. I know you have done everything in your power, and more, to save him. I know he is dangerous and disturbed and he has done terrible things, but there is something horribly sad about his story, Valentine.”

“Yes.”

They were silent for a moment, both lost in their own thoughts.

“Can we go home now?” Marissa said softly. “I would like to go home, Valentine.”

He smiled. He did not ask her where she meant; he already knew it was Abbey Thorne Manor that was home for them both.

There was a great deal to tell Lady Bethany and Lord Jasper, and arrangements to be made for the care of Von Hautt. The doctor George brought with him to Bentley Green thought the baron would be better off in a private sanitarium where he would receive all the care and attention he required, as well as be watched around the clock, and he was moved there at once.

“I’m sorry, but I can’t feel for him,” Lady Bethany said, as they sat down to dinner a week later. “And what will your parents say, Marissa, when they hear? They will blame me, you’ll see. It will be all my fault.”

“Perhaps we can distract them with some good news,” Valentine interrupted, looking a little self-conscious.

They all turned to him, a mixture of surprise and anticipation on their faces. George, with whom he’d already shared the news, chuckled.

“I expect to hear myself thanked in the wedding speeches,” he said smugly, “because without me this would never have happened.”

Valentine gave his brother a long-suffering look. They’d discussed the matter at length and he was still doubtful whether George had told him the truth—that he’d engineered the whole thing for Valentine’s sake—or he was simply saving face. Whatever the case he was glad George bore him no ill-feelings; indeed quite the opposite.

Lady Bethany was beaming. “Wedding speeches? Oh, Marissa, does that mean…?”

&nbs