Echoes in the Mist (Kingsleys in Love 1)

CHAPTER

9

TRENTON WAS CAUGHT IN a tangled web of his own creation.

Shifting his weight in the chair, he stared moodily through the shadowed room to the bed where Ariana slept peacefully, unaware of his scrutiny … and of the fact that he’d been watching her for hours.

Rolling the brandy glass between his palms, Trenton idly studied the swirling amber liquid as he reflected upon the complications the past few days had wrought. His decision to marry Ariana Caldwell had been spontaneous, yet purposeful: a brilliant solution to the vengeance that swelled inside him, a remedy for his unremitting torment.

Revenge was close at hand; he had only to be patient to achieve it.

After all, it had been just over a day since the wedding, giving Baxter a scant thirty hours to agonize over his sister’s fate, and only one sleepless night to ponder the best way to acquire the Kingsley fortune.

With a sardonic smile, Trenton took a deep swallow of his brandy. Evidently, Caldwell took him for a fool. Did the bastard honestly believe Trenton wasn’t aware why he had so easily relinquished his precious little sister into the Duke of Broddington’s murderous hands? That Trenton didn’t know that what the viscount hoped to gain from his sister’s advantageous union was a sizable portion of the Kingsley fortune?

Trenton drained his glass. He’d always recognized Caldwell’s intentions. So when Baxter summoned Ariana to Winsham to devise the best plan by which to avail himself of the Kingsley funds, Trenton would be ready. Baxter would never see a bloody penny.

Briefly, Trenton wondered how Ariana would react to whatever conniving plan Baxter had conjured up, and if she would agree to help him. True, she was a Caldwell, but she was the only Caldwell who seemed to possess some sense of honor. Would she stoop to theft and deceit, even for her brother? And, if she refused, would she be strong enough to resist the pressure Baxter would doubtlessly exert? She was far too innocent to suspect what her brother was capable of … or to what extremes Trenton would go to ensure that Baxter failed.

Inevitably, Ariana would be caught in the crossfire.

Which brought Trenton back to his unanticipated quandary.

Unwillingly, his gaze slid to the slumbering angel lying before him. Caldwell or not, she was breathtaking when she slept, more so when she was awake.

And so incredibly passionate.

His body still burned with the memories of last night, memories he’d been unable to squelch all day, memories that had driven him from her bed at dawn … and brought him back hours earlier than he’d intended. For despite his vehement struggles to the contrary, Ariana unfurled something raw and warm inside him, tested his control in ways he’d never guessed, bared emotions he’d long since forsaken.

He remembered the way her eyes had blazed sparks of outrage when she’d stood up to him today, the tears she’d refused to shed. She was a brave little thing, his bride, brave and innocent and principled.

So unlike Vanessa.

Bringing his

glass to the nightstand with a thud, Trenton forced himself to face the truth. He could no longer use the Caldwell name to justify his irrational behavior toward Ariana, no longer punish her by pretending she was an exact replica of her despicable older sister.

In truth, Ariana was the antithesis of Vanessa. And, having already taken away his untainted wife’s childhood, stripped her of her former life and home, why did he still want to strike out at her, to hurt her as he had that afternoon?

With mounting ambivalence, Trenton contemplated the humiliating cruelty of his verbal assault. What the hell had possessed him to say such a degrading thing? He gritted his teeth. Just because he’d returned to find his bride rumpled and laughing on the front lawn with his brother, chatting as if they were old friends, looking so incredibly happy …

Unconsciously, Trenton slammed his fist to his knee. He’d never been a jealous man before. Certainly not of Dustin, the one person he knew would never betray him. Yet that’s exactly what he was: jealous, vulnerable … and livid about both.

The cold truth was, Trenton hated the pull that drew him back to Broddington and his bride, detested the fact that she had barely noticed his absence and gotten along fine without him, loathed the idea that Dustin could make her smile in a way he knew he couldn’t. Damn it to hell! Why did this one woman inspire such emotional upheaval inside him?

Savagely, Trenton gripped his thighs. He wanted to hate her incessantly.

He hated to want her incessantly.

And he couldn’t muster the former, nor master the latter.

So marriage to Ariana would reap him his vengeance, but it would do nothing to appease his relentless anguish. In fact, it would worsen it, for he’d be trading one type of agony for another.

“Trenton?”

Trenton started, blinking dazedly at the bed. Ariana was sitting up, waves of coppery hair tumbling about her slender shoulders. She reached for her robe and slipped it on, climbing from beneath the bedcovers. “Why are you here?”

He didn’t answer at first, watching her walk toward him, the soft folds of her nightgown outlining every luscious curve of her body. How could someone so exquisitely beautiful represent everything in his life that was so very ugly?