Austin Melrose, the Viscount of Easterly, stood by the pulpit, his palms sweating slightly. How in the bloody blue blazes had he gotten himself into this mess?
He grimaced, crossing his arms. His friend’s new wife had somehow convinced him that he needed to go on this rescue mission.
This was why a man shouldn’t marry.
Women had all sorts of plans and they made a man participate. Abigail wasn’t even his wife and somehow he’d been cast as hero in this ridiculous plot she’d devised.
He let out a low growl of frustration. Abigail, that was his friend’s new wife, the Baron of Blackwater, had heard Gabriella crying and had insisted they save her from a marriage auction.
Ridiculous. Who was he to tell a man what to do with his daughter? He had no authority to stop anything.
But then again, one look at Gabriella and he’d had a difficult time saying no. The very idea of some heathen pawing at her set his teeth on edge.
The problem, of course, besides the fact that he had no grounds to end this event, was what he did with her on the off chance he did successfully rescue her? He’d been wracking his brain for the past two hours but he was no closer to a solution.
Marrying her was out of the question.
He refused to take her as his mistress and steal from her the chance of a happy marriage. That was even less likely than the first option.
She was too beautiful to work as a maid. Any man with a woman like her in his house would surely take advantage of her under his protection.
And the circle began again. He didn’t wish to leave Gabriella, he couldn’t take her. He’d paced on the steps outside the church for the last quarter hour wondering if he just returned back to Blackwater’s house and told Abigail he’d been too late.
But then images of Gabriella would rise in his thoughts and his feet would still.
Dark hair and eyes that lifted in an exotic tilt, they w
ere near black in their coloring, her skin a bit more caramel than any true Englishwoman. Full sensuous lips and a figure made for sin, she was the stuff of fantasy. If he were smart, he’d stay away.
He couldn’t afford fantasies.
His gut churned.
Since he’d been a small child, he’d been affected with weak lungs. He raked a hand through his normally groomed hair. That wasn’t true. He hadn’t had an attack for some years but the fear of one seemed to persist.
As a child, he’d learned when to pull back from an activity the moment his chest tightened. Because the attacks were awful.
His breath would leave him and he could not get it back no matter how hard he tried. It was as though six men sat on his chest. He’d cough and wheeze and occasionally black out. And once he’d nearly died.
That wasn’t to say he retreated into a shell, hiding.
In fact, he’d work himself over and over just to the point of an attack and then he’d stop.
The goal was to make his lungs as strong as possible.
And it had worked. The doctors had told him he’d outgrown the malady and that he was cured. But some habits remained.
He exercised relentlessly and he maintained rigid control over his lungs and his mind to make certain he never had an attack again.
And one of those precautions was to stay away from beautiful women who might make him lose his control.