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James rolled his shoulders back. With the introductions out of the way, he said, “Miss Bennett, you have no place to go? No family?”
She shook her head.
“Money?”
She looked away, not responding.
“How will you live? Go to The Briar Rose and earn your keep on your back?”
Miss Bennett blanched, swallowed. “If… if I must.”
I couldn’t miss hearing the growl rumbling from James’ chest. “You will come home with me,” he repeated. Good, because neither Gabe nor I would let her seek employment at a brothel.
Miss Bennett couldn’t argue with James on this. If she truly was destitute, she had no other option.
Before the woman could argue further, Gabe said, “We’re going home.”
At his words, Abigail flinched, then she stepped away from Gabe’s arm as if it were a serpent about her waist. She shook her head. “No. I’m not going with you.”
“Yes, you are,” Gabe bit out. “I came to save my wife from a madman and take her home.”
“Wife?” Abigail laughed then sniffed. “It’ll be much easier for you not to look at me when I’m not around.” Bitterness and anger laced every word.
“Look at you?” Gabe countered. “We
’re probably the first people who’ve actually seen you, Abigail.”
“What the hell is she talking about?” James asked.
I’d never seen Abigail so upset. This wasn’t a crying jag to bleed off the excess energy from her brush with danger. This was all-out anger. This was something different. Like most women, and perhaps all who’d graduated from a fancy finishing school, she’d had been taught to hide her emotions. But she must have failed deportment because she was letting her ire show. At us. Abigail was furious with me and Gabe.
“Let’s get off the street and talk about this. At home,” I said.
She took a step back when I moved toward her to take her arm.
“And you call me a liar,” she hissed. “You took me from behind so you couldn’t see my face. It’s just as I’d thought, and you lied.”
Before I could lift my hands, James had closed the distance between us and punched me in the face.
“Shit,” I muttered, covering my jaw with my fingers. I wiped blood from the corner of my mouth. The man could hit.
“You said you waited for her, had wanted her for years. This is how you treat her, how you… you claim her?”
It was a good thing we were on a quiet residential street, for we would have drawn quite the crowd. It was also good the police were still inside the house. Someone was going to end up in jail if we kept this up.
Abigail spun on her brother, pointed her finger in his chest. “You didn’t want me either.”
“What?” he shouted, looking angry and surprised at the same time. “What are you talking about?”
“You put me in school because of my scar. Hid me away so people couldn’t see me. I know what people say. Even Mr. Grimsby thought I was hideous.”
If this Grimsby was the asshole inside, then thank fuck for that, I thought, then wanted to stomp right on into the bastard’s house and beat the shit out of him.
“But, you.” She poked James again. “You’re the worst. You’re my brother and you… and you—”
Tears streamed down her face and she swallowed hard, trying to talk past her tears.
“—sent me off so you didn’t have to see me anymore.”
