“Your home, not mine,” she reminded him though he pushed on regardless.
“One apology.” Lord Wetherington held his finger in the air. She actually flinched, for the movement was so sharp, she wondered what he intended to do with that hand. “Do I not deserve it?”
She saw with disgust that he was relishing this moment. He wanted her to beg for his forgiveness, to be at his mercy.
I will not give him the satisfaction.
“No,” she said sharply.
“Frederica!” Her mother and father declared together.
“Is this what you think of me?” She rounded on them though her gaze went to her mother. Margaret was always the one she had stood the most chance of earning love from. That was why it hurt even more now to know such a hope had been foolish. “Am I worthy of so little, so worthy ofnothingin your estimation, that you would make me apologize to a man who attacked me?”
“Attacked?” Lord Wetherington actually had the gall to laugh. “It was hardly that, Frederica.”
“Lady Padleigh. That is my title now,” she said coolly. “I will not apologize. I no longer have need of dinner either.” She turned sharply and moved toward the doorway, somehow managing to slip by Lord Wetherington’s shoulder and back into the hallway.
“Frederica?” Ernest shouted after her. “Come back here this instant!”
“Allow me, My Lord,” Lord Wetherington said with smoothness.
Disgusted, trying her best to ignore the words that were following her, Frederica reached for the door and flung it open, stepping down into the street outside the town house.
She saw her carriage pulled up at the side with the driver and footman smoking clay pipes. When they saw her, they dumped the ash and hastened back to their positions.
“We’re leaving, now, please,” she called, racing toward them.
Fast footsteps behind her made her move quicker still though she was not swift enough. She was still a distance away from the carriage when Lord Wetherington appeared before her, making her halt and jump back to avoid a collision.
“You are running away again, little Frederica?” he said, that relishing and sadistic smile back in his face.
“From you? Always.” She tried to step around him, but he moved in her way again. “Let me go.”
“You know you can never escape me completely.” He stepped toward her, forcing her back, for his face came so close to hers that his wretched cologne made her nose curl. “You can keep running, but I will keep finding you. You are mine.”
“I am not,” she spat. “In case it has passed you by, I stood up in church and vowed myself to another man. I have promised my life at his side, and I intend to see that vow through.”
“Vows can be broken,” he snapped sharply.
“Not by me.”
“Then we’ll have to find another way for the marriage to be over, won’t we?” he hissed.
Bile rose in Frederica’s throat as she stumbled away, gripping the black railing that surrounded the townhouse.
Is he… threatening Allan? No, surely even he wouldn’t make such a threat!
Yet he had already threatened Dorothy. What was to stop him now from making another such threat?
He stared at her, unblinkingly, his eyes wandering up and down her in such a way that she had never felt so small and unworthy in her life.
“I cannot believe my parents asked me to apologize toyou,”the thought escaped her. “They think so little of me and so much of you.”
“You know I think a lot of you. You want that love? You wish to know what it is like?” He moved toward her.
“I don’t want to know anything from you!” She threw the words at him and ran, sprinting around him as best as she could and heading for the carriage.
The footman, clearly worried for her, opened the door hurriedly and shut it before Lord Wetherington could possibly follow her inside.
