Free Kresley Cole - [MacCarrick Brothers 02] by If You Desire

hallucinations, assaulted others.
    As with a dazzling yet dangerous animal, one could admire London, but had to respect the risks inherent here. If her father said Grey was unhinged and she needed to flee the city, then very well. She’d certainly read stranger accounts in the Times —accounts she’d always cringed to see included not only the criminals’ names and addresses, but the victims’ as well….
    She shivered. “I’ll agree to leave London for a time. But not with Hugh. There’s no reason for him to do this. Why would he ever agree to a marriage?”
    “As of ten minutes ago, I don’t believe he was agreeing, I believe he was demanding your hand.”
    “That’s correct. He was behaving like the crazed, ravening madman you want to protect me from.”
    What she said struck her father completely the wrong way. His face grew tight and his lips thinned. “They are nothing alike, Jane. Don’t you ever say that again!”
    She drew back at her normally placid father’s furious tone. “Papa?”
    “Hugh is a good man. An honorable man. He and Grey worked together and shared similar experiences. Hugh could have taken the same path, but he didn’t.”
    She swallowed. “F-fine. Then I shall go with Hugh. But there’s no need for marriage—”
    “What have I ever done to indicate to you that I’d let my only child, my unmarried daughter, run off to travel with one of my business associates?” When she opened her mouth to answer, he cut her off. “Yes, well, that ends today . Besides, if you are so miserable, you can get an annulment as soon as this is over.”
    “You can’t make me marry him. I’ll simply go to Freddie and get him to take me away.”
    “Yes. I’m sure the dowager countess and her pinch-faced daughter will welcome you with open arms. Surely they won’t mind that I won’t be providing you with a dowry.”
    Her eyes went wide. “You wouldn’t!”
    He nodded gravely.
    “Who are you?” she asked, blinking at him in bewilderment. Her father’s personality had shifted utterly, just as Hugh’s had. “I-I’ll stay with my cousins. Samantha and Belinda and their families are going to Vinelands this week—”
    “And how long will you flit from cousin to cousin? From estate to estate as a hanger-on?”
    She crossed to him, determined to reason with him. “Father, you know I can’t go back if I do this,” she said with a light touch on his arm. “Once this is over, I will not be able to make another match.”
    “Certainly you will. John Ruskin got his marriage annulled just last year, and his former wife is already remarried. And think of all the girls who elope to Scotland. When their families find them and drag them back, the chits have their marriages annulled, and a couple of years later they marry again. If I had a pound for every time that happened during the last season—”
    “Those girls are eighteen, nineteen. They have time to wait for another match.” She lifted her hand from his arm and gripped her forehead. “I’m too old to wait! And you know my chances with Freddie would be ruined by this.”
    “If you still want him after all of this is over, then I would use all my influence to see it done.”
    She sank into a chair. “And why on earth would Freddie still want me?”
    “He’s waited this long.”
    She bit her lip at that, then said, “I still don’t understand why Hugh has agreed to this. How can you make him take a wife he doesn’t want?”
    “Are you so sure he doesn’t?”
    “Of course he doesn’t!”
    “I believe he cared deeply for you when you were both younger. Don’t you think he acted as if he did?”
    “If he cared for me so much, then why would he leave without a word?” Looking back now, it was difficult to see him as anything other than a typical male, enjoying the attention she lavished on him.
    “You know he told me to tell you good-bye. If you asked about him.”
    “If? ” She gave her father the same expression she’d given