Free Maverick Heart by Joan Johnston

She had been the queen in a very nasty game of chess. And he had captured her at last.
    “It seems you’ve thought of everything.”
    “I like to be thorough. Now it’s your turn.”
    He watched the pulse beat frantically beneath her ear.
    “I don’t understand,” she said.
    “Don’t you, Verity?” He reached up and let his fingers trail down his right cheek, following the path of the scar that ran from his temple to his throat.
    “I’m sorry, Miles,” she said in a whisper. “I never meant to hurt you.”
    “I’ve waited a great many years to hear you say that. At one time I thought it would help. It doesn’t matter to me now how sorry you are. I have no use for your apology, since I have no intention of granting you forgiveness.”
    “If you would let me explain—”
    “It’s a little late for explanations. You married my enemy. What excuse is there for that? You married the man who murdered my brother, a fiend who—”
    “Miles, if you would only let me explain—”
    “Don’t say anything, Verity. I haven’t finished telling you the extent of your husband’s iniquity.”
    “I know what he was, Miles.”
    “Then how could you have married him? How could you have stayed with him all those years?” Miles was appalled at his vehement outburst. He turned his back on her and stared out the front window of the colonel’s house onto the parade ground, where soldiers marched in rigid formation. His stance was equally rigid. “Did you know Chester had me shanghaied?”
    “What?”
    “You must have wondered why I left England.”
    “Of course I wondered when you disappeared. No one knew where you had gone. I asked Chester—” She cut herself off.
    He turned and saw the flush on her face. “Asked him what?”
    “If he had killed you,” she said. “I knew there was no love lost between you.”
    Miles snorted.
    “He swore he didn’t know where you were.”
    “Chester stood by on the docks while I was beaten to within an inch of my life by a couple of thugs. He watched as they threw what was left of me on board a smuggler’s vessel. I suppose I should be grateful he didn’t have me killed.
    “Over the next two years, I had reason to wish otherwise. I didn’t think there was a more sadistic man than Chester Talbot, until I met the captain of that ship.”
    “I’m so sorry, Miles.”
    “You don’t have to apologize for him,” he said in a harsh voice.
    She winced before she lowered her eyes. “He was my husband.”
    “I know that. Thinking of you—imagining you—with him has been a painful thorn in my side for a very long time.”
    “I didn’t think you would care what happened to me after …”
    He shoved a hand through his hair in agitation. “God knows I tried not to.”
    “I thought you hated me.”
    He had wanted to hate her. But his feelings for this woman weren’t nearly as simple as he would have liked them to be. And he didn’t choose to examine them right now. “I’ve waited a great many years for you to become a widow, so I could have you for myself.”
    Her gaze shot to his, and her lip curled cynically. “You could have rid the world of Chester Talbot long ago if that had truly been your wish.”
    “I’m no murderer. As you’ll no doubt recall, Chester killed himself.”
    “It’s a fine line you’ve drawn, Miles,” she said. “He killed himself because you ruined him.”
    He shrugged. “He held the gun.”
    “You cocked the trigger.”
    “He pulled it.”
    She held out her hands to him, palms up, her expression sober. “I’m yours, Miles. What do you want from me?”
    “I want you to marry me. In fact, I insist upon it.”
    She looked stunned, appalled. He hadn’t expected her to be happy about it. That was why he had planned everything so carefully, so she would have no way out.
    The second half of what he had said must have registered, because her chin came up, and she arched one fine, aristocratic brow. “You
insist
upon it?”
    “Think a