When She Said I Do Read Free Page A

dove down upon her neck. Her gasp of shock and protest was lost in the deep growl of need reverberating from his throat as he drew her back hard against him.
    Then he was gone, torn from her with a violence that spun her hard against the vanity. Unable to catch herself with her arms pinned to her sides, she stumbled and fell to the floor. The strand of pearls caught upon the corner of the marble tabletop and broke as she fell. Iridescent orbs bounced and scattered everywhere.
    She scrambled to her hands and knees, frantically tugging her chemise back up, then turned to see two struggling forms in the shadows.
    “Dade!”
    On her feet once more, she grabbed her candle and held it high. Two heads, one dark and one light—that would be Dade, his hair much more golden than her own! Callie searched for something heavy to swing, ready to enter the fray in defense of her brother.
    Then the fight swung closer to her and she saw what had been hidden from her in the mirror. Her assailant’s face, twisted and half ruined—dark and demonic!
    Callie screamed and lost her grip on the candlestick. The room went entirely dark.

 
    Chapter 2
    Quite possibly the most annoying thing about attending a duel was the early-morning hour. Callie yawned behind her glove. Truly, could idiot men not just as easily kill each other in the middle of the afternoon? Say, after a satisfying meal and perhaps a nap?
    Callie, being secretly of the opinion that a great number of the world’s troubles could be solved by all parties toting themselves off for a relaxing nap, yawned again and glared at her brother. Anger was safe. Much better than thinking about her scandalous moment of madness last night.
    Furthermore, Dade was a safer recipient of that glare than the alarming Mr. Porter. Dade wasn’t going to glare back, or raise his hand to point to her, or open his mouth and reveal all that had truly happened.
    This entire matter would be best forgotten. She hadn’t been injured, nor had she injured anyone. It had been an odd mistake, made in a strange dreamlike moment of allowing herself to be someone whom she was most definitely not.
    She was very tired from her sleepless night and she was cold and she wanted to go home. She wished Dade and Mr. Porter would get over their silliness, or at the very least finish up their ridiculous male posturing quickly. Wave your pistols, fire into the air, declare yourselves avenged, or redeemed, or whatever, and let us all simply go home!
    Only it didn’t look like silly male posturing. It looked very serious, with Dade stiffly formal in his blue surcoat, his face pale and ill and determined. Mr. Porter, in a hooded cape that hid his frightening face, looked none the less determined in posture and in the way his large hand gripped the pistol at his side. They stood back to back, the sturdy fair-haired young gentleman and the leaning, limping man of shadow.
    Callie’s belly went ice-cold. This felt horribly wrong. Someone should stop them. Someone should do something! She looked to her parents, but they only stood arm in arm, looking worried and helpless and strangely old.
    Archie glared in Mr. Porter’s direction. “It is only right that something should be done about the man. ‘He is as disproportionate in his manners as in his shape.’”
    Iris leaned closer to Callie. “Prospero, you know. The Tempest, act five, scene one.”
    Callie ignored her parents. It didn’t do to encourage them. They could go on for hours. She swallowed. “Dade—”
    A sharp motion of his hand cut her off. Morgan, acting as second for Dade, began to count off the steps. “One. Two. Three.”
    Both men moved out, Dade in a slow, purposeful stride, Mr. Porter in an off-center lurching gait.
    “Ten.”
    Twenty paces apart, the two men turned and pointed their pistols simultaneously. Mr. Porter fired at once. The explosion of gunpowder in the silent morning sent birds winging from the trees and Callie’s heart into her throat.
    The