Hannah Howell by Kentucky Bride Page B

Ballard so quickly, yet you have no qualms about treating me like one. I might grasp at some scrap of understanding if this nefarious offer was made because you thought I had acted shamefully, but ‘tis clearyou have been planning this arrangement for quite awhile.”
    “I but tried to think of a way to help you in your time of need.”
    “Oh, do not pretend that any sense of nobility prompted you. You played the genteel beau so well, I was kept blissfully ignorant of your true despicable nature. I begin to understand why Papa was so adamant that we never be left alone together. He must have suspected what a cad you really are, but being a fair man, he dared not act against you without proof. I am glad he is not alive to see your true colors now.”
    “Now wait just a blasted minute,” Thomas snapped, raising the riding crop he clutched tightly in his right hand. “You forget to whom you are speaking, Clover Sherwood.”
    “No, I do not. I should probably thank you for curing me of my incredible naivete. I now know exactly what sort of low, lying cur you are.” Clover cried out as Thomas suddenly grasped her arm tightly and raised the riding crop as if to strike her.
    “You are a very stupid girl,” hissed Thomas. “You would choose that illiterate backwoods fool over
me?
”
    “I would choose honorable marriage over being your whore.”
    “You little bitch!”
    Clover cried out as Thomas struck her with his riding crop. She ducked in time to avoid the worst of the blow, but the rawhide tore through the sleeve of her dress, stinging her arm. Thomas jerked her back toward him and was about to strike again when the parlor door was flung open and Ballard was there, tearing the riding crop from Thomas’s hand.Clover slumped against the wall, stunned by Thomas’s violence.
    “Are ye all right, lass?” Ballard asked her.
    Before Clover could reply, Thomas lunged at Ballard. She pressed herself hard against the wall to get out of the way of the ensuing fight. Horrified by a nasty fight in her front hall on her wedding day, Clover required a moment to find her voice.
    “Stop this immediately!” she cried.
    After throwing Thomas off, Ballard prepared for another attack from the man. “I would like to oblige ye, wee Clover, but it appears your old beau is of a different turn of mind,” he said as he hastily removed his coat and tossed it at her. “Get in the parlor, lass, and shut the door.”
    She was about to argue when Thomas charged Ballard again. As both men slammed up against the stair rails, she ducked into the parlor and shut the door. Clutching Ballard’s coat to her chest, she faced the others in the room, who all gaped at her. Clover sighed and moved shakily to sit on the settee.
    “My dear, what is going on out there?” Agnes asked, her wide gaze fixed upon the parlor door as she twisted a lacy white handkerchief in her hands.
    “Ballard is thumping Thomas,” Clover replied.
    “Good heavens—why?”
    “I really do not wish to talk about it now, Mama.”
    Clover shut her eyes and tried to get her anger under control. She frowned when, after a brief moment of silence, the slamming of the front door echoed through the house. When Ballard did not immediately enter the parlor, Clover opened her eyes and started to rise. She could not believe that Thomas had won the battle, yet she could not besure. The wild-eyed Thomas in the hall was not the man she had thought she knew. Before she could move, Shelton and Lambert dashed out into the hallway, only to return a moment later looking totally confused.
    “There isnae anyone out there,” Shelton announced.
    “Perhaps they decided to continue the fight outside,” Clover said.
    “Nay. We looked out there too.”
    A moment later Ballard strode into the parlor, looking only slightly ruffled and quite pleased with himself. He sat down next to her, took his coat to which she still clung, and draped it over the back of the settee. Shelton served him a large