She shivered at the thought of what he would have done if he’d opened his eyes and caught her staring and panting. If she lived to be one hundred years old, she’d never forget it.
It had been beyond foolish!
It had, there was no denying that. But Eva couldn’t be sorry for what she’d seen.
Not even if it meant she wouldn’t get a wink of sleep tonight.
Not even if facing him tomorrow was going to be impossible.
Chapter 7
“You’re very quiet this morning, my lady. Did you get enough rest last night?”
Lord Visel’s voice was so low that Eva almost didn’t hear him over the rumble of the carriage wheels; she decided to ignore him.
“Sorry to wake you so early,” he said when she didn’t respond, not sounding sorry at all.
Eva forced herself to look up at the sound of his richly amused voice, inch by inch, until she met his eyes.
He grinned at her and in that instant she knew that he knew she’d watched him last night; she knew it. How could he look at her so proudly? Wasn’t he ashamed at being caught at such a prurient act?
He chuckled at whatever he saw on her face.
Clearly not.
Oh, he was a wicked, wicked man.
Of course he’d had lots of practice, hadn’t he? Plenty of lovers—just thinking the word lover made her body tighten—so it was understandable that such wicked behavior failed to even register with him. So here he was, acting normal: which was to say, being his usual irritating, smug, arrogant, and gorgeous self.
“We’re not going to go back to being hostile to one another, are we?” He cocked his head, his tone gently cajoling.
She scowled at him and crossed her arms over her chest.
“I take it that’s a yes.” He smirked, as if her hostility amused him.
Men will use your anger to control you.
Eva stiffened at the memory of Mia’s words.
Visel was watching her with detached interest, the way he might study an ant that had picked up a crumb too large for it to carry, wondering what would happen next.
“Of course not.” Eva forced her body to relax, lowered her arms, and smiled: it was the hardest thing she’d ever done. But the look of surprise on his handsome face was worth it.
Consummate rake that he was, his recovery was swift; his eyelids lowered and his lips pulled up on one side. “I’m pleased to hear it. Since we have all this enforced intimacy, we might as well put it to good use.” He smiled at whatever expression—probably shock—he saw on her face. “Not that way, darling. Not yet.”
Eva whipped her head away from him, furious at her face, which she knew would be flaming. Instead, she stared out the window at the morning—which looked more like dusk, but at least the leaden sky hadn’t yet opened up. That was too bad—a clear sky meant the border grew closer and closer with each hour. Eva forcibly shoved the thought from her mind.
A huge yawn distorted her face; she was so tired.
“Didn’t you sleep well last night? Were you up late . . . reading?”
She could hear the humor in his voice but refused to take the bait. Besides, she was just too tired to think of a suitably crushing setdown. She could hardly keep her eyes open. Maybe she would close them. Just for a minute.
Eva was falling, falling, falling—
“Oof ! Wha—”
“I’ve got you.” Warm, strong arms closed around her and lifted her.
Eva scrambled to sit upright on the carriage seat, blinking rapidly to clear her eyes.
“Where—”
“Only about five miles from the last inn.”
He sounded disgusted and Eva peered out the window—at first she’d thought it was night, but now saw it was torrents of rain that had blocked out the light.
“My goodness—what time is it?”
“Almost ten. You slept for over three hours. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone sleep so soundly in a carriage.”
Eva heard the amusement in his voice. “I can sleep anywhere. When do you think we will get there? To the border,” she clarified, as if she could mean anywhere else.
“Not in this lifetime at our current pace,” he muttered, as if to himself. “I don’t know. I told the postboys we would keep going until the usual hour.” He waved a hand toward the window. “And now this.”
Which was when Eva realized the carriage was moving so slowly it might as well have been standing still. “I think I just saw a snail pass us,” she said, and then yawned.
He snorted, unamused. “It wouldn’t surprise me.”
“Does this road go all the way to Gretna Green?”
“We aren’t going to Gretna.”
Eva frowned. “Where are we going?”
“Coldstream, where there’s a place called the Bridge Inn,” he said shortly, turning toward the window and giving her his sharp, achingly perfect profile.
“Why not Gretna Green?”
“Because Coldstream is well-known for laxity when it comes to particulars. They’ll marry people at any time of the day or night.”
“So they’d marry us if we showed up at three o’clock in the morning?”
“For the right amount of money,” he said grimly.
“You sound like a man marching to the gallows,” Eva said, unable to keep her irritation in check.
“Hmmmph.”
Sudden anger coursed through her. “If you’re so miserable about it, then why don’t you just drop me off at the nearest inn? I’ll send a letter to my father—I can tell him I ran away. I can tell him—” She stopped, beyond annoyed that her imagination was failing her at this particular moment. “I can tell him anything but the truth, and you’ll be footloose and fancy-free.”
He gave her a scathing look, but then turned back to the window without bothering to respond.
“You’re the one who wanted to do this,” she reminded him.
His head whipped around. “Wanted?”
“Fine. You’re the one who ordered me to accept what had to be, without arguing. So why are you behaving like a vaporous schoolroom chit about it now?”
Every line of his body screamed amazement. “I beg your pardon,” he said ominously. “Did you just call me a chit?”
“If the shoe fits. Besides, it was vaporous schoolroom chit.”
He shook his head slowly from side to side and gave a helpless-sounding laugh. “You are quite the most antagonistic woman—scratch that—the most antagonistic person I’ve ever met.”
Eva shrugged. “So I’ve been told.” In fact, that seemed to be all she’d been told for as long as she could remember. The only person who’d not told her that was her stepmamma.
“You are strong, Eva, and the world is cruel to strong women. Sometimes a strong woman needs to hide her strength and wield it in more subtle ways. Sometimes a strong woman will even need to pretend weakness to get what she wants.”
Eva knew she was being the very opposite of subtle, which was foolish because she was showing the man across from her all her cards. And she’d heard about Visel’s much vaunted gaming acumen.
“So then,” she said, moving on, “we will speak our vows, turn around, and get right back in the carriage and go where?”
“We shall take a room at the inn after the ceremony and stay one night.”
“Good God, why?”
He leaned toward her with the same unnerving suddenness he’d displayed on more than one occasion. “Because they’ll want us to stay a night to consummate our union, darling.”
Eva’s face flamed at the thick, sensual innuendo in his voice.
“You’re joking.”
He snorted and sat back, turning once more toward the window. “I wish I were.”
“I’ve never even heard of such a thing,” she said.
“Just because you’ve not heard of something doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.” He paused and then added in a tone heavy with irony, “I’m guessing that the things you don’t
know far outnumber those you do.”
His insult—a prime facer of a setdown—surprised a bark of laughter out of her.
He stared at her with a dark, unsmiling look.
“What?” she asked rudely.
“Nothing.”
He could make even that single word sound superior and condescending. Eva wanted to hit him, but that was nothing new. “Tell me, my lord, how do they know people actually consummate their unions? Do they send a witness into the room with them?”
“Yes.”
Eva gasped, her eyes bulging. “But that’s—that’s—”
Low laughter rippled through the carriage, wrapping around her like a warm blanket, and heating her body so quickly that her palms were suddenly damp.
“You’re a toad.”
His teeth flashed a startling white in the grim gray of the carriage.
“Why do they care if people c-consummate their marriages or not?” Eva wanted to slap herself for stammering over that word like a green girl, but at least the horrid beast didn’t laugh.
“I daresay they don’t really care what people do—they just want to sell a room,” he admitted after a moment of silence, his voice weary.
“You sound tired,” she said, and then wanted to bite off her tongue for broaching the potentially dangerous topic. But perhaps he wouldn’t—
But of course he did. His lips twitched into a smirk. “I didn’t sleep a wink last night.”
“Oh.” That was all she was saying about that particular subject. She stared out the window at nothing, starting slightly when he spoke a long moment later.
“I have a difficult time sleeping under the best of conditions, and this situation is hardly the best.”
Eva looked at him from beneath her lashes; he seemed sincere enough, the suggestive smirk nowhere to be seen. Perhaps he just wanted to make conversation? Eva dithered for a moment, and then asked, “Why do you have difficulty sleeping?”
He sighed audibly.
Good Lord! Just what did he want from her? “I’m sorry,” she snapped. “Am I not supposed to ask about that, either? In addition to not asking you about your family or the war? Tell me, what am I allowed to talk about?”
“Why don’t we talk about you?” His expression was hard and unreadable, but his voice was silky and dangerous.
Eva crossed her arms and hugged herself tightly, as if that might keep her from flying apart. But the thoughts had begun to whirl and multiply in her brain. Why did he have to behave in such a high-handed and confusing manner? And why did her body have such a powerful attraction to him, when her mind hated and loathed and wanted to get away from him? What was wrong with her to want to touch him so badly? Why did she want to make him like her? It was so pathetic. Why was he such a—a cad? A smug, hateful cad.
She inhaled shakily as the questions careened and crowded her mind.
“Well?” he said.
“Well what?” she repeated, genuinely confused.
“You were going to tell me a bit about yourself—your family.”
Eva looked at his expressionless face, his opaque eyes, and wanted to make him feel something—and to show those feelings—for a change.
“Fine. Let me guess,” she said in a tone dripping with sarcasm. “You’d like to talk about my mad mother—whom you’ve certainly mentioned more than once over the past few months. Am I right?” Before he could answer, her anger catapulted her onward. “I can’t tell you much about her because I was only five when she threw herself off the roof at Exham Castle. I’ve heard—from some of the lovely people I’ve rubbed shoulders with these past months—that she was something of a tart who fucked her way through half the ton. There is living, breathing proof of that in the form of my younger sister Melissa—who one kindly dowager referred to as a cuckoo in Exley’s nest. Within my hearing.” She leaned toward him, mirroring his earlier action. “But what you’re really curious about is whether my mother’s madness runs through me. You want to know if you’ll have to lock me in an attic at some point and hire a gaoler to keep me from mounting a stable lad or setting the house on fire or flinging myself from the roof of—what’s the name of my new home?” she asked with exaggerated courtesy. “Horrid House? Conceited Court? Arrogant Abbey?”
His lips twitched. “Cross Hall.”
The tinge of amusement in his voice only made her more furious. “I can see you’ve not got the nerve to spell out what you wish to know.” Eva let all the loathing she felt at this moment saturate her tone. “But I’d like to settle the issue once and for all,” she said, her words an echo of his earlier command. “So I’ll answer your unspoken question: I don’t know if I’ll go mad, my lord. I don’t currently feel any desire to leap off rooftops or eat the sitting room carpet, but I cannot give my word those compulsions will not one day seize me. I daresay you think that is an unsatisfactory answer. As it happens—so do I. While I have to live with such irksome uncertainty every day of my life, I’d rather not have to discuss it ad nauseam.”
The very air rang with her sharp, cold words and Eva could sense the shock emanating from him. Whether at the pronouncement itself or her vulgar language, she couldn’t have said, nor did she particularly care.
Eva had begun to hope he was done talking to her—hopefully for the rest of both their lives—when he said, “I apologize for any pain I’ve caused you these past months.”
His words left her temporarily breathless. When she finally spoke, her voice was gruff. “Nothing you said caused me any pain,” she lied.
“Even so, my behavior shames me.” He hesitated and then added, “I imagine living with such uncertainty is a crushing burden.”
To her horror, tears pricked her eyes. Blast and damn. A hateful, sarcastic Visel she could manage. Even an amorous, lustful Visel. But an apologetic, understanding Visel? No, that was something she’d not prepared herself for. She clamped her jaws shut and swallowed hard to rid herself of the dry lump that had lodged itself in her throat.
“It must have been very difficult to handle such knowledge as a child.”
Eva studied him closely for a long, uncomfortable moment. “I’ve only known a few years,” she said when she was sure he wasn’t taunting her. “My father didn’t tell us about her until I was almost fifteen.” Eva chewed the inside of her cheek, wondering why she was telling him these things.
Because he will learn all about your family when he becomes your husband.
Husband.
She swallowed yet again. “My father thought he was protecting us,” she volunteered, even though he’d said nothing.
“I can see that.”
“Well, I can’t,” she retorted. “If I’d known for longer, I could have prepared for when he decided to ship me off to school—because those girls knew all about me before they even met me. My sisters and I had no idea what my mother had been like during her last years, but every member of the ton knew at least one sordid tale about the beautiful, mad Marchioness of Exley. And they were so eager to share it all with us.”
Eva wasn’t sure she could ever forgive her father for keeping them in the dark for so long, even though he’d apologized and admitted his mistake. If her stepmamma hadn’t come along, it was likely Eva would still be living at Exham in ignorance. Which wouldn’t be so bad, come to think of it. Except it would mean she would never have known Mia or Gabriel, who were two of her favorite people in the world.
“Do both your sisters live at home?” he asked.
Eva considered saying something rude—just because she was feeling rude—but decided she was too tired to come up with anything suitably cutting. Besides, she had the rest of her life to be rude to him.
“No, just Mel—Melissa. My older sister, Catherine, is married.” A thought struck her. “Her husband was a captain—Baron Salford. Do you know him?”
“I know of him.” He paused, his expression thoughtful, as if he were combing his memory. “I may have met him once at an officer’s dance a few years ago.”
“Well, his dancing days are behind him now, as he’s confined to a chair.” Eva didn’t know her new brother-in-law very well, but what she did know did not give her much hope for her sister Catherine’s happiness. Salford had been struck in the back with shrapnel, which left him unable to move his lower body. He was reclusive and quiet and Catherine had only met him because she’d been visiting Salford’s sister. Eva was fairly sure the reason Cat had married him was because he couldn’t have children and already had a son and heir from his prior marriage.
Eva’s stepmamma had had plenty to say about her sister’s choice, which was obviously motivated by Cat’s concerns about having a child. But Cat had, for once, stood by her decision. The newlyweds lived only about two hours from Exham Castle, but Eva had only seen them twice in the six months since they’d married. Both times Cat and her husband had looked strained and unhappy, not exactly endorsements for the married state.
Eva realized the carriage had been silent for a while. Good. She didn’t want to talk about her family. In spite of his apology—and the fact he would soon become her husband—Eva didn’t feel like he deserved to know the inner workings and personal details of the people she loved. Not after the way he’d harried Gabriel. He’d need to earn the right to know any more than she’d just told him. The thought of him wanting anything from her enough to work for it gave her a bitter smile.
She closed her eyes and leaned back into the corner, resting her head on the squabs, already feeling the pull of sleep. The less time they spent together awake, the better it would be for both of them.
Chapter 8
Godric glanced around the dimly lighted, greasy smelling room; he was a bloody idiot. If anything, this ramshackle inn was worse than the one last night. Not only that, but they’d hardly covered much more than ten miles today; they were still miles from the border.
Around two o’clock, several hours after his uncomfortable interlude with Eva, the carriage became stuck in a bloody bog. He’d actually been grateful to get out of the cold, hostile environment of the carriage, even if it had meant he’d spent the next few hours in the pouring rain and ankle-deep mud.
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