Chapter 7
The walk back was a disaster.
Not the path. The path was fine. Muddy but fine. Valeria did not care about the gardens or the clean air or any of it. She was trying to keep two feet between herself and the man beside her.
She could still feel his breath on her lips. The almost-kiss sat at the edge of her thoughts like a bruise she kept poking.
“You planned this,” she remarked.
He looked at her sideways. “Planned what?”
“This. All of it. You planned for no one else to find me so that you could be the one to rescue me and ruin my reputation, and then I would have no choice but to accept your hand.” She quickened her pace, her shoes squelching in the mud.
Her voice rose. “Did you threaten them? All of the others? Is that why no one came?”
Edward let out a long breath through his nose.
“How is it that no one has found us yet?” she pressed. “Did you tell them not to come? Everyone is so terrified of you that they would obey you without a second thought.”
“Duchess,” he said, and his voice had an edge to it now. “I am asking ye to stop provoking me.”
“Provoking you?”
“Aye. Because I am trying very hard to be a gentleman right now, and ye are not making it easy.”
He stopped walking. She stopped too.
“Are ye not afraid of me?” he asked.
He stepped toward her. She stepped back.
Her shoulders hit the garden wall. He put one hand on the stone beside her head.
Not touching her. Not trapping her. Just close.
Close enough that she had to tilt her chin up to look at him.
His eyes were dark in the grey light. The muscle in his jaw was tight.
She did not look away.
“Did you tell them not to come for me?” she whispered.
“No.” His voice was raw. “They were just not men enough to have ye.”
His hand tightened beside her head. For a moment, he only looked at her mouth. Then he kissed her.
It was not gentle. His mouth crashed onto hers, knocking the breath from her lungs. His free hand slid up the back of her neck, fingers tangling in her wet hair, angling her face.
His teeth caught her lower lip. Something shot down her spine, and she made a sound against his mouth that she would deny till the day she died.
She had never been kissed before.
Gordon put his lips on her forehead on their wedding day. It had been dry. Brief.
This was not a kiss. This was something else. Rain on the garden walls, stone cold against her back, Edward’s mouth hot on hers. She felt tears prick her eyes. For three years, she had not been allowed to feel anything. Now, she was feeling everything.
She had imagined kissing. Of course, she had. But her imaginings paled by comparison.
His hand tightened in her hair. His body was solid against hers. Her hands found his coat and gripped it. Pulled him closer.
His mouth opened against hers, and she tasted rain and heat and the low sound he made in the back of his throat when she pulled him in. His thumb traced the line of her jaw. Her back arched off the stone.
She kissed him back without thinking, clumsy and desperate and nothing like the careful woman she had trained herself to be. His teeth grazed her lower lip again, and her knees trembled.
She stopped breathing entirely. The sensible part won out.
One servant. One pair of curious eyes behind the windows. That was all it would take to ruin them both.
She gently pushed him back, and he stopped instantly. Mouth gone. Hand gone. He took a full step back before she knew what was happening.
Two feet apart. Both breathing hard. Rain dripping off the walls.
“I’m sorry,” he said, voice rough and low. Eyes still dark. His hand was clenched at his side.
“You should be,” she managed, though the words came out soft.
“We should go back,” he said.
“Yes,” she uttered, though her feet did not move.
Neither of them moved. Then he held out his hand. Palm up. Scars catching the grey light.
She looked at it. Thought about the ton. The twenty men inside. Gordon, who had grabbed her hand at the altar and used it to chain her.
“Ye didn’t seem so worried about touching me a few moments ago,” Edward noted.
“That was a moment of weakness,” Valeria replied, squaring her shoulders. “And we are not allowed to talk about it. Ever again.”
“On the contrary, I believe we must talk about it, now that we are to be man and wife.”
“What?!” She stared at him, mouth hanging open.
“Ye must admit that even if we didn’t desire one another–”
“I don’t! I certainly dislike you… very much!”
The corner of his mouth twitched. “Lust has nothing to do with whether ye like a person. But other than that…” He went on as if she were not glaring at him.
“Ye cannot deny that all those cowards who left ye to fend for yerself just because they didn’t know what to do with a soaked woman could never win yer game. ”
She opened her mouth to argue. Closed it. Something about his words niggled at her, some double meaning she could not quite catch, but that clearly amused him because his smirk had turned almost boyish.
She was tired and cold.
He was right. Not about lust. She would die denying it. But the rest. Not one of those men had come for her. They went inside at the first drop. The only man who had come was the one the whole country was afraid of.
He had carried her through a storm. Given her his coat. Played riddles with her. Stopped kissing her the instant she pushed him back. Put bread on her plate without asking. Turned his back while she loosened her corset.
The men inside could not find her in the garden.
“I suppose you’re right,” she acquiesced. It tasted like vinegar. “I hate that you’re right.”
“Most people do.”
“That does not make it better.”
“It wasn’t meant to.”
She looked at him. Rain dripping from his hair. Mud on his boots. He looked like he had been dragged through a ditch, which, in a manner of speaking, he had. She probably looked worse.
“What would it look like?” she asked. “If I said yes. What would a marriage to you actually look like?”
“Quiet,” he replied. “I’m away a lot. I have a house in the north that needs work. I’m not good at conversation, and I eat too fast, and I forget to come to bed at a reasonable hour because I’m used to keeping watch.”
“That is not a very convincing proposal.”
“I’m not trying to convince ye. I’m trying to tell ye the truth. Ye’ve had enough of men who tell ye what ye want to hear.”
She stared at him. He stared back. The rain had stopped completely now, and somewhere a bird was singing, absurdly cheerful, as though nothing strange were happening at all.
“You would not try to control me,” she said. It was not a question.
“I would not know how to begin.”
“And you would not take my money.”
“I don’t need yer money.”
“And the heir.”
“I told ye, I don’t care for one.”
“Every man cares.”
“I am not every man. And ye know that already, or else ye would not be standing here in the mud, having this conversation.”
She looked at him, really looked. His coat was still damp, and his face was open in a way she had not seen from any man in years.
He was not trying to charm her. He was not trying to sell her anything.
He was standing in the rain, telling her the truth about himself, including the parts that were not flattering.
The plainness of it made her chest hurt.
“You said you want to help orphans,” she said. “And the poor.”
“Aye.”
“Why?”
“Because I was one. Before the Crown found me. Before I became the Hound, I was a boy sleeping under bridges in Edinburgh, eating whatever I could steal. Nobody helped me then. I will not be the man who has the means to help and chooses not to.”
She had not known that. She had assumed he came from money, from a respectable family, from the kind of background that produced dukes. She had been wrong.
She looked at him for a long time. A boy from under a bridge who had become the most feared man in England, and was now standing in her garden asking to marry her so he could help orphans.
“You are serious,” she said slowly.
“Deadly,” he affirmed.
“It seems we are to be married, then,” she declared.
She stared at him. Looked for the joke, the trick, but found nothing. His green eyes were steady.
He was serious.
The thought did not scare her. But it should have.
“This agreement is much better than being snatched, for sure,” she murmured. “And if the Hound were my husband, no one would even dare to think of touching me.”
“Ye flatter me, Duchess.” His voice was dry enough to soak up the rain.
“I’m sorry, but it’s true.”
“It is.”
“So that leaves only one question before we announce it.” She lifted her chin. If she was going to marry the most dangerous man in England, she would do it with her eyes open. "What do you actually want from this, Edward?"
The amusement left his face. He stepped closer. "To do something that matters."
"That's not an answer."
"It is."
"I've spent years doing things no man should be proud of. I'd like the chance to do something worth a damn." He held her gaze. "The orphans. The poor. The ones no one else looks after. I want us to discuss what we can do for them."
She studied him. His face gave nothing away; that was its default state. But his eyes held something unguarded that she did not think he knew she could see.
“We can find them work and houses,” she suggested. “If that’s what they need.”
He nodded. Then, without asking, he bent and picked her up again, arm under her knees, the other behind her back, and started walking.
“I can walk,” she hissed, though she made no effort to get down.
“Ye’ll only slow me down.”
She glared at him. He would have been annoyed if she were not so absurdly, stubbornly, magnificently cute.
“I still want the rest of the week,”she said.
“Haven’t I already won?”
“You have won nothing. You have been chosen for further consideration.”
“Further consideration,” he repeated. “Ye make it sound like a job.”
“It is a job. Marriage is a job. The last man who held the position was terrible at it, and I fired him by outliving him.”
He looked down at her. She looked up at him. And then, for the first time, they both smiled at each other.
“It’s not just about the competition,” she explained, voice softer. “I haven’t attended a party in years. I haven’t played games or talked to people or stayed up past nine o’clock. I want the whole week, even if I already know the answer.”
Edward adjusted his grip. Pulled her closer. Said nothing. But he agreed. Whatever she wanted, however long she needed, he would play every game she invented if it meant she kept looking at him. Just looking at him. Like he was a person and not a cautionary tale.
They rounded the final corner, and the manor appeared ahead.