Chapter 19 #2
“I heard enough.”
“So when you asked me to meet you that night,” she pressed, her anger turning cold, “you already knew I meant to leave? You summoned me to the lodge after you had listened to my private plans like some eavesdropping… clerk.”
His jaw clenched. “I did not go to that corridor with the intention to eavesdrop. I went to speak to you. I heard your name. I paused.”
“And you remained,” she bit out. “Long enough to make use of what you heard. Long enough to hold it over me later.”
“I have never held it over you,” he said sharply. “If I wished to use it against you, I could have gone directly to your stepfather and informed him of your plans.”
Her stomach sank at the notion. “You would not.”
“No,” he agreed. “I would not. Because I am already too involved to feign indifference.”
The admission landed between them like a wild beast ready to pounce on either one of them.
Gwen looked away, out at the darkness beyond the small window. Trees loomed and vanished. The wheels rattled beneath them.
“You have had your say,” she muttered. “It changes nothing. When this carriage reaches Cheltenham, I will step out and start anew. You will return to your townhouse and your ledgers and whatever perfectly suitable bride your mother chooses. We will both be perfectly respectable. No one will know what nearly happened between us.”
“Nearly,” he repeated. “We happened nearly some time ago.”
Heat flared in her cheeks. “You know what I mean.”
“Yes, I do. And I find that I do not care for it.”
She jabbed a finger at him. “You do not get to care. You told me this was business. You reminded me of the limits. You sent me away as if I had overstayed my welcome.”
He winced slightly. “I know.”
“You do not wish to stop seeing me because your pride is wounded, because I ended what you believed to control,” she added. “Not because you feel anything that would justify this intrusion.”
His silence said too much and too little.
She pressed on, angry now more with herself than with him. “I will not stay in London to ease your conscience. I will not return to that house. I will not wait meekly for a convent because your ego is bruised.”
“You will not return to that house,” he said slowly. “On that we agree.”
She frowned. “We do.”
“Yes. I have no intention of escorting you back to a place where a man like Howard Tull controls your future. You are correct that he is dangerous. More so when his pride is dented. If he discovers you attempted to flee, he will make your life unbearable.” Victor paused, then added, “More unbearable.”
Gwen folded her arms. “Then what do you propose, Your Grace? That I live in your attic? That you keep me in some discreet little cottage while the ton debates whether or not you have stolen a mistress from under a viscount’s roof?”
Victor’s lips flattened. “Do not put words in my mouth.”
“You hardly give me better ones to work with,” she shot back.
His gaze dropped briefly to her clasped hands. When he looked up again, his expression had shifted. Irritation and cool calculation lingered there, but something gentler edged it now. Perhaps resignation.
“You will not turn back,” he murmured.
“No.”
“You will go to Cheltenham, whether I approve or not.”
“Yes.”
He exhaled, long and slow. “Then I will escort you there.”
Her mouth fell open. “You will what?”
“I will not persuade you to return,” he said. “And I refuse to leave you to the mercy of hired drivers and random travelers. If you insist on this course, I will at least make sure you arrive with your reputation as intact as circumstances allow and your person unharmed.”
“That is absurd!” she protested. “You cannot accompany me. What would people say?”
“That I went to inspect a property in Gloucestershire,” he said smoothly. “I have enough land there to make such a trip plausible. My servants will ask no questions. Your cousin will be grateful that you did not undertake the journey alone.”
“You assume she will not think the worst,” Gwen huffed.
He tilted his head. “Will she?”
Gwen thought of Edith Fairchild, practical, kind, and untroubled by half the strictures that bound the London drawing rooms. “She may think a great many things. I do not believe she will shut her door in my face because I arrived with a man.”
“There, you see?” he said. “The matter resolves itself.”
She shook her head. “You cannot order your life as if it were a ledger and expect every column to align. You are a duke. Your movements are watched. Your absence will be noticed.”
“I am frequently absent,” he said. “On estate business. On Parliamentary matters. On errands no one finds interesting enough to gossip about. I know that the world will not halt because Greystone spent a few days on the road.”
“You would do this,” she asked slowly, “for me?”
His gaze held hers. “For you.”
Her heart clenched. This was exactly the kind of thing she had sworn not to let herself feel. The shadow of something akin to love.
She looked away. “I do not want to owe you more than I already do.”
“You already owe me more than you wish,” he said. “Another entry on the ledger will make little difference.”
“You cannot help turning people into accounts,” she muttered.
“It is the only way I know to keep from losing them,” he said quietly.
The words struck her like a sudden gust of wind. She did not quite know what to do with them.
Outside, the night deepened. The carriage rolled steadily on.
“If I allow this,” she asked, “will you refrain from attempting to change my mind at every coaching inn?”
“I will not,” he replied without hesitation. “I am not made for perfect restraint.”
“Then I refuse,” she huffed.
He considered. “I will promise not to coerce you. Not to reveal your whereabouts. Not to intercept your letters or meddle with your cousin. I will argue, yes. I will probably scold you. But I will not trap you.”
She hesitated. He read it, the way he read every shift in her posture, every flicker in her eyes.
“You will leave, whether I ride with you or not,” he continued. “The only choice you make now is whether you do so with a guard at your side or entirely at the mercy of chance.”
It was infuriating that he made sense.
“You are very arrogant.”
“So I have been told,” he drawled.
After a moment’s thought, she muttered, “Very well.”
His eyebrows rose. “Very well.”
“You may escort me,” she acquiesced. “But only that. No more talk of arrangements. No more nights counted and weighed. When we reach Cheltenham, you will leave, and I will begin my new life.”
He inclined his head. “Agreed.”
“And you will not attempt to buy my gratitude,” she added. “This is not business.”
“No,” he agreed. “It is not.”
For a moment, something unspoken moved between them. Then he straightened.
Gwen sat back, feeling the carriage lurch every which way while carrying her toward a future more complicated than the simple escape she had imagined.