Chapter 3 #2
She moved to place the padlock on the inside metal loops, locking herself in, when she heard Damien scoff from the other side of the door just moments before she and the door were pushed.
She held the door tighter, bent her knees to resist the push, but her feet slid on the floor as if it were ice, and Damien stepped into the open doorframe.
“What do you think you are doing!” she shouted, scrambling from her place at the door.
“This is where you live?” Damien asked, ignoring her. His nose scrunched with aversion as he looked around the small space.
Caroline felt heat bloom in her cheeks as she moved away toward the fireplace.
Even she had to admit that the place was a bit.
.. lacking. There were holes in the thatched roof, and the stone walls kept in the damp and cold as if they enjoyed the sensations.
The floorboards were old, with several lifted and warped from rain seeping in.
The furniture was sparse and secondhand, with tears in the upholstery and chips in the wood—but it was hers, and that made it all special.
“I am quite aware it is not a castle,” she begrudgingly admitted. “But I like it here.”
She crouched down by the cold, stone fireplace, wanting to light a fire and cast off the chill in the air.
Yet as her fingers brushed the floor where she usually stacked the wood, she let out a weary sigh.
She had meant to ask one of her neighbors to loan her some before going to the orphanage, but Mrs. Parks had kept her late, and she had completely forgotten.
“Are you sure you like it here?” Damien asked. It was dark, but she was certain he was wearing a cocky, smug look.
Caroline made a face as she looked over her shoulder at him.
“What are you still doing at the door?” she demanded.
Damien leaned his shoulder against the doorframe and clasped his hands in front of him.
“I may have opened your door, but I am still polite enough to wait for an invitation to come in,” he replied.
Caroline snickered. Him? Polite?
“I am not planning to invite you in,” she said as she rose to her feet. “That would be terribly improper. Imagine what people would say about me if they saw me inviting strange men into my house. I would rather like my life to be free of rumors.”
“Oh, you do not need to worry about that,” Damien said confidently, taking a step into her cottage.
“Once people realize who I am, they will not dare speak about my business. And seeing as you are my betrothed and my business, they will not speak about you either, or I will deal with them personally.”
Caroline gaped at him as he walked to the center of the room and took a long look around.
“You are mad. Or incredibly over-self-confident, I cannot decide,” she stated as she shook her head. “Either way, I cannot fathom how my cousins put up with you. I think it would be best if you left.”
Damien’s probing gaze fixed on her. Even in the darkness, he seemed able to spot her. She shivered at the intensity of his stillness and the cold, and she tried to find the right words to get him to leave. She was not going back to Mayfair. That was final.
“Are you cold?” Damien asked, his head cocking slightly to the side.
Caroline shook her head, even as she drew her hands up to her arms and rubbed them to warm them. In truth, she was freezing.
“Liar,” he accused, then walked around her to get to the fireplace. “Where is your firewood? I shall light a fire for you.”
Caroline stared down at the spot where the wood usually lay, feeling self-conscious about her lack of preparation.
“I…” She felt her old self start to rise. That timid person she had been for so long. “I was going to ask my neighbors to loan me some of theirs on the way home. I... I was not expecting my employer to make me stay late.”
“Loan you some firewood?” he questioned. “How does one go about loaning something that will be burned to ash?”
Caroline felt her blush grow hotter.
“Once I had the money to purchase more, I was going to give them back however many logs they gave me.”
Damien took a step toward her, leaning down until they were eye to eye, and she could see his amber eyes glisten with annoyance in the darkness.
“What do you mean by ‘once you had the money to purchase more?’ You do not have enough now?” he asked, his deep voice laced with something dangerous. “What if I had not found you?”
Caroline swallowed, intimidated by his intense gaze, and licked her suddenly dry lips.
“I usually manage better. I just... I had to pay the landlord to fix the window. He makes repairs as long as I can pay him for them.”
Damien leaned back, but not before she caught the rage in his expression.
“That scoundrel. You pay him rent,” he snarled. “That should include repairs!”
“Well, I know, but he insisted, and I did not wish to argue now that I had a roof above my head,” she hastily explained, hating how weak her arguments sounded. “I was lucky enough to be able to be allowed to rent this place on my own as it was!”
Mumbled curses tumbled from Damien’s lips as he turned away from her and walked to the nearest chair. He picked it up, and before she could ask what he was doing, he lifted it over his head and smashed it into the ground, splintering it into dozens of pieces.