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The rest of the carriage ride was fraught with silence, interrupted only by Ethan’s futile attempts at lightening up themood. In fact, it gave the very impression of that particularly eerie calm before a storm.

Daniel, for his part, refused to explain himself while his friend and Phoebe were still within earshot.

Evie, on the other hand, alternated between glaring at him and staring out the window stonily.

It was easily the most uncomfortable carriage ride in his entire existence.

When they arrived at Ashton Hall, he alighted first and held out his hand to help Evie, but the fiercely stubborn lady expressly ignored him and exited the carriage on her own without even sparing him a glance.

“I shall, ah, escort Lady Phoebe back to her residence,” Ethan informed them with an uneasy smile.

Daniel simply nodded at him. When he turned back to Evie, she had already started walking to the front door.

Ethan shot him a look that clearly said,Good luck, and please do not die.

Daniel simply smiled grimly at that. Of course, he had no plans of expiring so soon.

How could he bear to disappoint Evie when they had not even publicly announced their engagement yet?

But he agreed that the matter of their supposed engagement also needed to be addressed. If it was done so shoddily, he was sure that the Dowager Duchess would never forgive him, and the poor woman had already been through so much in her life. She certainly did not need the added disappointment of Daniel making a mess of his engagement—an event that she had looked forward to with much anticipation.

What is it with dowagers and their need to see the younger generation married off?

Daniel scoffed to himself as he followed Evie into the manor.

Suddenly, Evie came to a complete stop. She whirled around and glared at him. “Well?”

He raised an eyebrow in response. “Well what, my dear?”

“Well, we are now back in the privacy of your beloved Ashton Hall,” she shot back sarcastically. “Or are you going to pretend that nothing happened, like you always do?”

Daniel frowned at that. He disliked having his words flung back at him because it rarely ever happened. Now, a young slip of a girl who was barely two-thirds his height and half his weight was slinging them right back at him like a damned trebuchet.

“Let us head off to my study, then,” he told her tersely.

“You better not skirt your way around this, Your Grace,” she warned him.

“Certainly not, sweetheart.” He smiled coldly at her, openly admiring the angry flush that rose to her cheeks. “I intend to make everything particularly clear.”

She looked up at him suspiciously.

Trust, it would seem, would not come easily in this union.

Daniel did not say anything more as he led the way to his study.

He had a feeling that Evie would have a great deal more to say, in any case, especially when she heard what he was about to say.

CHAPTER 11

He better have a good explanation for his outrageous statement!

“Oh, do not glare at me like that,” he sighed, as ifshewas the one being unreasonable, when he had all but declared before a flock of dandies that they were to be wed—and Evie knew that dowagers were perhaps the only ones worse than dandies when it came to gossip!

There is no mistake about it—he knew exactly what he was doing when he said that!

As if to further hammer in the fact that this man before her did not care one whit what others thought, he simply turned around and headed up the stairs to his study, as if it was only natural that she heeded his suggestion and followed him meekly.

Well, she had no choice but to follow him if she was to hear what he had to say, but to do someeklywas simply out of the question!