Page 11

Chapter Eleven

E velyn was fuming.

She stood in the middle of the library with her arms crossed, her jaw tight, and her breath short with utter indignation. Her hair was slightly mussed from being hauled— hauled! —across the manor like a sack of potatoes.

“This,” she said, pacing nervously, “was utterly scandalous. You have just handed my mother enough ammunition to murder me socially, and she will do it, I assure you.”

Robert didn’t speak.

“And furthermore,” she continued, gesturing with one flailing hand, “you kidnapped me! In front of witnesses! Who, I might add, have very active mouths and very little else to do.”

Still, he said nothing.

“And this ,” she spun on her heel, pointing to the chaise where he’d deposited her like forgotten luggage, “was not romantic. Not in the slightest. It was brutish and uncivilized, and you should be?—”

He stepped forward and pressed a single finger against her lips. She froze.

“Evelyn,” he said, very quietly, “you are to become my duchess in less than twenty-four hours.”

She narrowed her eyes at him with her mouth still lightly pressed shut under his touch.

He arched a brow. “This is my castle. Your parents already suspect I’ve ruined you. It seems there is very little more damage I can do.”

She slapped his hand away. “You’re insufferable.”

“I’ve been called worse.”

“You will be again.” Her eyes burned into his.

“I don’t doubt it.”

She crossed her arms again. “You still shouldn’t have carried me.”

“No,” he agreed. “But I would do it again.”

He said it like a promise. Or a warning. Her heart gave a traitorous flutter at the thought of it being either of the two.

Robert’s gaze sharpened, and the faintest shift in his expression made her stomach twist. “I know about your sister,” he said, “and the Viscount.”

Her body tensed up as if he’d struck her, but she forced her tone into something dry and sharp. “Ah. That would explain the thundering entrance. And the abduction. And the brooding glower you’ve perfected.”

He didn’t smile. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

She let out a low breath, turning from him. “Because it’s old pain, and old pain is boring. No one likes hearing about heartbreaks that occurred two years ago. They start wondering why you’re not over it, as if grief and betrayal obey calendars.”

“Is that why you refused every other offer?”

She turned back, her eyes flashing at him. “Do you think I’m still in love with him?”

He didn’t flinch. “I’m asking.”

She scoffed. Loudly. “God above, no . Don’t flatter that man on my behalf.”

Robert blinked, just once. She saw it, that flicker of tension leaving his shoulders, and in it, something else… Could it have been relief?

She blinked then narrowed her eyes. “Wait… Were you jealous ?”

“No.”

“You were .”

“I was not. I was… concerned.”

“For my emotional well-being?”

“For my sanity,” he muttered.

She grinned, despite herself. “Well. That is almost flattering.”

He gave her a look. “The truth. Please.”

She sighed, tilting her head to study the lines of the floorboards.

“It wasn’t love. Not even close. It was…

infatuation. The kind you read about in silly novels.

He told me, very seriously, I might add, that he had royal blood.

That his great-aunt was cousin to the King’s second mistress or some nonsense.

I was sixteen when I first met him, and I thought, Oh, how noble. How tragic. How dashing. ”

Robert looked as though he might actually groan.

“I know,” she said quickly. “You don’t have to say anything. I cringe just remembering it. But it wasn’t real. I never even knew him. I just wanted to be wanted. And he made it seem like I was special.”

Robert was silent again, but this time it wasn’t cold. It was a weighted silence, and all she could do was wonder what he was thinking.

Robert watched her closely.

There was something about the way Evelyn stood now that he couldn’t stop thinking about. Her posture was straight but brittle at the edges, like a porcelain figure set too close to the edge of a table. He could see the effort it took her to keep from folding in on herself.

She hesitated, and then, with a visible breath, she let caution slip away.

“I had lost faith in marriage,” she said in a low and tired tone of voice. “And in men. In promises. In all those pretty, useless ideas girls are raised on. I don’t believe in happily ever afters. I don’t want to tie my happiness to a man, least of all one who doesn’t care about me.”

The words struck something in his chest. It was not guilt, not quite, but it was something heavier, older—perhaps an echo of understanding that hadn’t existed before. Robert said nothing at first, not because he was angry but because she was right.

He had pursued this union with unrelenting precision as he did all things that mattered.

Evelyn had been a piece in a puzzle, a thread in a tapestry whose image only he understood.

She was the key to her father, and her father was the key to answers .

And in that pursuit, he hadn’t once paused to consider that she was more than a means to an end.

He had never allowed himself the luxury of such consideration… until now.

“I didn’t understand before,” he said at last, his voice quieter than usual. “But I do now.”

She blinked at him, looking utterly surprised. Maybe even disarmed.

“If that is your wish, I shall throw them out of my home with a dramatic flair that would rival the bard himself,” he tried to jest.

A flicker of a smile graced her beautiful lips, but her answer surprised him.

“No,” she told him with fiery determination.

“That will make them think that I am afraid. Or worse yet, that I still harbor feeling for that wretch of a man. No,” she added again, shaking her head.

“They shall attend our wedding as Mama has planned.”

He studied her, the set of her mouth, the weariness behind her eyes, the thin thread of color rising to her cheeks. She looked tired in a way that had nothing to do with rest and everything to do with having to be strong for far too long.

“Then, the wedding will proceed,” he agreed, simply because it had to happen, “but I do not wish for you to be unhappy in the marriage.”

Her eyes widened slightly as she took in the weight of his words. That, too, seemed to surprise her.

“So,” he continued, more gently than before, “tell me what you would want out of it.”

They were standing very close now. He hadn’t noticed when the distance between them had shrunk. He could see the gold flecks in her green eyes, so unusual and sharp, like sunlight against moss. And her blush, it was rising steadily, painting her cheeks and the bridge of her nose in soft color.

Odd that he hadn’t truly noticed that before. Or perhaps he hadn’t let himself.

Evelyn tilted her head slightly as her eyes searched his.

“I want to be able to make decisions for myself,” she said, asking for what was the most natural thing for any person to desire. “I don’t want you giving me orders or treating me like some piece of property you acquired. I want freedom. I want respect.”

He nodded just once. “Done.”

Her lips parted slightly, as if she hadn’t expected him to agree so easily. Or at all.

“I don’t expect affection,” she added quickly, as if protecting herself from his agreement. “Or love. That’s not the sort of marriage I want. I would prefer if we led separate lives.”

Robert was silent again but not because he opposed the idea. He was thinking.

“I agree,” he said finally. “With one caveat.”

She raised a brow. “Which is?”

He stepped closer. She didn’t move away. “For the sake of appearances, I require that we spend the first month together. Publicly. Among the ton . As a married couple.”

She crossed her arms slowly. “You mean for the sake of your reputation?”

“No,” he said. “For the sake of protecting us both.”

That gave her pause.

“I see,” she said after a heartbeat. “And after that month?”

“You may do as you wish.”

She exhaled slowly, as if she were only just allowing herself to breathe. Her shoulders no longer sat so high, her tone had shifted from defensive to steady, and there was even the faint curve of amusement at the corners of her mouth. That, in itself, was progress.

But then she paused, mid-thought, as if some unpleasant memory had struck her square in the chest. He saw it clearly, that flicker of worry behind her eyes, the way her fingers curled slightly, as if bracing for impact.

She cleared her throat. “There’s something else.”

He waited quietly and watched her expression carefully.

Evelyn didn’t look at him as she asked, “Do you… require an heir?”

There it was: the hesitation. The suspicion beneath it. He could hear the subtext clearly, even if she hadn’t spoken it aloud.

Was this marriage another cage? Another obligation? Was she signing herself away just to become a vessel for someone else’s legacy?

Robert allowed himself a pause, long enough to make her fidget. He could have easily dissuaded her of that with his usual tone of voice, but he chose a different path.

“Are you propositioning me?” he inquired, unable to control his amusement.

Her head snapped toward him so fast it was a miracle she didn’t sprain something. “What… no! Of course not! I didn’t mean… it wasn’t… I just thought…”

He took a slow step forward. She stepped back. Another step. Another retreat.

“I was simply asking,” she stammered, “if that was an expectation, not that I—I mean I’m not… propositioning…”

“You’re blushing,” he observed.

She sputtered. “You’re insufferable .”

“I’m merely clarifying.”

He was in front of her now, and her back hit the edge of the library shelves. She looked up at him with wide eyes, green with storm and defiance and something very near panic which he found endlessly charming.

“Just to be perfectly clear,” he said and leaned in.

His mouth grazed the edge of her jaw. It was barely a touch. Featherlight. But she froze.

Then, his breath warm against her ear, he whispered. “I didn’t choose to marry you because I wanted heirs.”

She made a small noise, which was something between a squeak and a gasp, and stepped sideways with surprising speed, putting a good three feet of distance between them.

“You are a cad ,” she hissed, pointing an accusatory finger at him though the color in her cheeks betrayed any hope of real menace.

“And you’re running away.”

“Because you are scandalous, and I will not stand for it!”

He raised a brow.

She turned, flustered beyond speech now, and practically ran from the library. He stood there for a moment, the silence thick around him, and then reached up to touch his lips. They still held the faint, sweet warmth of her skin.

Robert exhaled through his nose and let a rare smirk curl at the corner of his mouth.

He had known this before, of course. From the moment she called him arrogant with that glint in her eyes, from the way she insulted his manners without flinching, from the way she’d looked at him tonight with half fear, half curiosity.

But now it was a certainty. His wife was going to be trouble.

And God help him, he didn’t mind it one bit.