Page 53 of Road Trip With a Rogue
Damn Vaughan.
“We’ve taken rooms at the inn over there,” Perry said, gesturing across the road to a slightly shabby-looking establishment called The King’s Head. “I’ve ordered breakfast. Let’s all go and have something to eat.”
Daisy’s stomach gave a traitorous little growl, and since there was nothing to be done but accept defeat, she traipsed across the street after Violet and Perry, trying to ignore the nauseating way they were fussing over one another.
Instead of following them through the front door, however, she tailed Vaughan as he led their two horses through the arched entrance and into a stable yard at the rear. A scruffy stable hand took charge of them, and when they stepped inside, she caught Vaughan’s sleeve, preventing him from going through to the breakfast room.
Instead, she opened the first door on her left, which let into a storage cupboard, stepped in beside the mops and sweeping brushes, and pulled him in after her. She closed the door, then fixed him with a narrow-eyed glare.
“I could kill you,” she growled. The room was so small they were barely two feet apart.
“I don’t doubt it. In a hundred different ways.”
She shook her head at his flippancy.
“Now you see why I’ve been reluctant to give your knives back,” he said.
Her fingers twitched with the impulse to pull her remaining blade from her boot and stab him with it. Nowhere fatal. Just his shoulder, maybe. Or his thigh.
“I trusted you, you arse!” she fumed. “And you’ve been lying to me from the moment we met in that bloody lane.”
Her initial disbelief at his deception had been replaced by a volcanic anger and a sickening knot of hurt in her belly.
“God, I’ve been so stupid! You’ve been trying to delay me fordays.” She glared up at him. “You’ve been laughing at me, stringing me along, making me think I had a chance of catching them, when all this time you’ve been sabotaging me for your own twisted amusement!” She sucked in a breath. “There was nothing wrong with the bloody girth strap this morning, was there? You told Finch to come up with something to stop us getting here on time.”
“Well…” Vaughan had the grace to look guilty, and she let out a growl of annoyance. And then a new, even worse, thought struck her. She stabbed him in the chest with her finger.
“Oh God, you tried to keep me in bed this morning. Did you only seduce me to slow me down? To distract me?”
His brows lowered. “No! Absolutely not! I seduced you, if that’s how you want to put it—even though I seem to remember you being just as much of an active participant—because I’ve wanted you for fuckingyears.”
He reached up and wrapped his hand around hers, engulfing the finger poking him in the sternum. “I still want you. Every second of the day.”
She shook free of his hand, ignoring the way her stupid heart twisted in her chest at his words. He was a lying toad. She couldn’t trust a thing he said.
“Stop it. Just tell me why you told Perry to elope. Why couldn’t he stay in London and earn Brand’s approval?”
“Because I was sick and tired of him moping about my house like a lovesick puppy.” Vaughan said crossly. “It was a purely selfish gesture. The two of them are ideally suited—they’re both equally silly—and since Brand’s only real objection was the fact that Perry didn’t have an income of his own, I promised to give them a thousand pounds a year simply to get him off my hands.”
“That’s…” Daisy struggled to find the words.
“Practical,” Vaughan supplied. “I knew Brand would come round eventually, so I told Perry to elope, then present him with afait accompli. Easier to apologize for something you’ve done than to gain permission for something you haven’t. The two of them can find a nicelittle house in Mayfair, and I’ll get the pleasure of a solitary existence once again.”
“What about your sister? Won’t she be upset that her only son’s married in her absence?”
Vaughan shook his head. “Of course not. The only thing she’ll care about is that he’s married someone he loves, who loves him back. She married for love herself. She’ll understand.”
“I don’t suppose the fact that Violet’s almost as rich as the king will hurt either,” Daisy said cynically.
“Her wealth doesn’t matter. I’ve got more than enough to help them if Brand chooses to cut them off, and don’t forget that for all his money, Brand’s still the son of a wool merchant, whereas Perry’s uncle is a duke. Marrying into an aristocratic family has a cachet all of its own.”
Daisy knew that well enough. She’d been avoiding socially climbing suitors for years. But Vaughan’s perfidy still stung. “Your scheming has wasted my time and ruined my professional reputation.”
“Which I genuinely regret,” he said. “Look, I’ll pay you the five hundred pounds you would have had from Brand. And I’ll talk to him when we get back to London. Let him know it was entirely my fault that you couldn’t stop the wedding. King and Company’s good name won’t be adversely affected.”
“I don’t want your charity. Or your company, for that matter.” She stepped around him and pushed open the door.
“Where are you going?”