Page 8 of The Rebellious Countess (The Ruined Duchess #2)

She snorted. “Of that I have no doubt.” She tried not to look at his broad shoulders, which were unfashionably sculpted in a manner to make a woman swoon.

On board the Maribelle she’d been too stunned to truly take note of all the dips and valleys defining his musculature.

But now…now she had to swallow the lump in her suddenly parched throat.

She’d seen farmers in nothing but trousers as they worked in the fields and stables on particularly warm days, but none, and she meant none , had been built like Ellis?—

Elias. She dumped another bucket of water over his head and refused to watch the rivulets caress his muscular back as he sputtered.

Elias pushed the filthy water out of his eyes and glared at her. She crossed her arms over her chest and jutted out her hip, a smirk of satisfaction lifting the corners of her lips.

Then she froze when he reached under the water and started unbuttoning the falls of his trousers, all the while watching her.

“What are you doing?” she asked, her voice sounding ridiculously breathless.

“Getting undressed.”

“You can’t do that here!” she hissed, her composure completely gone.

“What is the point of taking a bath if one doesn’t get naked?”

From his tone, it was evident he was getting quite a laugh at her expense. She wanted to hit him with the bucket, but thought better of it. She still needed him to get home. So, when he lifted almost completely out of the water to remove his trousers, Máira turned her back.

He’d betrayed her and their vows, she needed to remember that.

His pants sloshed to the ground at her feet and she jumped. “What are you doing? You’re getting disgusting muck on my gown and slippers.”

“This way I know you’ll take a bath as well.”

She stomped the filth from her feet. “I planned to bathe and burn this dress. But I hardly want the rot you’re covered with on me.”

“Ah, so we will have our honeymoon after all.”

“Alone! I’ll be taking my bath alone .”

He chuckled. It was that sound she absolutely adored. The throaty vibration traveling deeply through his chest. She closed her ears, eyes, and heart to the sound. “It is my understanding that if one participates in a wedding ceremony under a false name, the wedding is not binding.”

He stopped laughing. “I wrote down my legal name on the church registrar.”

She turned around so fast, she nearly stumbled into the bath with him. “I would have seen that!”

His smile was a bit sad. “I distracted you.”

She let her memories come into focus…standing in the back of the church, ready to sign the register, feeling the happiest she had in her entire life, Elias had kissed her, repeatedly as if he couldn’t stop…

and she realized Elias was speaking the truth.

Ellison had lied during their wedding, but Elias was not lying now.

He had distracted her in the most sensuous manner.

His hand had tickled her backside as she’d bent over, and she’d nearly jumped out of her slippers.

As it was, her own signature was less than legible when she was finished.

Elliso—Elias had been talking to the vicar about the renovations to the chapel at Drumvermar, all the while his hands were casually positioned behind his back…

and on her. He looked innocent to everyone but her—and Iseabail.

Her older sister had caught a glimpse of the entire thing and that had only served to make Máira blush further.

Luckily, her other sisters and the vicar had not seemed to notice.

If they had, none of them had been brazen enough to quirk a brow in her direction as Iseabail had.

And after signing, she had never again looked at the register.

“You sir, are a rat.”

“A rat you like to kiss.”

“A rat just the same.”

“We’re married, Máira. It’s legal.”

“It’s not.”

He gave her a sad smile again, as if she were a delusional wife who needed to be institutionalized. Dear Lord, was that his plan?

As if sensing her unease, he replied. “It is legal, but I will ensure you receive an annulment.” Elias continued to scrub his body and then dunked his head under water and scrubbed it hard.

When he came up, she asked, “Why the subterfuge?”

“I needed a wee bonnie lass of a wife to prove my business intentions were honorable.”

She scoffed. “You wouldn’t know honor if it slapped you in the face.”

The candle flickered in the warm breeze. “I kept you safe and pure for six days, did I not?”

“You kept me locked in a cabin!” An emotion she refused to recognize made her voice raise an octave.

“Or you could say, I kept everyone else locked out. Considering Jack, in there, had a bounty on your head. I’d say I did you one helluva favor.” He nodded his head in the direction of the tavern.

She froze. A bounty? She had a bounty on her head? Whatever for? “You’re lying.”

“I’m not.”

“Then why did Peter convince me to run from you and then immediately dumped me ashore with no way home?”

He looked up at her, his face devoid of expression except for a tick in his jaw she’d never seen before.

No, that wasn’t completely true. She’d seen his jaw tick with anger that first day aboard ship when she’d staggered up to the deck and discovered her husband was a pirate captain.

This look, however, was something much more dangerous. It was deadly.