Then Lady Brimwood’s voice rose in a scandalized pitch. “Well, I never!”
Evelyn thumped his back with a closed fist. “You absolute brute! Unhand me this instant!”
He ignored her. His pace never changed.
“People can see us!”
“Good. Perhaps they’ll ask why.”
She went still. Not entirely but the kind of stillness that came from confusion, not submission. Her voice dropped slightly. “Why are you doing this?”
He reached the library, opened the door, stepped inside, and closed it with a firm, final click. Only then did he lower her, not gently but not unkindly, onto the nearest chaise. She immediately stood up, glaring at him.
“You have utterly lost your mind!”
Chapter Eleven
Evelyn 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 shewilldo it, I assure you.”
Robert didn’t speak.
“And furthermore,” she continued, gesturing with one flailing hand, “youkidnappedme! In front of witnesses! Who, I might add, have very active mouths and very little else to do.”
Still, he said nothing.
“Andthis,” 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 ismycastle. 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?”
