He regarded her thoughtfully, and she narrowed her eyes at him.
“How did you know exactly when I would leave?”
He looked past her for a second. “I told you, I overheard you speaking with your friends.”
“At the ball,” she said. “You heard everything?”
“I heard enough.”
“So when you asked me to meet you that night,” she pressed, her anger turning cold, “you already knew I meant to leave? You summoned me to the lodge after you had listened to my private plans like some eavesdropping… clerk.”
His jaw clenched. “I did not go to that corridor with the intention to eavesdrop. I went to speak to you. I heard your name. I paused.”
“And you remained,” she bit out. “Long enough to make use of what you heard. Long enough to hold it over me later.”
“I have never held it over you,” he said sharply. “If I wished to use it against you, I could have gone directly to your stepfather and informed him of your plans.”
Her stomach sank at the notion. “You would not.”
“No,” he agreed. “I would not. Because I am already too involved to feign indifference.”
The admission landed between them like a wild beast ready to pounce on either one of them.
Gwen looked away, out at the darkness beyond the small window. Trees loomed and vanished. The wheels rattled beneath them.
“You have had your say,” she muttered. “It changes nothing. When this carriage reaches Cheltenham, I will step out and start anew. You will return to your townhouse and your ledgers and whatever perfectly suitable bride your mother chooses. We will both be perfectly respectable. No one will know what nearly happened between us.”
“Nearly,” he repeated. “We happenednearlysome time ago.”
Heat flared in her cheeks. “You know what I mean.”
“Yes, I do. And I find that I do not care for it.”
She jabbed a finger at him. “You do not get to care. You told me this was business. You reminded me of the limits. You sent me away as if I had overstayed my welcome.”
He winced slightly. “I know.”
“You do not wish to stop seeing me because your pride is wounded, because I ended what you believed to control,” she added. “Not because you feel anything that would justify this intrusion.”
His silence said too much and too little.
She pressed on, angry now more with herself than with him. “I will not stay in London to ease your conscience. I will not return to that house. I will not wait meekly for a convent because your ego is bruised.”
“You will not return to that house,” he said slowly. “On that we agree.”
She frowned. “We do.”
“Yes. I have no intention of escorting you back to a place where a man like Howard Tull controls your future. You are correct that he is dangerous. More so when his pride is dented. If he discovers you attempted to flee, he will make your life unbearable.” Victor paused, then added, “More unbearable.”
Gwen folded her arms. “Then what do you propose, Your Grace? That I live in your attic? That you keep me in some discreet little cottage while the ton debates whether or not you have stolen a mistress from under a viscount’s roof?”
Victor’s lips flattened. “Do not put words in my mouth.”
“You hardly give me better ones to work with,” she shot back.
His gaze dropped briefly to her clasped hands. When he looked up again, his expression had shifted. Irritation and cool calculation lingered there, but something gentler edged it now. Perhaps resignation.
“You will not turn back,” he murmured.
