The temerity of the man! How dare he? She jerked away from him, sidling along the bench, and inadvertently struck her head on the wall of the carriage. The collision hurt, but not nearly as much as the blow to her pride in knowing not only had he mistaken her for another, but he hadn’t even known who she was.
“My dear Miss Brooke,” he began, using a tone she imagined he might use upon a Bedlamite who had been graceless enough to wander into his path, dirtied and mad.
“I am not your dear anything,” she interrupted coldly. “You are too familiar, and pray do not touch me again!”
Not ever.
Because she liked it too much, and he was insufferable. He was an arrogant, handsome lord who was bedding another man’s wife. Oh, the horror of it all. To have reached the undignified point in her life of finding herself firmly on the shelf, cast off by every relative of means, made to become a governess, and then for the man she had once yearned for to be the source of her destruction.
Surely,surely, the gods were laughing in fickle amusement somewhere at her expense.
“Of course.” He had retracted his hand, and he was frowning now, looking so grim, so thoroughly lacking in joy that for a moment, Elizabeth found herself pitying him. “You must believe that I never wished for this to happen, and that your distress pains me greatly. Does your head ache? You struck it on the carriage wall.”
“Yes, my head aches. My head aches because I am about to lose my situation and the roof over my head, and every modicum of respectability I yet possess!”
Oh dear.
She was shouting by the time she had finished. And shouting was most unlike her. She hadn’t raised her voice in years, aside from her terrified screams during Lord Torrington’s kidnapping. But that couldn’t have been helped. She had been persuaded, until they had been in the carriage, and she had at last seen his face, that a villain intent on murdering her or worse had absconded with her.
“I fear if you don’t lower your voice, you will only make this unfortunate mistake even worse for the both of us,” the viscount said with an unflappable composure that made her yearn to yell again.
“Thisunfortunate mistake, as you call it, will make me forfeit what little I have, Lord Torrington,” she reminded him.
A man of his station could do anything, commit any sin, and be forgiven. But a woman such as herself, relying on the goodwill of her employers, with nothing but her reputation and Lady Andromeda’s letter to recommend her, would suffer greatly. Dread was heavier than a brick in her stomach.
He leaned across the small, enclosed space of the carriage, resting his elbows on his knees. “You’ll not lose anything, my—madam. This, I promise you. I own the responsibility for what has transpired this night, and I will make certain that any damages done are rectified by me.”
She hardly believed he would or could. Easy enough for him to offer such platitudes as a means of mollifying her. But what could he truly do, if Lord and Lady Worthing discovered that she had transgressed enough to enter their library in the late hours of the night, and then had further been alone with a known rake in his carriage, without chaperone? What would he do? Nothing, and they both knew it.
“If I lose my situation, what do you propose, my lord?” she dared to ask, wiggling her fingers behind her back in an effort to restore some of the sensation in them. “Are you in need of a governess?”
“I…” He paused, frowning, and it was clear he had not thought beyond his calming words of reassurance. “No.”
“And do you know of anyone in need of one?” she pressed.
His brow furrowed even deeper. “I’m afraid I do not.”
Just as she had thought. The urge to swing a wild kick toward his shins rose, tempting indeed.
“Then how do you propose to rectify the damages?” she demanded. “What if Lord and Lady Worthing dismiss me because of your carelessness?”
Elizabeth was being unwise, and she knew it. There was no benefit in arguing with the viscount.
“Eugenia would never dismiss you over such an unintentional error,” he said, surprising her by swiftly moving across the carriage and sitting on the squabs at her side.
Eugeniaagain. Oh, how that telling intimacy rankled, and she could not deny it.
Her earlier slide on the bench left Elizabeth pressed to the carriage wall with nowhere else to go. No means of escape. And Torrington was crowding her with his large, masculine form.
“What are you doing?” she demanded, her ire rising to a crescendo, along with her panic.
Was it not terrible enough that he had kidnapped her? Why must he also seat himself on the same side of the carriage, nearly pressed against her, so close that his scent teased her senses? Leather, bay, a hint of citrus and something else she could not quite define—perhaps a floral note. Naturally, Viscount Torrington would smell as divine as he looked.
“I intend to untie you,” he said, raising a dark brow. “If you will allow it.”
It would seem that he no longer believed her capable ofclawinghis eyes out, as he had so indelicately phrased it. Well, he was decidedly wrong. She most certainly ought to retaliate against him, to make him suffer for his reckless philandering and where it had inadvertently led the both of them. If only she had feeling in her fingers so that she might.
“Yes,” she agreed, nettled with herself for the breathless quality to her own voice. “Please do.”
