He grunted.Just as I surmised.
“Besides,” she continued. “Markham thinks I’m staying with Miss Watson.”
“And what does Miss Watson believe?”
She shrugged. “That I traveled to London with Katherine.”
“And you managed to fool them both on your own?”
Her eyes widened. “…Yes. Yes, of course.”
“You’re a terrible liar. I take it Edmund Alistair Cracked-skull designed the plan?”
She folded her arms. “I imagineyouthink a woman incapable of such planning. And that’sLord Belhavento you.”
He snorted. “Don’t want me to sully his name with my libertine mouth, do you?”
“He’s so far above you…” She lifted her arm to demonstrate, and her waistcoat fell apart. “You couldn’t touch him if you tried.”
Nothing. She had on nothing beneath her shirt. And evidence of her womanliness had hardened into dark, arresting points.
“Pardon me.” She placed her finger beneath his chin and lifted. “My eyes are up here, Lord Rayne.”
“Isaidyou were obviously a woman, didn’t I?”
She curled her shoulders forward. “The bindings I used are still wet.”
“Again”—his gaze dropped—“obviously.”
He shook his head and closed his eyes. “For your information, I wasn’t going to insist on delivering you to Markham.”
“You weren’t?”
“To start, the diversion would make me late. A land agent is expecting me.”
“A land agent?” Her voice fell to a rasp. “You’re going to sell the Grange?”
He opened one eye. “Lease, most likely—unless I can find a way to break the entail. I may also hire a permanent steward, depending on the land agent’s advice.”
She paled. “You intend to leave again, don’t you?”
“I bought Clarissa’s portion so that she would always have access to her own funds.” Surely Julia had known he meant to return to New York.Everyoneknew. “You know Clarissa’s marriage to your brother was based on that agreement.”
“Yes, but that doesn’t mean you have to lease or sell your estate, does it?”
“On a fine point, no.” But absent the mines, the estate wasn’t in the least profitable—and would take years to restore. He felt no need to perpetuate the symbol of a line that had brought forth nothing good from the time the title was created. “The Grange isn’t Southford. I have no reason to stay.” None but the propagation of some false notion that, by birth, he was superior.
Clock gears within clock gears clicked away behind her eyes. “So,” she said slowly, “you have to meet a land agent. I have to get to Scotland. What do you propose?”
For that, he had an answer. He’d been thinking it through all night. “We travel on.”
She frowned. “To what end?”
He forced himself to speak the words. “To deliver you to your intended groom, of course.”
He would keep her safe until she reached the end she thought she wanted. However, by the time they made it to the border, he hoped to make up for his past wrongs by convincing Julia to hold off on this impulsive elopement and wait to find someone worthy of her family’s blessing.
If not, well, she and her family would be Cracked-skull’s concern, wouldn’t they?
