“Then tell me what I want to know.”
“Go to hell.”
“What did you just say?”
She’d never spoken to him in anything but respectful tones before today. It was hardly surprising he was shocked.
“You heard me, or you would not be asking. But just in case your advanced years are impairing your hearing, I said, go to hell.”
Their eyes held for long, charged seconds, and the anger drained from her as quickly as it had come.
“I never meant to hurt you, Nathan.”
She thought he wouldn’t speak again, as his eyes just held hers for long, heated moments, and then he did.
“Then why did you?”
Chapter Fifteen
You know nothing about me or my actions.
What had Beth meant by those words? Was there more to her leaving than he knew? His brothers had said it was an odd occurrence to just up and leave partway through the season, but his anger and pain had blocked rational thinking when it came to her and that time.
Why had the Carlow family never returned to London for a season?
“You owe me an explanation, Miss Carlow.”
She was so close. He could see her rapid breathing, the wariness in her eyes. He’d been shocked when she’d told him to go to hell. Beth never spoke that way, and most especially not to him. She was kind, gentle, and usually soft-spoken. She’d rarely, if ever, disagreed with him.
“I have nothing further to say, and as there is now another in your life, this is an unnecessary conversation.”
“Another what?”
“It matters not. Just let me go.”
“What aren’t you telling me, Beth?”
She tensed.
“Let me go.” The words were a desperate whisper now. Nathan complied.
“My dear Lady Nauticus, hold on, I will fashion a rope from vines—”
“Vines in an English woodland?” Alexander Hetherington was seated on the step of the Duchess of Yardly’s carriage, legs crossed, resting against the door frame. “I wonder how he found those?”
“Ingenious though, if you think about it,” Cambridge Sinclair said. He was still crunching nuts. “I wonder what knot he’ll use to secure them?”
“A clove hitch, if he’s fixing it to a tree,” the Duke of Raven said.
“Not a bowline?” Benjamin Hetherington asked, which made Mary laugh.
“If I may continue,” Lord Plunge said loudly.
“Send that book to the Sinclair carriage, Plunge,” the Duchess of Yardly directed. “You’ve had it long enough.”
“I protest.”
“Noted. Now do as I have directed.”
