“Not mine.” The words were hard and cold. “Goodbye, and don’t leave your house alone again. It was foolhardy.”
He limped with the help of the other man to speak to the driver.
“Take her away from here at once.”
“At once, sir.”
Dorrie heard the clunk of coins, then was thrown back as the hackney moved. She grabbed the window frame and looked out for a final glimpse of the man. His eyes were on her, and then he was gone.
CHAPTERTWO
Two months after the day she’d saved that man, her family had mostly forgiven her. Her eldest brother, Lord Sinclair, however, had not.
“If you thought I wouldn’t take issue with you leaving your office alone, then you would have told me.”
Dorrie let out a loud sigh. The entire Sinclair and Raven family had left London to return to Crunston Cliff, the place she was born, for Somer and Gus’s wedding at Raven castle.
She was in the carriage with Dev and Lilly. Slumbering with her head pillowed on Dorrie’s arm was Katherine. Loud and determined, her father, James, said the child was a culmination of every devilish trait her two other siblings had, but worse. When her eyes were open, Katherine was a force of nature and, in Dorrie’s opinion, an absolute delight—but then she did get to give her back when she started shrieking.
Dev and Lilly’s youngest child, Meredith, was also traveling with them. Mathew, the eldest, rode, and Hannah was with her other cousins. It was the way of this family that children were always with different families.
This was their second day of travel, and they should reach their destination by nightfall.
“When you returned home that afternoon you were clearly unsettled, Dorrie, which assured me that the worry we felt for you was valid. We were just about to start a search when you walked in the front door.”
“Merry, tell your father I wish him to cease with this discussion, as he has gnawed it to death. I am sitting here before him, hale and hearty.”
Merry didn’t lift her eyes from the book Dorrie had purchased the children before they left London. It was her turn to read it. Fairies, pirates, and every other childhood fantasy were displayed on the pages. “Papa, leave Aunt Dorrie alone,” the child said.
Dev glared at the top of his daughter’s head. Lilly patted his hand before returning to her own book.
Her brother was aging well. His hair was graying, and the lines on his face deeper, but to her eyes he was merely becoming more distinguished. No man could live up to him in Dorrie’s eyes. Maybe the other males in this family, but Dev had been the one constant in her and Somer’s lives when they’d needed one.
He’d raised them. Loved them and been the father theirs had not.
“My point is, Dorrie, that you need to take more care. Yes, I’m proud that you saved that man, but I am not happy you could have been shot.”
He could also be tenacious when committed to a cause. That cause was teaching Dorrie a lesson in the way he expected her to behave.
“She has apologized, Dev. Leave it alone now,” Lilly said.
“It’s because I’m the last of us unattached,” Dorrie said. “No one else listens to him anymore, so he focuses on me.”
Dev’s lips twitched.
“I have a mind to marry the first person who asks from this day forth. Just to get you off my back.”
“Well now, that Haven Redding did say he thought you were a beauty,” Dev said.
“Haven Redding is a pompous twit,” Dorrie snapped. “And why is it you are not riding your horse but sitting in here annoying us?”
“I wanted you to have the pleasure of my company.” He smiled. “Why is it you are not riding?”
“I thought I’d escape another lecture from you.” She poked out her tongue, making him laugh. “Had I known you were traveling in here, I would have ridden.”
“Papa, what is that word?” Merry jabbed a finger at the book.
Dev reached across and plucked her up and placed her on his lap. He then started reading, and Dorrie hoped that was finally the end of the interrogation.
