“Do you like people fearing you, then?” She looked up at him. “Because if you do, your reputation has succeeded in ensuring that.”
He grunted.
“People will be shocked to hear that society’s biggest rogue, Lord Hamilton, is engaged. Surely you can allow them that.”
He’d not given enough thought to this. It had simply been a matter of getting her away from Cavendish and his aunts to stop hounding him. Anthony had believed they would both win from the arrangement. He wasn’t so sure now. The man he’d always been was not someone who bent to society’s standards. He had no wish to change that because of his fake engagement.
“Let them be shocked. I’m not changing who I am.”
“As no one would expect you to. After all, you are a man with a title and long list of ancestors at your back.” The words came out with a bite to them.
“I can’t help who I am, Evangeline.”
“Neither can I,” she snapped back. “Or I would not now be fake engaged to you. I am tempted to flee back to the country and stay there until the season is over,” she muttered.
“I didn’t think you a coward, Evangeline,” he mocked her, and was rewarded, as Anthony had known he would be, with her shoulders stiffening.
“If you said that to another man, he would take exception and challenge you, Lord Hamilton. Because I am a woman, I cannot.”
He didn’t give in to the smile. “Of course you are right. Forgive me.”
“I would if I knew you meant it.”
This woman, he thought. Cavendish would have loathed her resolve and wit.He’d have broken her.
“Evangeline, if Lord Cavendish comes anywhere near you again, or says something to upset you, you must come to me immediately.”
“I can look after myself.”
“Don’t be naïve. He is a dangerous man. Trust me on this matter; you cannot be alone with him. I must have your word. That man is dangerous and not someone you will win against.”
“I am not naïve, and I’ll thank you for not speaking to me like that again.”
No one who wasn’t in his inner circle took him to task like that. It shocked him she had.
She looked up at him under the brim of her bonnet then. “What is between you and Lord Cavendish?”
“History, and nothing that concerns you.” The words came out coated in ice, and thankfully she heeded the warning in them.
“Very well, I will keep my distance from Lord Cavendish.”
A further three groups of people plucked up the courage to approach them. One held Lady Beasley and her daughter. Anthony remembered his aunts telling him she had hoped to be his future countess. He was suddenly quite happy to have Evie at his side and masquerading as his fiancée.
Evangeline handled the barbs thrown her way with ease, and Anthony barely spoke a word.
“That Miss Beasley would like to see me burned at the stake,” Evie said when the women left.
“Some say I am a catch.”
“Really?” She looked him up and down. “I thought everyone was terrified of you?”
“Oh, they are, but they’re not terrified of my fortune, and most fathers can overcome that if they can get their hands on it by foisting their daughters on me.”
“Charming.”
“Who is your favorite poet, Evangeline?” Anthony thought he should find something to discuss with her in a public setting.
“I don’t like poetry.”
