Chapter Eight
Amelia jumped as the carriage door opened and Hugh climbed inside. His face was drawn and grim as he settled in across from her and lightly tapped on the wall behind him to indicate that they should move.
She glared at him and folded her arms like a shield in front of her. One he could so easily pierce that it was almost a joke. “Where is Cherry?”
His brow knitted. “Cherry?”
“My horse,” she explained.
He stared at her a beat, and some of the darkness bled away from his expression. “Of course you would worry about her. My man rode her back to your home,” he said. “So that we might talk.”
Relief flooded her, for at least she didn’t have to worry about her animal. Just herself.
“What is there to talk about?” she asked, happy her voice sounded braver than her body felt. “You followed me.”
Now his jaw set again, his dark eyes flashed with the anger he was controlling below the surface. “You dare be annoyed withmeover that fact?”
“I’m angry with you for a great many things,” Amelia snapped, losing her own control in the face of his.
He leaned in. The action was sudden and she had no moment to brace herself for it. He was just there, closer, bigger in the small carriage. She had searched for that heated awareness when she found Aaron half-dressed a short time before. Searched and not found.
But here Brighthollow was fully dressed, not even touching her, and that despicable, heated feeling flowed through her without any trouble at all. She hated herself for it. Hated him even more.
“I’m certain you are very angry. Would you like to go ahead and vent all that right now?” he asked.
She wrinkled her brow. “What?”
“You’ve been holding it back. Why not just say what you feel? It’s better than keeping it in, I would say.”
“You want me to rail at you?” she asked. “I suppose so you can lord it over me like you’re lording my father’s debts over me?”
He turned his head and his lips pursed. “I will not.”
“And you think I believe any promise you make to me?” she asked, and the anger he demanded came right to the surface instantly. “After you lied to me about my fiancé, spreading scurrilous things about him. And when it didn’t work, you then manipulated a situation with my father so that I would have all my hopes and dreams stolen out from under me?”
To her surprise, he did not react to her anger, but sat still, allowing her to pour it out. Now that she had started, it was difficult to stop.
“I despise you down to my very core,” she continued. “I think you are a pompous, cruel person. Someone who would take whatever he liked with no thought for the consequences or damage he leaves behind. Ihateyou for forcing me to marry you. I hate how you make my stomach feel so odd when you just stare at me like you are. I hate…I hate you.”
His gaze fluttered just a fraction and swept over her face before he said, “Anything else?”
She swallowed. In truth, she did feel better getting to rail at him. Only she knew he would likely punish her for it. She braced herself for that. “No.”
He nodded slowly. “You are daring. It is not the worst quality a person can have. But I must ask, did you come here to run away with Walters?”
She recoiled. “No!”
“No?” There was no mistaking the surprise in his question. “Then why?”
She folded her arms all the tighter. “You think me to have no honor because you have so little? My father made a bargain with you, Your Grace. I have no intention of breaking it, especially considering the circumstances. But I did think I owed my fiancé—” She broke off and dipped her head. “My—my former fiancé, the truth. Before you and my father make your devil’s bargain public. Before our marriage takes place and he hears about it through Society whispers.”
Hugh did not respond immediately, he just watched her. Her heart thudded with anxiety. She kept going too far and she waited for him to grow angry or defensive. But he didn’t. His expression was neutral, unreadable, but he didn’t lash out at her. Not verbally, certainly not physically.
Finally, he said, “Your honor recommends you, Amelia.”
Her eyes went wide. That was the first time he had not addressed her formally as Miss Quinton. Truth be told, she liked Amelia better, but hearing him say it was still a shock.
And she reacted to the shock and the awareness and the interest she felt for this man by clinging to the anger and other darker feelings that boiled inside of her.
