Meghan lingered, searching his face for a fracture, some sign he didn’t mean what he said. She found none.
The sparse contents of her stomach threatened to climb back up.
How could she walk down the aisle and surrender herself: name, body, and very soul to such a cold-hearted gentleman? In one breath, he demanded her obedience and in the next revealed how little he cared for Meghan by speaking of her with another man.
A clammy sweat popped upon her skin. She shifted awkwardly to leave the carriage like some sort of lackwit, staring at his stoic visage. In all the months of dutiful smiles and practiced gratitude, she had never glimpsed this side of him: ruthless, isolating, and unyielding.
“I hurt you,” she blurted. It needed to be said. “That’s why you are behaving so.”
The duke arched an eyebrow.
Encouraged, she leaned closer. “I understand that you are displeased with me,” she said softly. “But I would have you know, Your Grace, I am eager to be your wife. A true partner, asLinnie is to Captain Tremaine.” Did she in part issue that as a reminder?
“Eager, are you?” His voice emerged smooth like a silk-wrapped blade, and sharp as one too.
The crudity of his tone she had never heard before. It unnerved far more than anger ever could. It transported to the day they’d been explicitly introduced for the possibility of a match.
He had sized Meghan up like she was the trussed Christmas goose and he a cook measuring her market worth.
She felt even smaller now.
And he knows it too…
The duke shot a hand up. Meghan’s gasp was drowned out by the thwack of his fist connecting with the carriage ceiling.
His bewigged footman brought the door closed, shutting Meghan and the duke away—alone.
Her heart hammered.
And where with August, she couldn’t have brought herself to leave, everything within her now urged flight.
Holding her gaze, the duke patted his knee once and then stretched his arms wide along either side of the leather squabs.
Meghan glanced down at his lap.
Confused, she looked at him.
“Come, my dear girl. None of the McQuoid ladies is known for their intellect, but you’re clever enough to know when your future husband gives an order.”
Slap-slap.
Meghan looked at his broad thighs, thighs more powerful than a duke’s ought to be, and stilled.
She forced herself to meet his eyes.
The duke, like some cold, cruel king delighting in his power over the peons in his realm, smiled.
He wanted her to climb onto his lap like a disobedient child.
Her stomach twisted.Tell him no. Tell him to go to the Devil.
But she couldn’t. And he knew that.
She forced herself to move. To comply. This, she realized, was to be her penance. His way of showing her who would hold the power when they married.
After she settled stiffly on his lap, only then did he lower his other hand. He slid it over her back, then higher. Until his fingers closed around her neck. Too tight ever to be warm. Gentle enough not to bruise. Just as it’d been at Lord and Lady Rutland’s.
Hartwell forced her gaze to his. “Tell me, my dear bride-to-be,” he said quietly, “have any other lips been here?”
