8
Asher likely should have kept his distance, but instead, he sat right beside her, hoping that he could help remove that stunned look from her face.
Lady Evelyn still stared straight ahead, in likely shock.
“Lady Evelyn, is all well?”
Sometimes the best thing to do was ask.
“We’ve been discovered. I heard someone call out your name as we entered the carriage.”
He shrugged. “So be it. It was bound to come out.”
“I suppose I do not like being the name on everyone’s lips.”
“It will all be silenced soon, now that there is no longer any scandal.”
“Besides our hasty marriage.”
“Besides that,” he agreed. “But what does it matter now?”
She turned to look at him, her eyes far away, the tension almost suffocating.
“Your grace, I would like to thank you for… what you have done. For ensuring that my family is not entirely ruined.”
Asher stiffened. “I only regret that it was necessary.”
She flinched, and he realized that his words had been an unintended blow against her.
“I did not mean it like that. I am happy to be married to you. That is, I?—”
She shook her head. “It’s fine.”
“I do not want you to feel that you are not welcome or that I would have wished this marriage away. My home is now yours, Lady Ev—your grace.”
“You might as well call me Evelyn. Otherwise, it will become rather tiresome when we spend more time together. Although I suppose…” She lifted her eyes to him, and he was caught once again by their depths. He had become lost in them in the church, when some emotion that he couldn’t quite name had passed between them.
A shared connection that neither one of them would ever be alone again, he supposed.
“Wewillbe spending time together,” he confirmed. “While I am often in Parliament and dealing with my estates, I do try to spend meals with my mother and sister, and we will be required to attend many events together. I would also prefer that you accompany me to the countryside when we reside there in the summer. Run the household and all that. It would help if we were somewhat acquainted with one another.”
She raised her eyebrows, and he wasn’t sure if that meant she agreed with his reasoning or not, but he forged on.
“Please call me Asher,” he said, earning another look up from beneath her lashes. “We will have much to discover about what our lives will look like,” he continued. “I have some idea, but I would appreciate your input.”
“Mine?” she said, somewhat surprised.
“Whom else’s would I consider?”
“I suppose I assumed that you wouldtellme what was expected,” she said slowly.
“Would you fall into line with whatever I asked?”
“No,” she said bluntly, and he couldn’t help but laugh at that, breaking some of the awkwardness between them.
“When I met you before, you were different from the way you have been since we decided to marry,” he said. “Where did that woman go?”
He had actually rather enjoyed her.
