“ThisAsh,” he parroted. “The boy you hardly knew a decade ago.”
“Yes,” Ellie replied. “I do not know how you can set about finding him, but I do need you to find him.”
He shrugged one shoulder. “Agreed. I will find this Ash of yours. Now, I am going to eat that pie as I’ve been starving all day.”
Collecting the paper and pen, Ellie followed him, and while he shucked his waistcoat and rolled up his sleeves to eat, she thought about what she wanted from this agreement.
Twiddling the pen, she cast some ideas over; she was not paying attention to Dorian until he removed his boots and cocked a leg up to the chaise. She watched as he ate. “Are you always so… casual?”
He looked up. “If that is euphemistic for me looking like a troglodyte, yes. I apologize if I am offending your gentle sensibilities. I’ll practice my curtsy when I’m finished.”
The level of casualness made Ellie blush and drop her head to the paper. Something odd was twisting in her chest.
“Is this only for me?” She asked. “What doyouwant?”
He paused eating. Chuckling, Dorian set the decimated pie to the side and cocked his arm over his bent leg. “Sweetheart, the things I want shall make a gentle-bred innocent like you swoon into a dead faint.”
Fire raced up her neck. “Something other than… scandalous things?”
Drumming his fingers on his knee, he replied, “I’ll request the special license, and after we are married and make the required appearances, I will have you relocated to a country estate and you will be free to live as you wish there, without any restrictions and as if we never married. I have an estate that is being renovated, and my steward estimates it is almost complete.”
“How many homes do you have?”
His smirk was wicked. “More than you can expect.”
“I do not want to relocate to the countryside,” she said. “I’d prefer to stay here. And I would like to see my friend, Lady Victoria Rothwell.”
His eyes sharpened. “No.”
“Why not?”
“You do not have any reason to believe me, but that family is not to be trusted,” Dorian said coldly. “Her brother was implicit in allowing one of my relatives to steal from me, and I have no doubt your friend, if she shares the same blood, will not hesitate to tattle back to your family that tried to sell you off in the first place.”
“Victoria would not do that to me!” She squawked. “How dare you!”
“You do not know the seditious Rothwells,” Dorian said fiercely. “I do.”
She crossed her arms. “I do not care.”
Dropping his casual pose, he planted his foot on the floor, leaned in, and rested his forearms on his thighs. The indulgent light vanished from his eyes. “You will not see the Rothwells. Do you hear me? I forbid it.”
“She is the only friend I have in this world,” Evelina defended herself. “Is that what you want? To imprison those that you profess you want to protect?”
“I know you are a naïf, but surely there must be a speck of self-sufficiency inside you. I am telling you that the Rothwells are not to be trusted,” Dorian muttered stiffly.
She glared. “I have known Victoria for over a decade,” she said. “As a matter of fact, that day at the church when I wanted to run, she gave me a full purse to make sure I did so. Would a traitor do such a thing?”
“Yes,” he replied bluntly. “Let me assume this, she told you to come to her after you got away?”
Regretfully, Evelina admitted, “Yes, she did.”
“Then it’s called giving you enough rope to hang yourself,” Dorian said. “Your relatives would have swarmed her home in days because they would have suspected that is where you would have gone.”
Sullenly, she had to agree.
“Back to the sticking point, being the next Duchess of Wolfthorne is all the protection you need. You will have one of the most coveted positions in society. I cannot count how many ladies would have scratched another’s eyes out to get this position.”
“Then why have you not married one of them?” she asked, quirking a brow.
