“We should reach Doncaster Hall soon,” Veronica said the next morning.
“Did you speak to the coachman?” he asked, surprised.
Edmund had, with his usual competence, arranged for a coachman from Doncaster Hall to be waiting at the hotel the next morning. The comfortable carriage they traveled in now was Montgomery’s, the coachman his employee, and the woman sitting opposite him his very annoyed wife.
She didn’t look at him when she answered, but she hadn’t looked at him the whole morning. Even their breakfast had been a restrained affair, with Veronica deliberately focusing on her meal.
“Doncaster Hall is not far from where I used to live,” she said.
“You never told me that, Veronica.”
“If you recall, Montgomery, I’ve not been encouraged to converse.”
In that, she was correct, but it annoyed him she refused to do so when he wished her to.
“Tell me about your home,” he said.
“No,” she said, glancing over at him. “I don’t think I will.”
“You didn’t do anything wrong,” he said gently. “Quite the contrary,” he added, fascinated by the dull red flush sweeping over her face.
“Tell me about your home,” he said.
“No,” she said again.
She stared out the window, leaving him no recourse but to frown at her.
“Then tell me about Doncaster Hall.”
“You’ll see soon enough for yourself,” she said.
“Are you angry with me? Because of yesterday?”
She still didn’t look at him.
“I thought it was quite wonderful,” she said, finally. “However, I don’t wish to discuss that, either.”
“I didn’t hurt you, did I?”
She stared down at her hands, smoothed the leather over the backs of her gloves.
“Yesterday. I didn’t hurt you, did I?”
“As I said,” she said, raising her face to look at him, “I thought it quite wonderful. Didn’t you?”
None of the women he’d bedded had ever asked him that question. He should have expected it of her. He didn’t know if he was disconcerted or embarrassed.
“I was quite pleased,” he said. What the hell did she want to hear? That he’d been astonished at her passion? That, even now, watching her work at her gloves, he wanted to pull her across the seat and make love to her? Or engage in a little play as they had in the parlor?
“Enough to do it again?” she asked.
No, it wasn’t embarrassment he felt, but heat.
“I’d be a fool to say no, wouldn’t I?”
She kept jerking her gloves tighter on each finger. He couldn’t help remember what she’d said about his fit. He found her actions so arousing he had to turn and focus on the scenery.
He’d not expected the mountains around him, their scraggly peaks still capped with snow. The soil was barely a thin layer over a base of rock, as if the Almighty had sprinkled it over the Highlands as an afterthought.
