“Then what would you call it?”
“I am…” She didn’t know what she was, but she knew that it was nothing as weak and frivolous as that.
Exhausted? Frustrated? A smidge terrified of being thrown back into a cell?
What false energy her giggle fit had lent her fled, and she sank into the bench seat, leaning against the carriage door. Four days ago she’d arrived in London with a plan and all the confidence she knew a man would have in her position. She was about to change the world.
Now she wasn’t sure she had the energy to change out of her piss-covered boots.
Edward shifted in his seat. “I think we should devise a strategy,” he said.
Good. Strategies were good. Sir Francis Bacon had developed the scientific method and following that had gotten her this far. “If ye take me back to Ben’s house, I promise, ye willnae see hide nor hair of me for the duration of my time in London. Your problem will be solved.”
He raised both eyebrows. “There’s an agreement with the magistrate. You’re residing at my house until the trial.”
Oh, for heaven’s sake. “Good God, Edward. They’re nae going to have investigators watching yer front door. Leave me be and I promise I’ll show up to the trial. By then, hopefully, some sense will have prevailed. It was a bloody tomato.”
He shook his head. “I’m not going to break my word, and I’m definitely not going to risk people discovering that I’m ignoring the law because you find living under my roof inconvenient.”
And in those words she saw the duke—the lord who valued rules above feeling, expectations above empathy. He was a cold night to Ed’s affectionate day and the reminder of the loss stung.
“I find it hateful. You’re the last man alive that I want to see on a daily basis.” She didn’t want to see him at all. Seeing him was painful. Seeing him was a reminder that if you made the mistake of loving someone, you were bound to be hurt. Seeing him stoked memories of why she’d fallen for him in the first place.
He was sinfully handsome—elegant and graceful with an aesthetic that might have been considered pretty if he hadn’t been so tall, so broad shouldered, so hard. His eyes were framed with the kind of long lashes women dreamed of. His lips were soft and pink. But the strong planes of his face and iron set to his jaw were far from pretty. They were bold and handsome.
Looking at him stirred up a maelstrom of unwelcome feelings, all knotted up. He could never know what the sight of him did to her, even at this moment, when his frown deepened and his eyes went flat.
“Luckily for you, my house is large. I can’t see that we’d need to interact more than a handful of times over the month.”
“Splendid,” she said. If he heard the sharp tone to her voice, he didn’t grasp its meaning.
“You’ll have everything at your disposal, of course. If you need anything, ask one of the maids and they’ll pass the message on to my housekeeper.”
“I’ll nae need anything. I’ll be out on business.” She flicked aside the curtain that shielded them from view, as clear a dismissal as she could manage in the confined space.
“Of course,” he said as he mimicked her movement, turning his focus to the building they passed, “for your little sticks of fire.”
The sniffy tone with which he described years’ worth of work made her vision turn red like the flames she worked with. She leaned forward, fingers grasping the carriage windowsill to keep her balance. “My little sticks of fire are going to change the world.”
He turned his attention back to her, rubbing the spot between his eyebrows. “That was not intended as an insult.”
Which made it worse. He was so high in the instep he didn’t even notice the way he looked down on her. The sharp incline of his perspective was simply second nature.
The carriage pulled to a stop outside Benedict’s town house. Which was a good thing because had she been forced to spend another minute with him, she wasn’t sure murder charges wouldn’t be added to the assault ones.
She opened the carriage door without waiting for the footman, jumped down, and strode to the front door. “Good afternoon, Greaves.”
“Good afternoon, Miss McTavish.”
Behind her, Edward scoffed. “So the household knows what fraud you’re running.” He allowed Greaves to help him remove his coat, and handed the butler his gloves and hat.
“It’s nae a fraud. Greaves, the esteemable Duke of Wildeforde.” She moved to storm upstairs but before she could get more than a handful of steps in that direction, Greaves called out.
“A caller, miss,” he said.
As she turned to face him, she plastered on a smile because it wasn’t his fault she’d been arguing with the duke.
“Your father is in the drawing room,” he continued.
