“Annabelle…”
“No, this is absurd.” She grew more agitated. “Utterly absurd. You will deliver me to my father’s house this instant, and tomorrow I will visit Lizzie and the Baron, and together we will?—”
“Bella, I’m afraid there’s no other solution.”
“There is always another solution!”
He leaned across the carriage to take her hand. “It won’t be real, th’ marriage. I’m not that sort o’ man. We’ll have it annulled once Finch is dealt with.”
“Annulled? One does not simply annul a legal marriage with vows that bind unto death!”
“If the marriage is never consummated and one can prove coercion, then?—”
Her doe eyes were large as an owl’s. “You do not wish to marry me at all.”
“’Course not.” He frowned. “I were simply doin’ Jasp a favor by?—”
“Doing him a favor?” she burst out. “Sohetold you to give me your card at Lizzie’s wedding, did he? Told you to court me, told you to-toruinme?”
“Well, no,” Harris admitted. “That last bit were my idea.”
“Let me out,” she ordered. “You let me out this instant. I shall find my own way home.”
“Bella, luv, now don’t be difficult. We’ll sort things out once we’re married.”
“There will be no marriage!” She wrenched open the carriage door, the night air hitting with surprising cold.
“Christ, woman, shut the bloody door!”
She moved to fling herself from the vehicle, but Harris hauled her to his seat, where she rained fists and words upon his person, demanding her release.
“Stop this carriage!” she screamed. “Let me go!”
Using torso and leg to pin her down so that he nearly sat astride her, Harris managed to free his hands to douse his kerchief with the small bottle he kept for just such purpose, shoving the fabric roughly over her nose.
He palmed her face with the cloth until she fell limp beneath him, cursing her for making him do precisely what he hadn’t wished.
Milton arrived home late wanting only his bed. He handed his hat and cane to a footman and wearily climbed his all-too-grand staircase. Tiresome enough to attend a coming out ball, but to deal with Finch of all evils—his gut did another nasty flip—not to mention Harris compromising Annabelle, and the pissant father, Winthrop...
He was exhausted.
But he’d find no rest with a wife such as his, oh no, for there she sat, propped atophisbloody bed with a book. Mutton warmed her toes, sprawled across the bedclothes where the blasted hound knew he shouldn’t be.
“Off!” Milton barked.
The beast slunk away, looking guilty as sin.
Elizabeth peered at him over her spectacles. “What took you so long?”
“Why are you in my bed, woman?”
“I am reading,” she answered pertly, “and waiting for you, of course.”
“Well in future you are to wait in your own damn chamber.” He unknotted his cravat. “You enter this room at my request only, as it is my private space.”
“I beg your pardon, sir, for assuming a wife, of all persons, is allowed entry to her husband’s bedchamber.”
He ignored her jab and began to remove his clothes, which felt stiff and sweaty from the evening’s upset. Elizabeth watched him undress, her dark braid draped to one side of her neck which nestled nicely against his pillow, making him forget, for an instant, his irritation—until she opened her mouth again.
