But I couldn’t choke down the urge to strike out, to seize a fistful of his lacy cravat and tear it to shreds.
Lord Stefan caught my wrist so quickly I could hardly blink. His strong fingers dug into my wrist, squeezed—and I fell back against the seat cushions, biting my lip, the pain in my arm bringing me back to something like sanity.
My pulse throbbed in his grip. He had to be able to feel it.
He released me slowly, putting my hand in my lap. Gently. Oddly gently. It only emphasized how easily he could have broken my arm.
“My apologies if I hurt you.” Lord Stefan leaned back into his own corner of the carriage, putting some distance between us—and his face into shadow. “You know, despite your limited experience with me, violence isn’t really my forte,” he added, putting some of that foppish drawl into his voice that had vanished entirely in the last few minutes.
He couldn’t possibly have said anything more likely to convince me, with a bit of a shudder down my spine, that despite his appearance and affectations, and the way he’d released me immediately when I’d been so frightened three days ago and again right now, violence wasvery muchhis forte.
Making it even more bizarre, his apology had sounded entirely genuine. Who the hell had I married?
Trying to wet my lips failed, my tongue like sandpaper, and I sat dry-mouthed and silent.
“By the way, I’m well aware you’re not actually prim and proper,” he went on. “You wouldn’t have married me if you were. Stop playacting for my benefit and save your efforts for convincing my father. And get used to the idea that we’ll need to make it real sooner rather than later, whether we like it or not.”
“You just told me violence isn’t your forte,” I whispered, the wordsoonerbeating in my ears like a drum. “Unless you’re lying, you won’t beat me or—”
“I could just leave you to molder your youth away in a locked attic,” Lord Stefan said mildly. “That would cause me no inconvenience whatsoever. I’d spread a rumor you’d gone mad. Such a tragedy. So young. But you’d be well cared for, of course. Plenty of gruel, and stern servants to prevent you from hurting yourself or escaping the confines of safety.”
A sudden stab of hope assailed me. “If you want to spread the story that I’m mad and need confinement, you could send me back to the abbey. You could send me home—”
My voice broke on the wordhome, as images of my mother’s smile and the sunlight in my cozy bedroom in our old house and butterflies flittering through its rose garden, snippets of my peaceful childhood, all ran through my mind. Not the abbey, buthome. Except that the home I remembered had evaporated like mist in the rising sun, never to be found again.
“Abbey, hah! Don’t make me laugh,” Lord Stefan ground out, jolting me out of my memories. “Sending you back where you came from wouldn’t suit anyone’s plans.”
That flicker of hope winked out, surprisingly painful given how unlikely it had been that he’d agree.
Utter bewilderment replaced it.Abbey, hah?“What’s so amusing about an abbey?”
The wheels rattled on the cobblestones, suddenly loud in his silence.
“Nothing,” he replied after a moment. “What’s amusing is the idea that you’d want to go back to one when you’ve only just traded austerity and exile for wealth and an entry into the court.”
“Do you think I’m lying to you? I just asked you to go—” I bit down on my lip so hard I saw stars. In my anger, I’d almost forgotten that if I did go back to the abbey or to my mother’s house, if I even admitted how much I wished I could, the Lord Chancellor would be furious. Murderously so. “You haven’t exactly given me wealth and an entry into court, my lord,” I said, trying to moderate my tone. Sound conciliatory rather than filled with loathing. “I’m wearing this because I didn’t have anything else. You didn’t give me anything else. I don’t want to go back, but I might as well if you’re only going to—to—”
“Remigius, precisely how stupid do you think I am?” He leaned forward, eyes glittering. “Of course you’re lying to me!”
And I was, and I hated it, because while Stefan had been raised by a liar and spent his whole life with court liars, and probably wouldn’t recognize honesty if it rose up and beat him over the head, I’d spent my whole life telling the truth.
He barked out a short laugh, shaking his head. “You know what, on second thought, don’t answer that question. It’s obvious that you think I’m very stupid. No, I didn’t give you any fine clothing or jewelry, because you haven’t done what you promised, either. Tit for tat, Remigius. Until our marriage is consummated, it’s not legally valid, and you aren’t entitled to a single gold crown of mine.”
The contempt in his voice cut deep, lodging like a barb somewhere under my ribs. How could I possibly be hurt by his opinion? I didn’t know him. What I knew, I despised. And yet. This man had married me believing me to be so morally bankrupt that I’d league myself with my father’s murderer,spread my legs for a man I meant to betray, and do it all for nothing more valuable than money. And the urge to defend myself, to justify my actions, rose up so powerfully I nearly fainted from suppressing it.
“If this is how you speak to whoever it is you pay to share a bed with you, I’m not surprised your companions require payment in the first place,” I choked out. “I want to please you. I was frightened. I’ll—I promise next time I’ll please you!”
I panted to a stop, a handful of the cassock clutched in my sweaty, clenching fist. It’d be more than shabby by the time we arrived. It’d be damp and crumpled. Perhaps they’d believe my husband had been ravishing me in the carriage after all.
Lord Stefan’s lips parted, and he blinked at me. And blinked again, golden eyelashes sweeping up to reveal a shockingly open look in those dark eyes.
That expression struck me in the solar plexus and stole what little breath I had. The carriage gave a sudden jolt as the wheel under me hit a lump in the road, and in my momentary frozen distraction, I was flung against Lord Stefan with a startled yelp, my face mashed into his chest.
My ass slid over the leather seat and caught up with the rest of me an instant later, putting me practically in his lap. My hands flew up to catch myself too late, fumbling their way under his coat, and I found myself groping his chest, muscles firm under my fingers even through the luxuriousness of all his satin and linen and lace.
Before I could even lift my head, big hands landed on my hips, lifted me, and almost flung me back the way I’d come, my shoulders knocking into the side of the carriage and my feet flying.
“I told you not to try this on me,” he rasped. I caught myself on the edge of the seat as I began to slide again, my head spinning and my tailbone bruised. “When I fuck you to makethis marriage legal, it’s not going to be because you batted your pretty eyelashes at me. It’s going to be because we have to. I don’t give a bloody fuck whether you’re the next best thing to a virgin or you’ve bent over for the entire Calatrian army. I’d rather stick my cock inside the burrow of a venomous snake than into you, and yet here we are, so stop playing games with me.”
