Page 32 of Outrageous

“Well, if you count not taking a woman to a fight as stodgy behavior, then you are correct: I am extremely stodgy. Pugilism is not a proper activity for any woman—especially not for an impressionable girl.”

She growled—actually growled at him. “I’m not a girl, my lord. Nor am I any more impressionable than any man my age. And what is so bad about watching two men box one another? How can you say it’s improper?”

“It’s improper for females because it is a male activity.” He gave her the smirk he’d learned annoyed her. “Or have finishing schools suddenly put pugilism on their list of accomplishments? Perhaps somewhere between needlework and watercolors?” Godric gave a genuine laugh at that.

Her eyes glinted dangerously and he knew he should stop teasing her.

“All jesting aside,” he said, banning the smirk from his mouth. “Mills and the places they occur are simply not safe for young ladies like yourself—or even for unworldly or unprepared males.”

“I cannot believe that you truly believe that. You, who have been on the Continent and at war? I know there are many women—even women of my class—who follow the drum. Surely a country at war is far more dangerous than a country inn during a mill?”

Unbidden, Lucia flashed through his mind, her hands covered in the blood of their child. Godric snuffed all thoughts of her—of them—quicker than a candle.

“That is hardly an apt comparison; that was war, not play.” He could barely force the hard, angry words through his lips. “Nor is it play for innocent young ladies to carouse at inns and mills. Do you even know what kind of men frequent such functions?” He hoped to God she didn’t know about some of the behaviors he’d witnessed while attending his share of raucous country mills.

“I am no innocent young lady to be coddled and suffocated,” she retorted.

Godric gave an ugly laugh. “Oh, what are you then, pray?”

Her nostrils flared like a lathered horse. “I am a woman—a woman with experience and knowledge of the w-world.” He snorted at the ludicrous claim and she made a noise like an infuriated hen. “You are an odious pig who knows nothing about me!”

“I know you are the last female in Britain who should be allowed to roam untethered through inns and mills. I can just see you hopping into the ring if the urge struck you. I am astounded your bro—”

“Don’t.”

Godric’s temper flared at her tone, but he left the issue of her idiotic brother alone. For now. “You’d better husband your memories of such reckless behavior because I forbid you to jeopardize your safety merely on a whim.”

She put down her glass with a thump. “I can see how things will be already.”

“Good, then I shan’t have to explain to you how things shall be, shall I?”

She leapt up and Godric followed as closely as her shadow. “You are going to be a tyrant—like—like Bluebeard or—or some other ogreish husband.”

Godric knew that now would be a bad time to laugh. Instead he fixed her with a calm, level gaze while she fidgeted, angry and frightened and ill at ease in her own skin. “You needn’t worry about locked rooms with all the bodies of my other wives, Eva. I’ve not lived at Cross Hall for almost two decades, and my parents would have taken issue with a room full of dead women.”

She stamped her foot, clearly unaware of how young it made her look. “You know what I mean. You will hem and hedge and control me until I am nothing but a colorless, simpering—” She stopped, her eyes wide and angry. Her jaw worked and her lips were parted but no words came out. Instead, she stared in mute misery, her breaths coming in shallow, sharp bursts. “I knew it would be the same—I knew marriage would be no different. I am always to be subject to another’s will, like some—some slave.”

Godric felt an odd tightening in the region of his heart—a powerful, and surprising, combination of sympathy, empathy, and raw lust. And not a little alcohol. She was so very young and untried by life, yet she had brought herself to a place from which there was no return. She would, without a doubt, become his wife. His wife. The picture those words evoked was not the woman in front of him, and he flinched away from the ghostly image of Lucia that was never too far from his mind.

“This marriage means I will only trade one master for another.”

Godric’s head whipped up at her mournful words and he closed the distance between them in two long strides, as if he could outrun his own relentless thoughts.

She had to crane her head back to look up at him, her eyes burning and her cheeks flushed. His hand moved of its own volition and cupped the sweet curve of her jaw, his body thrilling at the warm and unspeakable smoothness of her skin.

“I don’t wish to be your master, Eva,” he said, not entirely telling the truth: her body, he decided, was something he wished to master very much indeed. He stroked her cheek with his thumb, mesmerized by the deep blue of her eyes.

Her lids fluttered at his soft caress and the slightest tremor rippled through her body.

“Shhh,” Godric murmured, lowering his head and sliding his hand beneath her heavy mink-colored hair, cradling her fragile neck. He dropped a light kiss on her lips, which were even softer than he’d imagined. Her eyes had gone black and he recognized desire when he saw it.

Do it; take her. She will be your wife.

Godric started at the word wife, Lucia’s dark brown eyes and sweet smile coasting across his vision. His hand slid limply from behind her neck and he took a step back, her body swaying toward him.

“If you are finished eating, you should get to sleep,” he said gruffly. “We’ll be leaving at first light.”

She blinked up at him as she had earlier, when he’d woken her. But this time, when her eyes widened, the expression in them wasn’t confused or sleepy, but hurt.