Chapter 6

Chapter Six

H ugh crossed the darkened tavern to his usual table in the corner. Patrons laughed and cursed at one another over spilled beer and sloshed wine, and barmaids went around the room with long wicks, lighting the candles as the day approached dusk.

His shoulders relaxed. In the castle, he always felt the weight of expectation, but here he could simply be a man.

"Why aye, man," his best friend and right-hand man said as Hugh slumped in the seat beside him. "What's got you looking at me with a face of thunder? I owe you my congratulations."

Hugh glowered. "I hardly think it's necessary, Duncan. The wedding was part of the plan. Nothing more."

"The whole village got a gander at her and they're talking about your pretty wife. Everyone wants to see her."

Hugh took a sip of ale from the tankard. "What of George's finances?"

His friend grinned, blond hair sliding across his forehead as he also took a long draft. "Aye, so that's how it's gonna be? I see."

"Anything new?"

"Only that his debts run deeper than we could've guessed." Duncan dropped his grin and leaned forward, not seeming to notice his elbows sticking to the tacky wood. "Ya knaa how his father sent him up here to oversee the estates? That's because they're mortgaged to the hilt. I spoke to one of the former gardeners there and he says the whole place is falling down around their ears."

Hugh nodded slowly. "Good."

"That's the thing with being this far north," Duncan said wisely. "The lot down in London don't know the extent of it, but those of us with our ears to the ground hear a fair amount. I don't know what he was hoping with marrying the destitute daughter of a viscount, but he wouldn't have improved his finances, that's for certain."

"What are his debts?"

"Not sure fully. They had a poor lambing year, and I think some of his sheep were diseased. Plus, he has a taste for cards." He rubbed his fingers together suggestively.

"Look into it further," Hugh said. "There's nothing we can do until we have all the facts."

"I have people investigating as we speak. But this is a poor way to spend your first night back on home turf. Come, drink with me. Your problems won't seem as bad once you've got a bit more ale inside ye."

That wasn't the thing that was going to solve his problems, but the call of his best friend was hard to ignore.

"One more," Hugh said, relaxing in the darkened corner of the busy room. "Then I should get back."

"To your wife?" Duncan wiggled his eyebrows suggestively.

"You know as well as I do that I didn't marry her for that."

"Every man marries a wife for that," Duncan said. "It's time you allowed yourself a little fun."

"You have more than enough fun for the both of us."

"Not with your wife, I don't."

Hugh thought of Evangeline and the way she raised her chin at him. The defiant look in her eyes. The sweetness of her breath and the drugged, unacknowledged wanting in her eyes.

No, for all he had no intention of consummating the wedding—at least not now and not yet, not until he was in a position where he wanted heirs—he severely disliked the thought of anyone else having their hands on her.

"And it had better stay that way," he said, the hint of a growl in his voice.

"Aye, it will. I've no intention of getting on the wrong side of the most powerful man in the north, and that's no mistake." He waved his hand to a passing barmaid. "But you should make the most of having a wife. It'll be good for you."

Hugh tossed back a mouthful of ale. "Much that you know about the subject."

"And I don't intend to for a great many years yet," he said cheerfully, and raised his tankard.

"A toast to the fruition of our plans. May they happen sooner rather than later. And may your revenge, when it happens, be as sweet as wine."

* * *

The lady's maid assigned to Evangeline was a dour-faced woman with an accent as strong as Mrs. MacDonald's and an attitude that was just as unwelcoming.

As Evangeline climbed into bed, a hot brick heating the sheets, she shivered at the coldness coming from the thin windowpanes. In London, May was a time of warmth and encroaching summer, but here she could have well believed it was a different season altogether.

The maid shut the door, and Evangeline closed her eyes as the rain pattered against the glass and distant thunder growled. She thought of her family back in London, thought of the life that had been taken from her, and what she would now endure.

If loneliness was to be her only burden, she would consider herself lucky.

But she did not give way to tears. Perhaps she'd had little choice in the end, but she had chosen this way forward with her eyes wide open. She had known this was not to be a happy marriage, and that she would be isolated from her friends and family.

The duke would not have the advantage of seeing her cry.

Thunder boomed around the castle as she tossed and turned, wishing she could fall asleep but unable to. The chill crept in closer, and she found herself jumping at every loud noise. This high up, perched on a hill and at the top of the tower, she wondered if the lightning might choose to strike the building.

This was ridiculous.

Angry with herself, she sat up and slipped her feet out of bed, the carpet soft under her toes. If her nerves were going to play up like that, she would merely have to find a way of steadying them.

Her first instinct was to call for a glass of brandy but to do that, she would have to brave the unfriendly servants and confess that a storm had frightened her, which would only give them more leave to despise her.

Still, the duke ought to have some somewhere. She'd settle for Scotch, if only it would ease the sick, uncomfortable feeling in her stomach.

Unwilling to light a candle, she felt her way to the door and opened it into their shared sitting room. For any other couple, she was certain it would be a cozy space, but for her marriage, she could only see the ways in which it would never be used.

There was a cabinet against a wall, but no brandy inside.

Never mind. Downstairs, she remembered, was his study, and if he was anything like her father, he would keep some brandy there.

The stairs were narrow and winding, harking back to the days before modern comfort. She trailed her fingers along the rough stone as she navigated them, finally reaching a corridor that led into the bulk of the main house.

Following her internal directions, she made her way to where she remembered the study to be, only to find herself emerging in a parlor.

She tried again and ended up in the snuff box room. Her sense of direction disintegrated as she headed down yet another corridor. The darkness didn't help—in fact, paired with the thunder, she was certain that was why she was getting lost.

Thunder pounded the sides of the castle, and Evangeline flinched.

As the echoes faded, she thought she heard the sound of a woman crying. Tiny, heartbroken wails, as though the person making the sound was so upset she couldn't keep it inside any longer.

Evangeline's stomach churned. Her heart pounded. Could it be a servant? She wasn't sure, but she couldn't let the sound fade without investigating. If someone needed her help, she would brave the storm to help them.

The sound rose and fell, and Evangeline abandoned her quest to find the study in favor of following the sound. Her bare feet were near silent on the carpet, and she found herself in a part of the castle she didn't recognize.

Lighting flared, blazing through a window and illuminating the bare stone walls.

Seconds later, thunder boomed, and when a hand clamped on her shoulder, Evangeline shrieked.

The duke spun her to face him, his face engraved with shadows and his eyes hard. "What the devil do you think you're doing here?"

"I heard a noise?—"

"This wing is out of bounds."

"Wing?" She looked around her again. "I'm in the west wing?"

"Don't brazen your way out as though you were unaware."

"It might shock you to know that I was unaware," she retorted. "I came down to find some brandy to calm my nerves and I got lost. Then I heard something—a woman crying, it sounded like—and I came to investigate in case one of the servants was hurt."

"Poppycock," he said shortly.

Evangeline's anger flared. "As for you —I am your wife, not some discarded prisoner."

"I never said you were my prisoner, Evangeline." He said her name like a battle cry. "In fact, I have gone out of my way to make your time here comfortable—you may go anywhere you choose except the west wing."

"Why?"

"For reasons I choose not to disclose to you."

That should not have hurt, but there was a secret he was keeping, she was sure of it, one big enough that it threw her understanding and belief in the world askew.

"And why should I believe you? I'm beginning to doubt the accusations you hurled at George were even approaching true. Am I to believe he would be so cruel as to abandon a girl to her death and the death of his son while knowingly breaking the law?"

Anger swept across his face like dark clouds, and he took hold of her wrist, his fingers too tight. "I see, so I am the villain in your narrative, am I?"

"You are the villain in your own narrative if you persist in treating me like this."

"Very well then, my sweet. Make me your villain." He dragged her down the corridor by her wrist, away from the interior of the west wing. "Whether you believe me or not is immaterial—you are my wife, like it or not, and you will obey."

"Oh?" She didn't think she had ever been this angry. She was incandescent with rage—so furious she could have slapped him. "And what will you do if I refuse?"

"What will I do?" He bundled her back until she was pressed against a tapestry, and the hunger in her stomach, the ache between her legs, intensified. "How about this?"

One hand twisting in her loose hair to hold her still, he brought his mouth down on hers.

For a very long moment, Evangeline was speechless. Motionless. George had kissed her once or twice when they were courting, and it had always been a dry, chaste thing that had not particularly endeared her to the concept of intimacy. She had thought that was what kissing was—as uninspiring as a gray night sky.

Yet this—this was not even comparable. The duke's mouth was hot, demanding, angling her face to his, and he took without permission, as though he had every right to.

She ought to have hated it.

She ought to have despised him, this man who touched her now as though by marrying him, she had offered him her body without barriers.

Instead, it was as though his touch ignited something in her body. She felt herself go soft against his hardness, felt her submission even as the liquid ache deepened between her legs. For all the roughness of the kiss, his mouth was soft and warm, and at the first flick of his tongue, she shivered.

Then he took her bottom lip between his teeth and nipped it, and she regained her anger, channeling it into the kiss. There was nothing tender about his embrace; he kept the pressure on her hair, a sensation bordering on pain that only heightened the heat in her body. She retaliated by digging her nails into the skin of his cheeks.

He groaned, the sound traveling from his throat to hers, and pressed her more firmly against the wall. His teeth scraped against her lip, and she sucked his lip into her mouth, biting down as hard as she dared. But instead of enraging him, it had the effect of inducing him to rock against her, his hips rolling against hers, and something hard pressing into the skin there.

This felt good .

Neither party had released their anger. This was not a thing of tenderness, but neither was it a punishment. It was a release of sorts, a giving into temptation.

She had not known how tempted she was until the first moment his mouth descended on hers.

"Oh," a voice said from behind them, and the duke pulled away, stepping back with an expression that slipped back to impassiveness before Evangeline's very eyes.

Behind them both was the butler, Mr. Moore, wearing a stony expression that was almost as blank as his master's.

"Excuse me, Your Grace," Moore said stiffly. "I hadn't meant to interrupt. I merely heard a noise and came to investigate."

That's what I was doing , Evangeline wanted to scream at the duke.

Except the staff probably hadn't heard the sobbing. No, they'd heard the raised voices between the duke and Evangeline. Perhaps they had sent the butler to investigate in case the situation became out of hand.

Well, it had. And not in the way Evangeline had expected.

She smoothed down her hair, wishing she was not wearing a nightgown.

"Please see to it that Her Grace finds her way back to bed," the duke said coldly, already dismissing Evangeline.

Without a single glance behind, he left and walked upstairs to bed.