Once Upon a Marquess (The Worth Saga 1)

She narrowed her eyes at him and folded her arms. Her fingers tapped dangerously against her sleeve. “Let me do the next one,” she said. “Where were we? Ah, yes. Item C—you never can be serious, not even when you’re making a list, which I know you hold sacred.”

“What did you say?” Christian drew back.

“You’re never serious.”

“No, no. Before that. Item C?” He looked at her in horror. “This is a list. It started with numbers. It goes one, two, three.”

“Not this list,” Judith said with a glint of a smile. “This list goes one, two, C.”

Oh, God. She knew him too well. He put his hands over his ears. “No.”

“Right,” she continued. “On to Roman numeral IV.”

Like this, glaring at him… She looked like a beautiful, victorious warrior queen, one who used badly-numbered lists instead of spears. In his case, the former was a more effective weapon.

“Gah.” He winced and rubbed his face. “Knives are stabbing my ears. I am being murdered. Someone fetch a constable and take this woman into custody.”

“Roman numeral IV,” Judith said, “you are given to excessive histrionics. Also, you are trying to have me falsely imprisoned. You have a tendency to do that with my family, don’t you?”

“Please stop. Please use numbers.”

“Very well. Eight—”

“No! You skipped six and seven!”

“Eight,” Judith said meaningfully. “I hate you because you let my brother die.”

He swallowed.

“Nine,” she continued, “I hate you because you didn’t care what would happen to me after.”

“Judith…”

“Eleven,” she went on, glowering at him.

“Ten?” he offered.

“Eleven. I hate you because you make me remember everything I could have had.”

Christian shut his eyes. It was almost physically painful to leave the list as she had. One—the book. Two, the lie. Three—not C, it would never be C—he wasn’t serious. He went through the rest of the list, putting everything in proper, numerical order in his mind.

When he finally opened his eyes, Judith was looking at him. She tapped her fingers impatiently.

“You have a task, Christian,” she said. “You can’t let me forget that I hate you. If I forget, you’ll make me laugh. Then, when I do remember, it will hurt all over again. If I have to remember for the both of us, I’ll make sure you won’t like it. Are we understood?”

He knew precisely what she meant. For a moment there, they’d been laughing together. They hadn’t been at odds. Losing that sense of camaraderie again reminded him of that empty hole in his life.

He didn’t need any more reminders.

He gave her a nod. “Understood.”

Chapter Ten

Christian’s man had telegraphed ahead for an open carriage. The team was badly matched; the bay on the left pulled a little too hard, and the gray mare on the right kept trying to slow down—but the seats were clean and comfortable and he could handle mismatched cattle for eight miles. Persuading the team to pull in approximately the same direction at approximately the same time couldn’t prove more difficult than trying to work with Judith.

She sat next to him on the single front-facing seat, looking ahead with a fixed expression that suggested she would allow him no latitude at all.

He waited until they’d left the houses behind, until the road was nothing but dust surrounded by fields.

He waited until the horses had reluctantly fallen into a productive trot and he could spare a hand from the reins.

Then he reached into his satchel. “I have a confession to make.”

Her eyes darted to him.

“I did a thing,” he told her. “A very bad thing. Something that absolutely violates our agreement. I bring the matter to your attention so that you might deal with it appropriately, but in my defense—no, no, there can be no defense.”

“Christian, what are you talking about?”

He removed a package wrapped in waxed paper from his bag. “I brought you a sandwich.”

She looked at the package suspiciously, then narrowed her eyes in his direction.

“I know,” he said. “What was I thinking? It’s a veritable peace offering.”

Her head tilted slightly. “What sort of sandwich is it?”

“That’s the worst part. I know you have Opinions on Sandwiches.” She had once made him a list of her Opinions on Sandwiches, and they had been so opinionated that he couldn’t imagine them without capitals. That list had been properly numbered, and he hadn’t forgotten any of the items.

She was becoming more suspicious. “What have you done?”

He shook his head. “I’m terribly sorry. It’s indefensible. I have no excuse. It’s curry chicken salad and cucumber.”

My favorite, she did not say, but her lips pressed together.

He gestured to his satchel. “Unless you prefer egg and ham?”

My other favorite, she also did not say.

“This is salvageable,” he said. “I simply forgot our ceasefire of mutually agreed upon hostility when I was ordering today’s luncheon. But I can fix this.” He turned to look her in the eyes. “I can make this better. I’ll eat them both in front of you, singing their praises. Nothing could be more inclined to push you into a rage.”

For a moment, their eyes met. She didn’t seem on the verge of raging. Her gaze dropped to the waxed paper in his hand, as if contemplating giving it up.

Her chin squared in determination and she snatched the packet from his hands. “No such sacrifice is needed. I’ll eat it.”

“But will that serve? Our agreement, after all, requires—”

“I’ll eat it resentfully,” she told him, and unwrapped the sandwich. She looked at it, then looked at him. Her lips pursed. Her eyes narrowed.

A woman ought not look beautiful because she was looking askance at a sandwich, but then, Judith had never done the things she ought to have done. And because he knew her, he knew precisely what the problem was. Judith loved food. All food—fruit, biscuits, sandwiches, chocolates. If one could eat it, Judith appreciated it. He’d known. She’d made him lists about food.

This was not just a sandwich of cucumber and curried chicken. It was composed of bread, precisely three-quarters of an inch thick, crusty and dark on the outside and soft and spongy on the interior. There were perfectly crisp cucumbers, sliced and laid so as to evenly cover said bread. And there was the curry chicken filling, not stingily dabbed in place, but with chunks of meat alternating with a tangy spicy sauce and a bit of pickled carrot. If Judith had been the editor of a lady’s magazine entitled Perfect Sandwiches According to Judith, this would have been the featured sandwich of the year. Every year.

Possibly Christian had miscalculated. He’d wanted to see her smile; he hadn’t thought beyond that.

“Oh, you cad,” she said in horror.

“Yes, that’s the problem with maintaining a solid front of ill will,” Christian said. “The major difficulty we have is that once we get past the mutual hatred and the ruining-your-life thing, we’re actually extremely good friends.”

She glared at him.

“Good friends,” he said hastily, “who are utterly repulsed by one another. Look at me and my nasty, suggestive sandwiches.”

“Suggestive?” She shook her head. “No need to worry. It is a logical fallacy to conflate a man with his sandwich. I am perfectly capable of castigating you while devouring your food.” She took a bite. “Oh, ducklings.” She chewed. “Mmm.”

“By all means,” he said in a low voice. “Conflate me with my sandwich. That sandwich is me in effigy. Eat my sandwich. Eat it with your mouth.”

Her eyes flickered open briefly into narrow, disapproving slits. “What are you doing now?”

He was…damn it, he was flirting with her. He hadn’t intended to do it. Really.

“I’m being reprehensible,” h

e said instead. “It’s part of our agreement. You can’t complain about reprehensibility; it’s precisely what you bargained for.”

Judith considered this as she swallowed her bite. “Very well. If I must eat you in effigy, then I am eating your sandwich with my teeth. Like this.” She took an exaggerated bite, snapping her teeth together.