Probably his uncle had not known what might result.

Even now, standing in a church with the bewildering events of the day behind him, Adrian was still trusting that Miss Winters wasn’t a part of this plot.

He contemplated it now, eyeing her. If they suspected he was working with Bishop Denmore, maybe they’d thought to marry him off in order to have her report back what he knew, in which case…

The gun waved in her direction, and she gasped shallowly.

No. That was too untrusting. This wasn’t her fault.

“I do not consent,” he told them in place of his wedding vows. He needed that to be clear, for the sake of his own conscience. For the sake of his future.

The pistol waved in his direction.

He would give no wedding vows. He wasn’t married; he refused to be. Still, he made promises as he stood there.

He was not the sort to take pleasure in anyone’s downfall. This time, though? He refused to think of these wedding vows as binding, but he committed himself nonetheless. He promised his brother that there would be no cause to worry. He promised himself that he’d untangle himself from this ugly marriage.

As for Miss Winters… They’d judged her expendable, and they’d done their best to make her feel like she was worth nothing for one little mistake.

Adrian wouldn’t be her husband. He wouldn’t keep any of the promises they forced upon him—not in sickness, not in health, not for better, not for worse.

He made her his own promise, though, as they stood in the hall.

They thought we were expendable. They were wrong. Before we’re done, they’ll know that.

“Say it,” the rector said.

They don’t know who I am, but before I’m finished, they will.

“Say it.”

“I do,” Adrian said. And he would.

Chapter Seven

After the wedding, there was nothing to do but leave. Adrian and his new non-bride weren’t offered so much as a room for the night—no surprise there, Adrian supposed—just directions to an inn and their things, already packed for them.

The inn was miles away and it was already dark.

The night air was cold, and Adrian fell into a rhythm, walking and thinking, trying to decide on his plan of attack.

When he had been young, he’d visited his father’s family in Maine, where he’d met his great-great-uncle.

His great-great-uncle John had been born into slavery and had lived to see it undone. He lived still—or had the last time Adrian had heard.

He had sailed around the world. Nowadays, he stayed home, tending his garden, with great-great-uncle Henry.

There is no point getting angry at a bad hand, he had used to say. Especially if the dealer cheated when distributing the cards. Anger leads to mistakes.

Don’t get angry; that’s what they want. Get calm. They’ll never expect you to do that.

Don’t get angry; get creative. Take the hand you have and see whether you might not be holding something your enemy has overlooked.

Don’t get angry at the cards; get the dealer out of the game.

Easy to say when it was something other than the entire rest of his life at stake. All the more important to remember it now, when calm, creative plans seemed as distant as his parents, back in Maine with John and Henry.

Adrian had always found walking calming; he focused on it now, one step after another claiming the road until he felt his fury bleeding into resolve. Until the anger clenching his heart slowly started to loosen and he could feel the cold of the wind against the back of his neck.

Then he remembered that he had to return to Harvil in five days, that the designs for the china plates were unfinished, and that he was now married and stuck in a tangle with no easy way out.

He stopped walking. “Fuck.” That was when he became aware of something else—footsteps behind him. That noise, that swift scuffle and slide behind him, was Miss Winters. If he could call her that any longer.

He always walked fast; being angry had made him swifter still. He had a good eight inches on Miss Winters, and he had only a small satchel.

He’d been so angry he’d not really thought of her, scrambling after him with her luggage. She must have been half-jogging to keep up.

He stopped in the road and turned to the woman who had been forcibly joined to him in holy matrimony. In his anger, he’d allowed himself to look at her as a thing that had happened to him, but her eyes darted to his, then looked down the road. She wasn’t a thing, and this was why he hated being angry.

She was breathing heavily, and he didn’t think it was from just the exertion. This couldn’t be any easier for her than it was for him. In some ways, it might be worse. No matter how she felt, he seriously doubted she had wanted to be married at gunpoint.

Don’t get mad at the cards, he reminded himself. Miss Winters was no doubt a card, one who hadn’t wanted to be dealt in such a cavalier fashion.

“Mr. Hunter?” she asked. He could hear the query in her voice.

Well. He wasn’t going to pretend he was happy. “I suppose this…is what it is. We’ll have to figure this mess out.”

She said nothing to that, but her jaw worked.

“Do you need any help carrying that?”

Her hands clutched tightly around the handle of her valise. “No, thank you. I can manage on my own.”

Her shoulders were trembling.

“Are you certain?” he asked dubiously. “Because—”

“It’s no trouble at all.” She laughed unconvincingly. “Really, I’m very strong. I don’t intend to be a burden on you, not ever, and certainly not right from the start. I promise.”

“Not to contradict you,” Adrian said slowly, “but you shouldn’t make promises you can’t keep. You are already a burden on me.”

She winced. The moon overhead flirted with a ragged cloud; the dim light flickered patchily across her face. Her head bowed. “Of course you’re right.” Her voice trembled almost as much as her shoulders. “I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking when I spoke. I meant only that I didn’t wish to be more of a burden on you. I’m sure you must be worrying about that.”

He reached out and took the handle of her valise. “That’s not what I meant. I had been thinking we were equally a burden on each other.”

Their eyes met for an instant, and he wondered what she was thinking. They were married—not really; he would have to explain—and he had no idea what she expected. Did she think they were going to become husband and wife immediately? Did she expect them to fall into bed? Did she think that she would have to pretend joy for such a consummation when they scarcely knew one another? When she’d been forced as well as him?

She was pretty and he’d liked talking to her, but that would be unthinkable. He felt sick for them both.

Miss Winters looked away first. “That’s very kind of you, but we both know there is no equality here. You had a prestigious position as a valet with a highly respected member of soci

ety. I interrupted your employment.”

He didn’t think she was lying. He didn’t think she wished him ill. Grayson would say he was being too trusting again, but the entire point of this exercise had been to demonstrate that trust was warranted. No. If Adrian had failed here, it was by not trusting enough. Just look at what he had thought to himself before—that it was no business of his if maids received full pay, that he’d finish his matters and move on, and never mind what that meant for Miss Winters.

He’d ignored the stirrings of his conscience. Look where that had brought him—to this moment on the road, the two of them not watching each other, not knowing what was going on.

This mess wasn’t going to resolve itself in the next minute. “Have you eaten?”

“There’s no need to worry about that. I’m not hungry.”

“That’s not an answer. I was locked in the basement after the events of this morning with nothing to eat. I’m utterly famished. Did they give you anything?”

A long pause.

“That’s a no, then. Well.” Adrian spoke with a cheeriness he did not feel. “That makes the next hour easy. You can’t make battle plans on an empty stomach, not unless you want to end up attacking a bakery instead of your intended target.”

Her lips twitched in a fleeting smile. “Battle plans? Are we at war, then?”

Too trusting?

No. Grayson had it wrong.

Adrian had not been trusting enough.

“Yes.” He pulled her valise toward him. “I have been for a while, actually. Bishop Lassiter and Rector Miles are our enemies. I’ll explain everything over supper. There’s an inn not far from here.”

She did not let go of the handle. “I—I can’t. My funds are limited, to say the least. I have tried to be careful with my coin, but…”

“But Rector Miles has been underpaying you,” Adrian finished for her, “and you’re only human, and you need shoes and the occasional biscuit and hair ribbon.”

She blinked, and in that moment her grip on the valise loosened.

“I told you he was the enemy.” Adrian eased the luggage from her grasp. “Money is not our problem.” He set her bag down long enough to dig in his waistcoat pocket. “Here.”

Tags: Courtney Milan The Worth Saga Romance
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