The Scottish border coming soon, they were now only days away from Whetland Castle and she had to prepare. Appearing in front of Evan’s grandfather with a crushed bonnet would not do.
Juliet had shed so much of proper decorum since her downfall that she rarely thought back to those times when her mother and her governess had taught her everything about propriety. Back to when needlepoint and learning French and helping her mother create shell artwork would fill her days.
But she knew showing up at Whetland Castle in her wrinkled pelisse and carriage dress would be suspect enough. If she appeared a wild woman without a hat atop her head, one could only imagine what the earl would think on her.
Probably that his grandson had hired a whore to pose as his betrothed.
She looked out the window positioned along the rear of the inn. It wasn’t quite dusk, but the sun was sinking below the rise of distant mountains. This land was so different. Sharp and craggy, peaks and valleys, and then flush with wild flora.
There, down the hill by the river that snaked along the village, sat their carriage in the stable yard. If she hurried down and retrieved her bonnet now, she could wet it and try to reshape the wool before Evan appeared with their dinner. That would give the hat time to dry, and for her to attempt to fix it again before retiring if her first attempt was unsuccessful.
She grabbed her pelisse, shrugging her arms into it as she left her room and hurried down the tight stairwell to the ground floor. Sliding out a door at the rear of the inn next to the long length of the bar, she stepped outside and inhaled until her lungs were so full, she had to cough.
She loved this air. Clean. The smell of green and trees and leaves turning color. At the Willows the air was clearer than in London, but it didn’t have this snap of purity in it.
It had always been a dream, to see this land, for the beauty of it that had been professed to her time and again. It didn’t disappoint.
Evan was lucky that he got to breathe this air all the time.
And just like that, thoughts of him were in her head again.
She was long past blushing in her life. But the memory of their kiss still tinged her cheeks with unexpected heat. She’d tried to not dwell upon that moment, and even more importantly, never spoke to Evan on the fact that their lips had touched.
Nor did he. Thankfully.
Since the kiss, he’d been nothing but a gentleman these past days as they travelled onward. While the conversation with him had held a remarkable ease, it had stayed firmly in polite territory. Neither of them dared to broach the topic of the heat that still obviously simmered between them. She could barely look at him sometimes without her heart quickening at the memory of his hand burying into her hair and sending prickles onto the back of her neck.
No.
Mouth shut on that topic. Mind shut on that topic.
If neither of them mentioned it, the sparks couldn’t light to fire. That was the best—only—course of action.
Shaking her head at herself, Juliet made her way down the hill to the carriage and then opened the door of the coach, stretching inward to try and reach up onto the back cushion to snatch her bonnet without having to let the steps out.
Too short.
“It is you.”
Startled, Juliet fell down onto her heels and spun around at a male voice. A man she didn’t recognize looked down at her. Blond hair slicked back with pomade. Gold pocket watch. Eyes the color of mud that were set too far apart. Clothes that fit well, though stretched over the paunch of his belly. Wealth.
And close. Too close.
Her gut dropped. The open door of the carriage blocked her escape to her right and he’d positioned himself at an angle that didn’t give her a clear shot to run.
Not that she needed to run. The man was clearly confused.
She set her most charming smile in place and looked up at him. “Forgive me, I do believe you are mistaken as I don’t recognize you, sir.”
The right side of his lip curled. “You don’t? I recognize you. You work at the Den of Diablo in London. I’ve watched you there, for hours, charming men. You are something to look at.”
Her head snapped back. They were close to three hundred miles from London. And he recognized her?
She looked blankly at him. “The den of what?”
He chuckled, a slimy sound that dripped over her head, her shoulders. “That is precious, but we both know who you are. You’re Madame…” He snapped his fingers several times as his mouth opened and closed, a gaping fish. “Madame Juliet. That is it. There was never an opportunity to request your services before, but as you are here and I am here, I’ll take you for the evening. I cannot imagine there’s much business for you in a fine establishment such as this.”
As painful as the smile burned on her face was, she kept it in place. “Sir, I do not wish to be rude, but you truly do mistake me for someone else. Please excuse me.” She moved forward, using the back of her hand to push past him.
He stepped to the side, cutting off her escape and grabbing her shoulders. “That’s ‘my lord’ to you and I’ll not be discarded by a whore such as yourself.” The curl of his lip turned rabid.
Without thought, the motion practiced so thoroughly it was smooth as butter, she lifted her right leg and pulled her dagger, setting the blade of it under his ballocks.
Her smile never wavered.
“As I said, sir, you are mistaken. You will remove your hands from my person.”
“You little whore. You think you can—”
She flicked the blade up a notch, curtailing his words. “I don’t think, I know I can slice off your ballocks with one flick of my wrist.” She abandoned the smile, the pull of her lips fierce as she seethed. “And you may torture—pummel me after—but I will always have your manhood. Your couilles sliced to ribbons. You care to try me on this score, my lord?”
His fingertips tightened into her shoulders.
Juliet coiled and in the next instant, the man flew to the left, out of her vision as a hand clamped onto her wrist.
Clamped and then slammed her forearm onto the blur of a knee.
Her blade tumbled from her grip, dropping to the ground.
The blur wasn’t the man attacking her. Evan.
Evan appearing out of nowhere.
Letting her wrist go, the blur of him darted to the left, his fist swinging. Knuckles met jawbone, crunching, and the pompous jerk flew backward to land in the muck next to the carriage.
“Leave the woman be, ye worm.” Evan moved to stand over the ass, both fists clenched. “And you say anything about this to anyone and I’ll find you and finish smashing your face until ye look like the shriveled ballocks I just saved from the blade.”
Holding his jaw in place, the man flailed to his feet and staggered away, his free arm swinging at them. “You cocksucker, you can keep your cheap whore, you Scottish bastard. She’s nothing but a fucking slutty strumpet.”
The words ringing in her ears, Juliet scooped up her blade from the ground and charged, rabid to finish what she’d started.
Until her feet flew out from under her, swinging up into the air.
Evan had plucked her off the ground, the iron bar of his arm wrapped around her waist.
She shoved at him, her legs kicking, the red blaze in her eyes still fixated on making the bastard pay. “You bloody ass, you swivel-eyed, scaly dunghill—”
Evan shifted her in his arm, carrying her backward as she screamed at the man. Within three seconds he’d dragged her up into the carriage and slammed the door shut before collapsing with her onto the back bench. His iron hold didn’t leave her waist, never once giving her the chance to escape.
The pulled curtains of the carriage surrounded them and blocked her view of the man that had attacked her, her view of everything.
The swear at her lips teetered and she exhaled, words leaving her.
With Evan’s left arm locked across her belly, she sat on his lap for long seconds, seethin
g, unable to blink the raging film out of her own eyes.
“Juliet—”
“I hate them—I hate every last blasted one of them.” She twisted on his lap, trying to free herself.
“I’m not letting you go right now.”
“Then I hate you too.” She jerked to her left, then her right, trying to wiggle out of his steel hold, her voice screeching. “Every damn one of you that knows it’s his God-given right to do whatever you want to me. I hate you all.”
Evan’s voice was suddenly in her ear, a rumble cutting through the rage fogging her brain. “The only thing I have a right to is what you offer.”
“Then let me the blazes go.”
“Not when you’re going to cause a scene by slicing off that man’s testicles. I’m not saying he doesn’t deserve it. I’m only acknowledging that we live in a world that frowns upon ballocks removal.”
Dammit to all hell.
He was right. Insufferably right. Was she looking to get herself hung? Transported? Forced into a madhouse?
The anger seeping out of her, she curled over his arm about her waist, all the air leaving her lungs.
The first sob came without warning. Then the next and she was no force against them. She didn’t cry. Ever. But for the life of her she couldn’t stop the sobs, one after another rolling through her body.
What had become of her? A week out of London and she’d lost all control of her actions—her damn emotions. What in the devil had happened to her?
Evan’s right hand slipped under the front of her shoulders and he gently tugged her backward, curling her onto his chest. His arm went along her back, encapsulating her in a cocoon of safety.
For a man that didn’t know anything about women, he knew how to hold a crying one. The wall of him soaking up her tears, his fingers gentle along her neck, stroking so lightly it felt like the wisp of the wind on her spine.
Her sobs dwindled and his chest lifted against her cheek with a deep inhale.
“Who hurt you, Juliet?” The softest rumble from him not chiding her for her actions. Not blaming her for being a madwoman. Merely asking her the simplest question.
A question she couldn’t refuse to answer.
“Everyone who ever loved me.”
In the space of the next breath, she knew that was all she could offer. She couldn’t give him any more—wouldn’t give him any more.
Her hand flattened on his chest and she pushed herself away from him. His hold on her loosened. “So, no, thank you. I do not want your kindness. The possibility of endearment.”
She shifted off his lap, stood hunched over for the height of the carriage as she sheathed her dagger, and her hand went to the door handle.
Just like that, he let her go.
She exhaled a sigh of relief.
Relief she felt too soon, for in the next instant, his hand whipped out and grabbed her forearm.
{ Chapter 8 }
Before she could react, before she could look down at him, his grip on her arm shifted into just a touch, merely asking her to pause.
It stilled her, that simple motion.
For all that she needed to escape his presence in this moment, she looked back to him.
“Someone hurt you. Made you into this.”
“This?”
“Sad and angry and willing to chop a man’s balls off. Tell me I’m wrong.”
One raw chuckle escaped her throat. “No, you’re not wrong. But what you’re really asking me is why do I live the life I do?”
His stare seared into her and he nodded.
She considered for a moment jumping out of the carriage—it was instinct. Run as soon as the questions got too pointed. But this was Evan. Somehow, he’d wormed his way into her mind, into her thoughts this past week to the point where she could think of little other than the man only inches away.
And heaven help her, she wanted him to know. Wanted him to know that once in her life she’d been innocent. Innocent and pure and deserving of the world. She wanted him to know what had happened to that gullible innocence.
Her hand flew into the air, flicking off his fingers from her arm and she fell into a heap on the thinly cushioned bench across from him. For long seconds she stared down at her lap, at the wrinkles of the dark blue muslin of her skirt stretched across her knees. “I was in love once.”
Her fingers brushed across her skirt, knowing the fabric wouldn’t unwrinkle, yet she followed the crooked creases, flattening them against her thigh. “I fell in love with a viscount. I would have been the perfect countess. My father was a baron and I was the eldest, so I was set to marry well. A dowry, the best tutors from an early age to teach me my notable accomplishments—drawing, French, music. Nothing practical of life, of course. My father was so proud of me. My mother was so proud of me. At the time, I was so proud of me.” The saddest smile crossed her lips. “I was set to make a splendid match which would carve the way for my younger sister to make an even more splendid match.”
Her head shook, the smile drifting into a frown. “But at some point—I do not know why—my father flipped. He became belligerent and started to drink and gamble. He was rarely home. It only took a year for him to lose everything of worth we had. Our dowries were the last thing to go. He was so sure he could use them to turn his fortune around. So desperate.”
“You were impoverished?”
“Yes. But that didn’t stop me from falling in love. I met the viscount at a house party—a childhood friend was generous and invited me to every function her family hosted and would lend me her clothes. It was during the darkest days for my father, but I thought if I could meet my match, that would cheer him. Bring him back to us. I actually thought it would be that easy.”
She swallowed hard. “It was at her family’s country house in Suffolk that I met him. There were so many guests and the viscount was one of them. He stood out—stood out from all the others and I fell in love with him. And he fell in love with me—not in love with the American heiress he was there to court.”
Evan sighed. “He was impoverished as well.”
“His estate was nearly sunk.” She nodded. “But there was nothing that could tear us asunder. Nothing. I was so young and so deeply in love that I didn’t care on anything but that love—on being with him. I was impoverished. He was impoverished. But we were so in love.”
She looked up at Evan, her voice even. “He needed to marry money. My dowry was long gone. But we were going to be together no matter what. So, he did court the American heiress and he married her only because I promised him I would become his mistress. Leave my family. Be his for all of time.”
Evan’s head shifted in one slow nod. Beyond that, there wasn’t the slightest reaction on his granite face. “How old were you?”
“Nineteen.”
“So, you became his mistress?”
“I did. I left everything I’d ever known. My father exiled me from my family, of course. A day later, he decided that the best spot for his neck would be in a noose in our stable. After he died, my mother didn’t even try to stop me from moving into the house the viscount had bought for me with his new wife’s money. My mother knew our options were limited. No money. No title left to trade on. Everything gone. She went with my sister to live with a distant cousin in Cheshire.”
His head shook slowly. “That is brutal. I’m sorry you went through that.”
“I am sorry for a lot of things that happened during that time. Some of the words I uttered that I can never take back. I was awful. My mother was worse.” Her hand flipped up from her lap, waving in the air. “And then it only took a year.”
Evan’s left eyebrow lifted. “What did?”
“One year for the viscount to tire of me. To fall out of love. To stop coming to my bed.”
“Bastard.”
She shrugged. “He fell in love with his wife, of all things. She gave him a boy, an heir. She gave him the money, the child, so why not fall in love with her? She was beautiful. Kin
d. It was right.” Her fingers lifted, absently playing with the bottom edge of the curtain pulled across the window. “I lied to myself for a long time about what was happening, about why he was pulling away.” She drew a quivering breath. “And then I…”
Silence filled the carriage, heavy between them.
“You were discarded.” The soft rumble of Evan’s words broke the quiet.
“I was.”
“It was hard?” His grey eyes centered on her, the kindness in them making her chest constrict.
“Yes. I was rather destroyed by it.” She paused, drawing a deep breath. “But beyond that, there was the terror.”
His hand dove under the lapel of his coat and he extracted a silver flask. He pulled the stopper, took a quick sip and then leaned forward, nudging the flask into her hand. “The terror?”
“I’d been cast out by the viscount. I’d ruined myself so thoroughly—my own choice, mind you—that there was no going back to my mother. My sister still had a chance at a respectable union—not with a peer, but a local vicar or a solicitor, or a soldier at the very least. And she needed every chance to make that so.”
Juliet sniffed at the opening of the flask. Whisky. She took a slow sip, the warmth of it burning down her throat. Potent whisky. She shouldn’t have expected anything less from Evan.
“So what was I to do next? The terror of that question held me in a hard vise for so long, it was all I could do to breathe in those days. I’d been discarded, no money, no home, no protector. I’d been exiled by my family and all my friends and acquaintances that could not touch the scandal of me. There was no help. I was a fallen woman and it was terror, every moment of every day.”
“Is that when you landed at the Den of Diablo?”
A shiver took a hold of her and she shook it off, then took another sip from the flask. The fire having already burned a path along her throat, this gulp slid easily down. “It was. By the graces, I ended up at the Den. It was just starting in those days—Hoppler was hiring anything that walked into his door. He hired me. That was where I found my people. People like him. People who were not just determined to survive, but to thrive. Creating something out of nothing. People who took loyalty as the only trait that measured a person. We catered to the men—the peers, the wealthy—of the world I left behind. It was easy for me to do, because by then I could see every one of them for what they were.”
Wicked Exile (An Exile Novel Book 2) Page 6
