“Actually, no. He could make the biggest man quiver in his boots, but he never set that onto me or Gilroy. He was quick to teach us all the ways of the world, to teach us everything we needed to know about running the estate. Honor, loyalty, and mercy. Respect of everyone we encountered, no matter their station.”
A smile came to his face. “When we were wee ones, he used to point out unusual webs of spiders to us when we were in the woods. Ones that stretched so far from branch to branch that it had to have taken the spiders near a lifetime to weave. Dew would oftentimes be clinging to the thin strands, catching the rays of the sun and splintering sparkles in all directions. But he would never let us touch them—we’d always leave the webs and spiders as they were. I was always in awe that a giant of a man like that would notice something so delicate. But he did.”
“He must have your kind eyes, then.” Her blue eyes caught his gaze and for a moment, his breath caught in his throat.
His brow wrinkled. “I have kind eyes?”
“No one has ever told you that? It is fairly obvious.”
He laughed. “No. No one has ever spoken to the kindness of my eyes. I inevitably get comments on my size, but never on my eyes.”
A disbelieving smile crossed her lips and she looked forward. “So why won’t you marry if it is the thing that will make your grandfather happy? It is clear you think the world of him and I don’t imagine you would have difficulty finding a wife. Attending a few balls with open eyes and mind and you would be spoken for.”
A dog with a bone just out of reach, she still wasn’t going to drop the topic.
Evan’s jaw tightened for a second before he relaxed it and shrugged. “Reasons.”
Her face whipped to him, her eyebrows lifting. But she didn’t say a word. Didn’t prod. So, she did contain some restraint.
Admirable.
Five more steps up the hillside and she stopped, turning to him. “This…”
His stride halted and he looked to her.
She pointed back to the carriage. “This wasn’t a mistake, was it?”
“A mistake? Did ye not enjoy yourself?” He knew the answer full well—the screams on her lips had told him that.
“I did. But I do not wish for you to think it was anything more than the watering down of this odd crackle between us that I can’t quite explain.” Her hand flipped back and forth between the two of them.
“I fear that it didn’t sate the crackle as we both had hoped.” He leaned down to her, his voice low at her ear. “As I have had a hard time since you crawled off of me striking from my mind the thought of stripping that dress off your body so I can have full access to every inch of your skin.” He stood straight. “But did it mean more than our bodies meeting? Did you want it to?”
She exhaled a sigh of relief with a shake of her head. “No. If it was about to mean more, I would have to stop our entanglement here and now. So I am glad we are of like mind.”
His head cocked to the side as he stared at her, measuring the truth of her statement. He’d had women lie to him on this score before. But in Juliet, he only saw truth. She’d said that—stark truth was her guiding star. He could see she meant it. “As am I.”
They turned to the inn, walking toward the rear door. Evan’s gaze stayed fixed on the fieldstone wall of the building as an uneasiness settled in his chest that he couldn’t quite place.
He couldn’t afford to let Juliet think this was more than it was—let himself think it was more than it was.
He’d sworn an oath he would not break.
And that meant he needed to push Juliet firmly back into the box he’d initially placed her in. She was an actress hired to make his grandfather happy.
Nothing more.
As long as she was in that box, there was no danger in enjoying each other’s bodies while the ruse was in place. If anything, the spark between them would make the fake betrothal all the more realistic for his grandfather.
He just needed to keep her in that box.
Easy.
{ Chapter 10 }
Juliet glanced to her left, looking at the two-story-high wall of bookcases. Each shelf was stuffed full of tomes, a rolling ladder connected high to a brass rail to reach the upper books.
Were the books for reading or were they for show?
Her look darted about the rest of the library at Whetland Castle.
A big room. A big, dark room.
In the shadows, dark furniture, a few leather wingback chairs. A large table with long rolls of paper upon it—maps, most likely. A sideboard with a wide variety of bottles holding amber liquid. A desk in the corner with papers stuffed atop the entire surface. Side tables along each chair, most with a stack of three or four books balancing atop. The far wall held an enormous stone fireplace surrounded by unadorned stacked grey stone. A four-post bed sat to the left of the fireplace.
Evan did say that his grandfather had confined himself mostly to this one room, as the stairs in the castle did him no favors.
The wall opposite the bookshelves held tall windows without the draperies pulled, even though it was now dark outside. Four lit sconces, three lamps and the flames in the fireplace contributed the only glow to the room.
There, by the fire, Evan’s grandfather sat in a wingback chair.
Evan’s fingertips set lightly at the small of her back, and he steered her away from the doorway and across the room toward the earl.
The touch of his fingers was welcome. She’d come to know his hands, his touch on her body, so intimately during the past two days, it was instant comfort just to have that slightest bit of connection to him. Though the crackle between them had not been sated in the least by the last two nights of their bodies entwined.
She exhaled a breath. Not the time to think on that.
Time to do what she’d come all this way for.
Her chest lifted as she inhaled a steeling breath, and she set a smile on her face.
At the sound of their boots clomping along the stone flagged floor, the earl looked up from the book in his lap.
At the sight of Evan, an instant smile deepened the wizened wrinkles on the earl’s face. “Ev—ye’ve returned. ’Tis ’bout time.” His gnarled hand waved in the air at them. “And what have ye brought me? And if ye say she’s another nursemaid to scurry about after me, ye be meeting my fist, my lad.”
Evan chuckled. “No, I wouldn’t make that mistake again, Grandfather.”
The earl closed the book on his lap and started to shift in the wingback chair.
“No—no need to get up.” Evan lifted his hand to stop the earl.
His grandfather swatted his hand out of the air. “If ye brought me what I hope this is, I’ll make my own decision about standing on my own two feet.” With a heave, his trembling hands clutched the arms of the chair and the earl shifted upward.
Lord Whetland stood, his back at a permanent bent. Even with that, he was a head taller than Juliet. He would have been just as tall as Evan if not for the crook in his back.
He looked to her, his aged eyes aglow. Grey eyes that were tinged with the same kindness that shone in Evan’s eyes.
“Juliet, may I present my grandfather, the seventh Earl of Whetland. Grandfather, I present my fiancée, Miss Juliet Thomson.”
Before she could curtsy, the earl reached out to grab her hand, the skin and bones of his fingers wrapping around her palm much stronger than the frail look of them.
“Splendid. Splendid, my Ev.” He looked to Juliet. “What line do ye come from, Miss Thomson?”
“Her father is the late Baron Placton. Unfortunately, without heirs, the title has gone extinct.”
The earl’s weathered eyes glanced up and down her body and she had to stifle the urge to try and smooth the wrinkles in her dress once more.
“Ah, a proper lady, ye are. My condolences on yer father. My Ev has done well, ye are a splendid creature.” His sweeping glance stopped at the top her head. “But I must inquire, where is your
hat, lass? My Lettie always had a hat about her head.”
Of course.
She shot Evan a dagger look. “I am afraid it was crushed during the journey north. We had to leave most of my belongings on the first day of the journey, as our original carriage got stuck in the mud during a particularly nasty storm. We had to travel onward without my luggage.”
“A hardy soul, ye are.” He nodded, his hand clasped around hers squeezing. “Not proper, but the hue of your hair is a glorious thing, lass. Much better to look upon than a crumpled hat.” He glanced downward again. “I imagine that is where the rest of your wardrobe is as well?”
“Unfortunately.”
“Then I’ll have the dressmaker come from Dalginross on the morrow.” He released her hand and moved to sit down. Evan grabbed his elbow, helping to ease him into his chair. “She’ll see to fitting ye properly as befits yer station.”
A genuine smile crossed Juliet’s face. Instant generosity, instant kindness from this man. Not the slightest hesitation in imparting both of those things. No wonder Evan loved him as he did.
She caught his eye and inclined her head. “Thank you, my lord, that is more than kind.”
Evan set his hand in between her shoulder blades and veered her back across the wide room to the shadows along the wall of bookcases. It wasn’t until she was three feet in front of him that she realized another man sat in the room facing away from them in the far dark corner of the room, nearly invisible for his black jacket and the hunch in his shoulders that hid his head from view.
He sat at a small table, an almost empty decanter in front of him. At their approach, he shifted up slightly and tilted his head back, swallowing in one gulp the healthy dram of liquid in his glass.
He looked up, his stare solely on Evan, the whites of his eyes only reflecting slivers of the fireplace glow from across the room.
The right side of his mouth lifted into what she could only place as a snarl.
“Fiancée?” The word drawled out, slurred.
Evan inclined his head, his voice even. “Indeed. We have much to discuss, brother.” He nudged Juliet forward a step. “But first, Juliet, may I present my brother, Gilroy. Gilroy, this is Miss Juliet Thomson.”
The snarl didn’t recede from Gilroy’s lips as he poured a large splash of the amber liquid into his tumbler. Without getting to his feet, he shifted his gaze off of Evan to Juliet. “Delighted.” He raised the glass to her and swallowed the whole of it with another tilt of his head.
“Ev, can I speak with you?” the earl called from across the room.
Evan looked over his shoulder. “Yes.” He glanced at her. “You’ll excuse me?”
“Of course.” She pasted a serene smile on her lips even as her toes itched to turn away from his brother. She stifled a sigh. She’d promised Evan docile in front of his grandfather, so of course, he’d leave her with the mess of his drunk brother.
No bother, she’d tackled men like him far too often at the Den.
She studied the flickers of light bouncing off the man sitting in front of her. The difference from brother to brother was striking. Hard to soft. Evan was hard angles and huge brawn. Gilroy was small and all soft features. Even the line of Gilroy’s nose was smooth, rounded. The darkness of Evan’s brown hair and stubble juxtaposed against the pale skin and light blond hair of Gilroy.
Just as she studied him, he stared at her, his eyes narrowing. Silent. So long it became uncomfortable, and she was more than accustomed to men staring at her in macabre silence.
She cleared her throat. “You are not what I was expecting in Evan’s brother.”
His chest lifted in a scoff. “No? Why not?”
She shrugged, her fingers flipping over her shoulder to where Evan sat in a chair across from his grandfather, listening intently to whatever the earl was telling him. “It is just that I imagined his brother to be much like him. He did mention you were twins so I thought you would be more akin.”
His hand holding the tumbler slammed onto the table with such force a crack ran up the side of the glass. “You mean my size?”
“No, it’s just—”
Gilroy jumped to his feet, swayed, and then struck his hand out across the table, sending the decanter and the tumbler crashing off the table and shattering onto the stone floor. “Evan didn’t tell ye? He ate away at me in the womb, killed our mother.” He pulled himself straight and she found him not but a hair taller than her. His blurry light eyes couldn’t quite focus on her. “Lucky he didn’t kill me as well. He took all the strength and left me with this.” His hands swept up and down his own body. “This.”
Her foot jabbed a step backward as her head snapped away from him.
Never back down from a drunk. She knew that. Knew it well. But the torrent of rage coming off this man was suffocating.
“Gil.” Evan was at her side in an instant, his voice still even but now with an undercurrent of a growl.
She looked to him. He hadn’t said anything to admonish his brother. Only said his name. Peculiar. Maybe as twins one-word grunts spoke volumes.
Evan grabbed her elbow and started to tug her away from his brother. “You’ll excuse us, Gil. You’ve had too much whisky tonight.”
Gilroy didn’t let them retreat, stepping forward, his arm waving in front of him. “Have I?”
Evan planted his feet and stared down at his brother. “Aye.”
“And when did you get to decide such a thing for me, Ev? When did ye ever care enough to decide such a thing?”
“Gil.” Evan shook his head, his glare not faltering.
Gilroy stumbled two steps forward, the side of his fist slamming onto Evan’s chest. Evan didn’t flinch.
Pulling his fist away, Gilroy looked up at his brother. “She lost another babe two days ago.”
Evan’s head shook, startled. “Ness did?”
Gilroy nodded, the butt of both his palms rubbing at his eyes. “A boy.”
Evan’s hand dropped from Juliet’s elbow and he reached out to set his palm on his brother’s shoulder as his voice went soft, calm. “I am sorry, brother.”
“Are ye?” Gilroy’s glare shifted to Juliet, the snarl returning to his lips. “It doesn’t seem like you’re sorry in the slightest, what with bringing this one here.”
Juliet glanced at Evan, then looked to Gilroy. “Your wife lost a babe? May I visit with her?”
She’d seen the pain of it many times. Some babes were wanted. Some babes were not. Either way, losing one was something no woman should suffer through alone. And if what Evan said about the lack of females here at Whetland was true, Nessia would need another woman by her side.
Gilroy stared at her for a long silent moment before lunging forward, pulling to a stop only a hair away from her, the stench of the whisky on his breath invading her pores. “I don’t care what you do to her, ye witch.”
Gilroy instantly jerked to the left as Evan yanked him away from her. His fist bunched into Gilroy’s collar and he leaned over him. “Too far, brother. I know you’re wrecked, but you go too far.”
Her heart thundering in her chest, Juliet stepped away from the men, her fingers splayed in front of her. “I will go and find Nessia—I’ll have the footman I saw in the hallway show me to her room.”
Evan tore his look off his brother to glance at her. “I’ll come with you.”
“No. I’ll introduce myself. It will be best for the state that she must be in. Gentle.”
Evan gave her a nod, his fist not relaxing, holding his brother in place.
Juliet turned and escaped from the room with a weak nod across the room to the earl.
Stopping outside the door to the library, she paused, letting her back fall against the puckered stone wall.
Three breaths. Three breaths to get her posture about her.
Three breaths and she stepped away from the library.
Whatever was happening in there with Evan and his brother was none of her business.
Couldn�
�t be any of her business.
She was here for one reason only. She’d fulfill the job and be on her way.
Best not to get involved.
{ Chapter 11 }
After finding a footman to show her to Nessia’s room, Juliet knocked on the door.
Nothing.
She knocked again, cocking her ear toward the thick planks of wood bound by long, heavy straps of iron hinges.
Sudden soft footsteps shuffled toward the door and it opened a slight crack. A woman in a black maid’s uniform with dark circles under her eyes peeked out of the room and her look went wide when she spied Juliet.
Juliet smiled at her. “Hello, I am a guest of Evander—Lord Hedrun. We just arrived and heard about the loss of the babe. Is there anything I can do to help?”
The maid nodded, slipping through the crack in the door and pulling it closed behind her. “Oh, miss, ye don’t know how relieved I am yer here. There be so few women in the castle and I fear to leave my mistress alone.”
“Is she recovering?”
The maid shook her head. “She won’t eat, won’t sleep. I fear for her sanity. But I am so tired.”
Juliet’s lips drew inward and she nodded. “You should go and rest…your name?”
“Gertie.”
“Please, go and rest, Gertie. I will go in and sit with her.”
“Oh, bless ye, miss. Bless ye.” Gertie scooted around her and disappeared down the corridor in the opposite direction from where the footman had led Juliet up the main staircase.
With a deep breath, Juliet opened the door and moved into the room.
The light of the fire and the lit lamp by the bed showed the sparse furnishings in the room to be the first things in the castle that showed any hint of a womanly touch. Two plush chairs upholstered in light peach damask. A delicate rosewood writing desk by the window in the room. Lush drapes of peach pulled closed in front of the window, but leaving a crack between them, enough to see a sliver of the half-moon hanging low in the night sky.
Juliet looked to the bed. The four tall posts extended high into the room, and a canopy of peach gossamer silk hung a cozy distance from the mattress.
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