Page 21 of Outrageous

Bertie’s homely face flushed with pride. “Four boys and three girls. All strapping, fine youngsters who take after their mother in their looks.”

“That is worth raising a glass to.”

They toasted Bertie’s fine-looking children.

After that they drank several more toasts, becoming increasingly loose as the evening wore on. Godric had ordered a separate dinner for his betrothed and had not seen her since leaving her room. He’d been wise enough to lock her door but wouldn’t have been surprised to catch her crawling out the window, falling, and cracking her head open on the cobbles below. So he’d told Johnson to pay a man to stand in the back courtyard all night. The innkeeper had looked at him as if he were unhinged, but it was better than hieing across the country searching for her tomorrow morning.

The woman was bloody exhausting.

And you will get to spend the rest of your life with her. Mocking laughter echoed in his head.

Christ.

Bertie maundered on about some hunt or other while Godric tried to impose order on his mental chaos. He hadn’t been lying when he’d told the girl he’d not planned to marry The Kitten. What she didn’t know was that he’d not planned to remarry at all. It had been an enormous bone of contention between himself and his grandfather, the Duke of Tyndale.

From the moment Godric’s uncle—the present duke’s eldest surviving son—had been killed in a carriage accident, his grandfather had come after Godric with a singlemindedness that was dizzying, even going so far as to make a journey to the Continent to apply pressure on him to sell out and come home. When Godric had refused, the duke had pressured the Beau to speak to him.

When Wellington had summoned Godric to dinner, he’d been fairly certain why he was being honored. “You’ve done your duty to your country for fifteen years, Lord Visel.” The duke’s use of Godric’s courtesy title told him what was coming next. “Now it is time you do your duty to your family.” Wellington was one of the most powerful men in the world; he was also Godric’s commander. He could not disobey the Iron Duke, even if the man had only been making a suggestion.

So he’d sold out and come home. Tyndale had wanted to install him in the country estate that had always been occupied by the ducal heir, a rambling nightmare of a place where Godric would rattle around like a pea in a dried-out pod.

That had been the first of his grandfather’s orders that he’d ignored. He would live at Cross Hall, he told the duke. What he hadn’t told the other man—one of his few remaining relatives—was that he needed to live there. The death of his father, mother, two brothers and their wives and children, and his young sister, had only become real to him when he’d set foot in his childhood home. Never could he have imagined it so empty—so silent. Even with all the servants still occupying it, the house was like a tomb. A tomb without bodies. Because none of the bodies of his family had been recovered after their ship had been sunk by pirates.

“Godric?”

He looked up at the sound of his name and saw that Bertie was staring at him.

“Sorry, Bertie, I’m afraid I’m knackered and drifted a bit.”

“Quite so, quite so, old chap. Here I am rattling on.” Luckily Bertie was too good-natured to take offense at Godric’s inattention. “I was just saying I could send word to Samuel Porter, the local tailor. It’s late, but I know he’d work through the night if it meant kitting out a duke’s heir.”

“Yes, that would be excellent. I’ve only got this to wear.” He gestured to the rather battered clawhammer and buckskins he’d had on beneath his costume. “And I managed to lose my purse somewhere along the way, I’m afraid,” he said, not wanting to tell his friend that his bride-to-be had stolen his money and given it to her accomplice. “I shall need to dun you.”

“Of course, don’t give it another thought.” Bertie grinned, his eyes flickering to the top of Godric’s head. “I’m guessing you’ll want to wash that out as well.”

Godric squinted and then recalled what he’d done for the masquerade ball.

“What do you think, Bertie?” he jested tiredly. “Does it suit me?”

“I think that shade of black is not for you, old man. Besides, you wouldn’t want to hide your gold curls from your adoring flocks of women.” He stopped abruptly, his pudgy cheeks coloring. “Although I suppose those days might be behind you now that you’re getting shackled.”

Godric thought of his female companion stewing away a few doors down: his wife-to-be. He snorted and pushed away any questions of women, adoring or otherwise, and smiled at his friend.

“I suppose you’d better send a message to a dressmaker as well as a tailor.”

Chapter 5

Eva was awake even before first light.

She paced the two rooms, telling herself to be calm. Nothing was ever gained by becoming angry with a man. No, they were allowed to be angry but women were merely supposed to smile, bow their heads, and meekly obey.

Well, if Visel was expecting her to be that kind of wife, he was in for an unpleasant surprise. Lots of unpleasant surprises.

What had he said? That she would not be required to do her wifely duty? So, he found her so revolting, he did not even wish to bed her. She squeezed her hands together so hard the bones ground against each other. Good. She was glad he didn’t wish to touch her. The only way she wanted to touch him was with a shovel.

The door opened and she swung around: it was the earl. He swept her from head to toe to head, his eyes even paler in the bright light of day, his hard mouth pulled down at the corners.

“Why are you not dressed?”