Page 36 of In Compromise with the Earl
She jerked back. “What?”
“Don’t worry, my dear,” he smiled. “When we are alone, you can drop that act. You’ve resisted me for a long while, but it ends now.”
“I don’t know why you are bothering to flirt with me. I never wanted you to kiss me because you are a bloody stuff shirt with too many proud airs and have too many admirers than I care for. There will never be anything between us, because we are not suited and never will be!”
“You’re scared of passion, aren’t you?” Jameson mocked.
Anger laced her chest. “Unlike those who have fallen for your ill-begotten charms, I possess a working brain and can see the man you are. You don’t wantme. You just can’t resist a challenge in chasing the one who will never bend to your wishes. I do not know if this is some sick game, a bet between you and other Lords who are just as twisted and deranged as you are, but I will not take part of your experiment.”
“You’re wrong,” but she caught a telling flash in his eyes. “You gave me your word that you would listen to me this time.”
“And you have told me all I needed to hear. Now, take me back to the Manor. We are done here.”
“We are half-a-mile from the Manor, and it’s a long country road,” Jameson said.
“It matters not,” Aphrodite reached up and rapped on the roof, signaling the driver to stop. “I’ll walk.”
With aplomb, she popped the handle, lifted her skirts and jumped out the vehicle, landing on her half-boots and headed down the opposite way. She was not going to stay another moment with the Duke who only wanted her hand for bragging rights and a notch on his bedpost.
She heard a scuffle and looked over her shoulder to see Lydia clambering out of the carriage and hurrying after her. She tempered her stride for her friend to come to her side, and soon, she heard the scrape of carriage wheels, telling her that the vehicle was turning around.
Keeping her head straight, Aphrodite did not care to look when the carriage came to walk at her side. Jameson moved the velvet curtain and said, “Come inside, Aphrodite. I cannot, in good conscience, let you walk so far.”
“Afraid I will faint on the way?” she asked.
“Very much so,” he replied.
She shot a look to him, “Don’t be.”
“Run all you like,” Jameson said smugly. “I will have your hand in marriage before you know it. Truth be told, I have already laid claim to you since we met, but I allowed you to believe otherwise. There is no escaping it.”
Shooting him a look, Aphrodite hiked up her skirts and sped off at a run to the Manor, deciding to speak with Lady Pandora. This constant harassment from the Duke had to stop. If Lady Pandora did not agree to it—she had some drastic measures to take.
Arriving at the Manor, she stopped to gasp in some breath and then headed in past the main sitting room and up the stairs to Lady Pandora’s room. She came to her sitting room and knocked rapidly on the door, hoping her friend would hear and understand the urgency.
Lady Pandora yanked the door open, her expression rife with shock and concern. “Aphrodite! What is the matter?”
“I…” she gasped, “will not be paired with that man! I cannot! I refuse to!”
Tugging her in, Lady Pandora steered Aphrodite to a seat. “Duke Strathmore?”
“Yes—” she pretended panic. “He is a good-for-nothing scoundrel and I…I will have nothing to do with him! I cannot bear the sight of him, nor be in close contact with him! I…I…I have to leave, if that is who you are set on me being with.”
“Calm down,” Lady Pandora said. “Take a breath. Let me get some calming tea for you. Take deep breaths. I will be back.”
As Lady Pandora hurried out the room, Aphrodite rushed to the hostess desk and rifled through a ledger there, hoping it had the record she needed. She searched quickly, rifling through the pages and found Oswald’s chamber number, smiled, quickly closed the ledger and went back to her seat.
If needs be, Oswald, you are my only hope here.
She sat and clenched her skirts just as Lady Pandora came striding inside with a maid bearing a tea service behind her. A cup of warm tea was swiftly placed in her hands and Lady Pandora thanked the maid and sent her away.
“What happened?”
After some sips, Aphrodite said, “As I had suspected. He does not want me for me, he wants me for a conquest of some sort. To lay with the last lady in thetonor something of the like. I told him that I was not fit to marry him because there is no attraction between us and my hoydenish ways would hardly make for a Duchess, but he insisted that was why he wanted to marry me.”
“No other reason?” Lady Pandora asked.
“No,” she replied.
