Page 54 of The Duke's Forbidden Bride
Perhaps she would arrive back at Everdawn at the same time as him. Perhaps she could gather more evidence while she was in London. She could follow him to another location. Maybe his carriage was even parked nearby and she could?—
“Hello, Eleanor.”
Her pulse spiked as she stopped dead by her carriage, finding the Duke leaning against the door, his arms folded over his chest.
Before she could even think up an excuse, he cocked his head. “Are you following me?”
“N-No,” she stammered, looking around. “I…”
“Because the last time I checked, you did not have a rendezvous with your parents. I warned you against being seen by your former fiancé, and you have no friends in London. So that leads me to conclude that you followed me after breakfast.”
“I-I did no such thing.”
“Am I speaking with the Countess of Maplewood or my wife?”
Her face burned with humiliation as she recalled the lie she had spewed the first time they met.
“Fine,” she snapped. “Fine, yes, I followed you. But only because you are so secretive! You are shutting me out of everything. You will not give me answers, you will not tell me about your business, and you frequently disappear for days at a time.”
“So you thought you would investigate me?” He pushed off the door, stalking over to her.
Eleanor wasn’t afraid of him, but she backed up several paces, her eyes fixed on him. His eyes were fierce but heavy, as if he was exhausted, yet he still burned with so much ire.
She felt her back hitting the wall of a building nearby.
“I want to be involved,” she insisted. “You married me to keep me safe, not to shut me out. I can be safe while?—”
“And what if Lord Belgrave is here?” the Duke hissed. “What if he is hiding in this crowd right now, watching you, Eleanor?”
Heavens, she burned at the casual way he uttered her name, at the thought of it stemming from the intimacy of their kiss in the drawing room.
“I need to keep you safe, and that means you must stay out of my business.”
“It was my business before yours,” she shot back hotly. “It wasmylife that was ruined before anything.Iriskedmylife to tell you about all of this. I have every right to know whether you are investigating him.”
The Duke loomed over her, so close that their chests almost touched. “Get in the carriage.”
His order was flat and short, and she blanched.
“Eleanor,” he grunted, “get in the carriage.”
“So you can finish your secretive meeting in private?”
“No,” he snapped. “So I can take us both home before you are spotted and word gets back to Belgrave. Was it not you who said he could have eyes and ears everywhere? They are more likely to be right here in this part of London than Everdawn Village.”
But Eleanor wouldn’t give in, not that easily.
She tilted her head back and looked him in the eye. “Why are you so insistent on keeping me at arms’ length?”
His eyes were hard, boring into hers. “Is wanting to keep yousafesuch a difficult thing to grasp? I did not shut you out because of pride or some boastful stubbornness. I did it for yoursafety. To protect you.” He nodded toward the carriage. “I will order my driver to leave and ride with you.”
Eleanor opened her mouth to protest, but he was already striding past her. By the time she realized that she had somehow trapped herself into a long ride back with him, with nowhere to escape for either of them, he was holding the carriage door open.
He didn’t look at her as she climbed into the carriage. They still had not talked about their kiss.
Eleanor plopped down on the bench, and he got in beside her. He sat close—closer than he had after their wedding—and when he planted his hands on the cushions beneath them, his fingers brushed hers. He drew back quickly, but she wished he hadn’t.
She flushed, thinking of how those fingers had cupped her face in the drawing room, how they had tended to her. His body was so close to hers; all it would take was one ill-timed turn of her head and their faces would touch.
