Page 77 of The Wolf of Mayfair
The earl made no attempt to break her fall.
Helia came down on rock-hard earth, frozen from the winter’s cold. Pain radiated from the place where her buttocks made contact with the ground, and that excruciating throbbing shot up her lower back.
Helia’s hair, having come loose from the sled ride—which now felt a lifetime ago—hung in a tangle over her face.
Angrily shoving back that makeshift curtain, she glared up at her brutish cousin.
Only when she’d at last looked at him fully did he speak. “The only thing I may be persuaded to do is place you over my knee, toss your skirts up, and redden your stubborn arse,” he said dispassionately. His eyes darkened. “In fact, I would enjoy that task immensely.”
With his slightly hooked nose, nearly black irises, and features too angular to be pleasing, he’d an unforgiving harshness to him.
Helia’s breath came hard and fast; each noisy inhalation and exhalation stirred clouds of white upon the air.
The new earl, on the other hand, wore a bored expression. “After being led on a merry chase from Scotland to London in the heart of winter and in the midst of a snowstorm, I’m growing remarkably short of patience.”
Nay, he wasn’t a tall man, but with Helia flat on her arse as she was, the earl towered over her like the mightiest silver fir.
To compensate for that advantage, she angled her neck enough to get a crick and scowled. “Och, but I dinnae ask you to come for me.”
“There’s nothing more to discuss.” He consulted his timepiece and then returned that gold chain to his jacket.
“I’ve had about all I can take of you, Miss Wallace,” he said softly, with a lethality she’d never before known a quiet murmuring could possess.
She fought the dread twisting around in her stomach.
Determined to get on equal footing, Helia pushed herself to a stand.
She fixed a sneer on the earl, one even Anthony would have been hard-pressed not to admire.
Anthony!She forced herself to not think of him now. Doing so would only weaken her, and she needed all her wits about her.
“Given your annoyance with me, then, ye should be all too glad to l-let me go.” Helia hated that she couldn’t contain the faint entreaty there.
The earl didn’t rise to the bait or take that offer—not that she’d truly believed he would.
“I wish I could,” the earl said. He gave her a harsh look. “Trust me, I do wish that were the case. The very last thing I want is an intractable country bumpkin as my wife.” He considered Helia with a calculating gleam in his eyes. “No. Regretfully, I’ve no choicebutto make you my countess, Miss Wallace.”
He took a step toward her and Helia jumped back.
“Given you are familiar with the c-concept of ‘ch-choice’”—the stammer to her words had nothing to do with the cold—“then you’ll understand when I say, in matters of who I will or will not marry, I’ll make my own decisions. And Ichoosenot to marry you. In fact, I dinnae want a bluidy thing to do with ye,Mr. Draxton.”
The new earl looked faintly amused at that slight. “It appears there is one way we are in accord, Miss Wallace.”
He flicked a piece of imagined lint from the collar of his grey-and-blue greatcoat. “Alas, your witless father was rubbish at finances,” he hissed, wringing a gasp from her. “And the only money he left with his insolvent estates was, in fact, your dowry, and as such,you.”
Her fingers curled into claws. “Ye boggin, doaty dobber, shut yer pus,” she hissed. Then the rage, frustration, and sorrow she’d suppressed at the unfairness of her situation set her free.
Helia launched herself at the new earl; she pummeled his chest with her fists. “You cannae hold a candle to my da.”
He captured her wrists in a single hand and swiftly put an end to her rebellious efforts. “I’ll allow that to be true ... given he’s dead,” he said in that bored way.
A crimson fury fell over her eyes. Snapping and hissing, Helia managed to wrench her hands free of his grasp. Knowing she was no match for his strength, she heeded her father’s long-ago lesson and brought her knee up to catch Mr. Draxton between his legs.
He cursed and intercepted her efforts.
The earl clamped a viselike touch on her knee, and even beneath the many layers of fabric of her dress and cloak, that punishing cinch brought tears flooding to her eyes.
Helia continued to wrestle with Mr. Draxton.
