Page 46 of Pride: The Rogue
His entire body jerked erect.
“Not meet my husband somewhere!” she was quick to clarify. “Myfuturehusband. I’m not married—yet.”
With that, Livian went back to sipping her milk.
Yet.
She’d tacked that on for what purpose? To remind herself? To assure Latimer. If the intended goal was the latter, it had the opposite effect. Her speaking about the journey to meet up with some priggish, lofty lord, sent dark fistfuls of rage through him. A nobleman didn’t deserve and wouldn’t appreciate Livian’s gumption, spirit, and boldness.
Just the opposite.
“Your future husband couldn’t be bothered to accompany you himself?” he snarled, knowing he sounded like a bloody brute, and unable to stop himself.
Livian brought her shoulders back. “It is complicated.”
“Complicated is hardly a promising start to a happy marriage, sweetheart,” he drawled. “I’m also noticing a pattern in how you’re treated by the men in your life.”
Livian slammed her tankard down. “You know nothing, Lachlan Latimer,” she snapped, all hot, breathless fury that sent his desire for her climbing.
He kicked back on the heels of his chair. “Give me a try.”
For an instant, he thought she’d not respond, and he’d be denied the answer to a question he, for some, unexplainable, reason, needed.
“It is an arranged marriage.”
It was a moment before he registered the brave beauty’s quiet admission.
Shock sent him and his chair tipping forward back onto all fours. Surely, he hadn’t heard her correctly.
An arranged marriage?
Livian’s hesitant, little nod confirmed he’d spoken his question aloud.
“You are entering into a marriage to some chap you haven’t even met,” he gritted out.
She gave another nod; this one came steadier.
A growl built within. “Never tell me, a nobleman your devoted brother-in-law has connections to?”
“No,” she spoke with a calm, he somehow, for some deranged reason, couldn’t manage.
Because of her? A goddamned stranger.
Even that sent his rage soaring.
“Suddenly garrulous Miss Livian Lovelace is all one-word answers and sentences,” he clipped out.
“Because again, you’re venturing guesses,” she hissed, sticking her face closer to his. “You aren’t asking actual questions. You’re just sitting there, inventing stories about me and my decisions and future, and then, as if that isn’t pompous enough, you’re judging me for them.”
“I’m not judging you.”
With mocking eyes, she gibed him. “You could have fooled me, Mr. I-Know-All-The-Answers-Latimer.”
Hedidknow all the answers.
Perhaps, that was why he sat so bloody confounded before this woman. He didn’t have the answers for his maddening fascination withher.
Latimer gritted his teeth. “He’s not a nob, then?”
