Page 27 of The Marquess Wins a Wife
“I saidno.”
“I am aware of what you said. I simply do not understand.”
“It’s a very simple word, your lordship. Is your education so lacking that you cannot call its meaning to mind?” There was something satisfying in the narrowing of his eyes as he realized he was being mocked. There was something satisfying in mocking him, too, for she suspected his inflated sense of his own consequence did not allow for mockery. Perhaps no one had ever dared.
“People do not tell meno,” he said, and a muscle twitched in the smooth surface of his cheek. “It simply is notdone.”
“It is now.” The temerity of the man! “You do not make demands of me, and I don’t give a figwhoyou are.”
Startled laughter burst from his throat. “Why, you little shrew—”
“Perhaps you are accustomed to doing as you please in London, my lord, but I assure you, if your presence here were known, it would not reflect well upon us.”
He gave a disdainful sniff, his chin notched to that lofty angle she so loathed. “No one would dare say anything of it.”
“Oh, no,” she agreed, employing a tone of patently false sweetness. “Not toyou, certainly. Your high and mightylordshipsurely could do no wrong in the eyes of society.”
“I beg your pardon.High and mighty?”
“Have I stuttered?” This, in a sibilant hiss that brought a wave of color flooding into his cheeks. “I will not assist you in damaging our reputations.”
Those glacial blue eyes blazed. “You’ve done a fine job protecting them thus far,” he said snidely, and she gasped as the barb struck true. “A pregnant sister, a wastrel father, and yourself a kidnapper. One only wonders what little Georgie will grow into with such paragons of virtue surrounding him.”
Lizzie’s incensed gasp sliced the air between them. “Find your own way into town if you wish to go,” she said on a scowl. “But I will not help you.” Her hand closed around the lump of dough upon the counter, fingers squeezing until the glutinous mass was mangled beneath the pressure of them.Blast. Now she would have to let it rise all over again, though more likely it had been ruined already.
And he—he stared down at the ruined lump of dough as if it were a revelation. “You’ve already baked bread,” he said, something inscrutable lurking between the subtle threads of his voice.
“I’m baking more,” she said, tartly. He ate enough for any two men—the bread she’d made would not last. Especially if she wished to have a filling supper. She gave him her back and proceeded to work the dough in her hands, forming it into a ball anew.
A long moment of silence passed. Tense, fraught silence, so thick she could have squeezed it in her hands just the same as the dough. But she would not be the one to break it.
A shred of a sigh emerged over her left shoulder, filled with resignation. “That was not well done of me,” he admitted.
She said nothing.
“I’m sorry.” It sounded sullen, nearly resentful. Like a truculent child pressed into repentance. If there lurked any true contrition within the statement, it had been obscured beneath layers of irritation.
Lizzie did not bother to dignify it with a response.
“Have you gone deaf? Iapologized.” This with increasing agitation, as if it wounded him to the core of his soul—or ego, she supposed—to be ignored. “Will younowtake me into town?”
“Apologies are given without expectation of reward,” Lizzie bit off between the tight clench of her teeth, which might’ve snapped for his jugular if she were only a little worse behaved. “Something yououghtto have been taught as a child, my lord. I don’t believe youaresorry, besides.”
“I said I was,” he snapped, and when that, too, failed to elicit the expected response, at last he said, snidely, “I shall prevail upon Willie for his assistance.”
“Hah.” The tart sound provoked an impotent sound of fury from him, likely because the prosaic derision inflected within perfectly encapsulated the chances of his success there.
“Then I shall saddle a horse on my own and ride.”
“In your condition?” An inelegant snort. “You’d fall right on your arse.” Her flour-coated fingers sailed through the air with a flippant little gesture. “Only tell me when you choose to attempt it. I should like to witness your inevitable humiliation.”
“Vindictive wench,” he muttered, though from the corner of her eye she could see him subtly flex his arm as if to test its suitability for a ride. His lips stretched in a grimace, which Lizzie assumed to mean that he would not be taking to horseback anytime soon. Even a carriage ride might prove excruciating, being as it would be upon roads which had not been well maintained.
She had expected that to be the end of it, for him to storm off in a pique as she had imagined he would. She had learned to expect it of him, after all—petty tantrums; complaints; sulks. Instead his gaze landed once more upon the lump of dough she kneaded in her hands.
His hands flexed at his sides. “Georgie could go to school,” he said, finally.
Lizzie faltered, and the dough skidded across the surface of the countertop, turning from a ball into a misshapen blob. “What?”
