Page 40 of The Trouble with Tigers
Exactly what Kitty wanted to know.
“He’s obviously the new Baron of Maidstone, obviously Kitty’s guardian, and obviously wanted to find her. What I want to know is what he intended to do with her once he did.”
An image of Garrick’s face caught in a flash of lightning the night she’d fled came to her.We’re going to marry. Tonight I’m going to make certain.“I believe he wants to marry me.”
“Why marry you? After all, he has the title, the properties, the associated wealth. Is it your inheritance?” Zeke asked without preamble.
For some reason, hiss inability to fathom Garrick wanting to marry her for any reason other than mercenary irritated her—never mind his analysis of the situation matched her own. “I don’t know his motivation. Only that it isn’t love that drives him.”
Zeke’s brows rose in disdain, as if the mention of love as a basis for marriage was laughable. “What about you? I assume you have good reason not to marry him?”
Kitty felt herself flush under their combined scrutiny.
“Ezekiel, I think it’s fair to say Kitty has her reasons. Is that not so, dear?” Lillian asked in a gentle voice.
“Quite,” she answered.
“That eases my mind greatly,” Zeke drawled.
“Ezekiel Thurgood.” Lillian chided, clearly exasperated. She turned to Kitty. “I don’t know what’s gotten into him. He’s normally quite charming.”
“Why Aunt Lillian, you wound me,” he said with a grin, turning on the aforementioned charm at will.
“Oh, posh,” his aunt answered with a fond smile.
Kitty could tell Lady Lillian what had happened to foul her nephew’s mood. She had. He’d disliked her from the start.
In fairness to him, the earl had used her as fodder to provoke Zeke’s temper, yet here he was, escorting her to Hastings House, then back to Derby to act as her fiancé. She supposed she could extend him a modicum of patience.
“That’s all right, Lady Lillian. This situation has put us all on edge, for one reason or another.”
When Zeke gave no indication he heard, she went on, “I’m very grateful for what you all are doing for me. I don’t know how I’ll ever repay your kindness.”
“I can’t speak for the rest, but for my part, I haven’t had this much excitement in years.” Lillian’s eyes twinkled with warmth.
A lengthy silence ensued, during which Kitty stared out one window and Zeke the other.
After a while, the landscape blurred before her eyes as the rocking and rumble of the carriage lulled Kitty into drowsiness. She fought it, feeling almost as if sleeping would be a show of weakness.
***
Zeke surreptitiously witnessed her struggle. Watched her eyelids drift shut, then widen. Watched her head bob, then straighten. Finally her head lolled back onto the cushion as sleep overtook her.
A soft snore coming from his aunt told him she also dozed.
Good. He could do with some peace to quell his growing irritation, which would be a lot easier if he understood why he was irritated.
He’d left Claybourne Manor this morning feeling damned good about his decision to team up with the earl. It didn’t matter if the project involved Lady Kitty Hastings, a pauper from the streets, or the queen herself. The point was, through this endeavor, he had a chance to heal the growing rift between himself and Claybourne.
He’d arrived at the boarding house keen to thwart the baron’s attempt to steal Kitty out of town, the lying bastard. Initially he’d scoffed at the earl’s suspicions concerning James’s intentions. What kind of idiot pulled a fast one on the Earl of Claybourne?
Then the footman the earl had watching the man reported James had hired a carriage from a nearby mews. The telling part hadn’t been in the where, but the when. James specified a dawn departure—not midmorning, the time he’d agreed upon with the earl. The fool. Zeke had been only too happy to crush the baron’s ill-conceived plot.
When he arrived to find Kitty disheveled and clearly dispirited, he’d had to quell a strong compulsion to squash the newly ennobled baron like a bug.
Then she’d given him one of those looks. Those odd, misty green gazes resembling nothing short of hero worship that at least didn’t seem so strange coming from her now he knew her to be a she.
In retrospect, that’s when his irritation began.
