Page 26 of Til Death Duke Us Part
His brows rushed together, his lips tight, and his gaze hot on her lips. A clear message there, a firm reply: no.
She kicked her feet. Good God, the indignity. “You must put me down now.” He did, slowly, and when her feet hit the ground and she’d steadied herself, she patted his chest. “Quite good. Thank you.”
He snatched her hand and tugged her toward the inn.
The innkeeper scurried after them. “A room, then?”
“Yes,” Morington barked. “For my wife and I.”
“We have several available, sir. Would you prefer inner access or outer?—”
Morington stopped so quickly, the innkeeper slammed into him from behind. “What do you prefer?” he asked Persephone.
“It… does not matter.”
He scowled at the innkeeper. “Your best available.”
The innkeeper did a marvelous job of standing his ground despite the visible tremble shaking his body from head to toe. “Right this way, ah… my lord?”
“Sharpton. Viscount Sharpton.”
The innkeeper bowed low and ushered them inside.
“A real person, I presume,” Persephone whispered.
“A friend from my days at Rugby.” He wore a different man’s face—narrower with a widow’s peak announcing a slicked-back waterfall of black hair.
“Not a friend any longer.” Her own gown had been glamoured into a rich blue velvet. “Does my face look different?”
“No.”
“But—”
“No.”
The innkeeper showed them to a well-furnished room—small, round table and chairs beneath a window, a fireplace opposite that, and a bed dominating the rug-less middle of a room adorned only with a single, curiously detailed painting of a toad. He promised to send up a hearty repast. Morington let the man leave without a single note of thanks.
“You could be nicer,” she said when they were alone.
“Why?” He’d dropped the glamour and was back to himself, all sneering golden beauty.
“I like you better when you grin,” she said, inspecting the mantel above the fireplace for a tinderbox.
“No, no. You sit. A maid will start a fire when she brings dinner.”
“But I can do it now.”
He grinned, and it twisted up her insides, sent little fireworks blooming along her veins. “Sit. Save your hands for tomorrow night. When we make my fortune.”
Ah, yes, she’d promised to help him with that little task. But she hadn’t said how she’d help him. She sat and smoothed her skirts. They were still rich blue velvet, not a single frayed thread in sight. He’d kept her well-dressed while he’d dropped his own mask. What a relief to see him—the bumpy nose, the knife-sharp cheekbones, the eyes filled with wicked thoughts.
A knock on the door heralded the maid’s arrival, and Morington clicked his glamour into placed before she entered, and he began barking orders: start a fire, set the food there, we need wine, bring an extra blanket for my wife on the off chance she gets cold at night. She left in a snit, and with good reason.
“Morington?” Persephone purred from where she sat primly on the bed’s edge.
“Yes?” That blade-sharp voice was morning soft for her. “Has no one ever taught you manners?”
“I’ve no idea what you mean.”
