Always a Maiden (The Belles of Beak Street #5)(64)

*

“Good God, man watch where you’re going,” said Lord Ashton from the corridor floor.

Evan’s clothes were scattered about and the only thing that saved him from landing on the floor was planting his face into the opposite wall. He fisted his hands perfectly willing to pummel the bastard—not that sitting just outside the doorway to Susanah’s suite was that egregious an offense. “What the devil are you doing?”

If Ashton knew the rage coursing through Evan’s veins, he wouldn’t be sitting there on the floor suppressing a grin. Not very successfully, either. Evan was of a mind to smack it off his face.

Ashton sprang to his feet and grew serious. “As surprising as it is, I’m cast into the role of Lady’s Susanah’s chaperone. My duty is to protect her. So you will marry her.”

What? He’d called her Lady Susanah, not Lady Farringate.

“She’s married…marrying Farringate.” Evan said dumbly. She wasn’t already married to him? “He can marry her.”

Ashton sighed. “I don’t want to challenge you to a duel. So let’s get this straight. You are going to marry her.”

Evan slumped, everything going out of him. If she wanted to marry him, she could have said so at any time over the last few hours, but she hadn’t. “She doesn’t want to marry me. She wants her bloody title.”

Ashton tilted his head and stared at him. “Do you really think that she would apply to me—a man who jilted her—and my wife—the woman she was thrown over for—to come all this way just for you to dance the miller’s reel?” Ashton waved his hand toward the door.

Heat crept up Evan’s neck. He hadn’t been quiet and neither had Lady Susanah. Although her softer moans probably hadn’t carried as far. But she would be mortified to know that they’d been overheard. But then Evan hadn’t expected anyone to be lurking just outside her sitting room door. But it was too much to take in. “She needed to prepare for what she’d face in her marriage bed. She doesn’t like to be touched.”

She’d said as much, hadn’t she? Did he have this all wrong?

“Could have fooled me,” said Ashton, but then he cleared his throat. “However, she assured us you had proposed to her.”

“She turned me down.” Evan would have left, but he couldn’t leave his clothing scattered about. One shoe was eluding him. His shoe was under a small table, and he bent to retrieve it. Then he could leave.

“Just now?” Ashton’s voice crested upward.

Evan looked at the other man. Could he have this wrong? But no, Susanah was telling him to stay away from Annabelle. Her opinion of him wasn’t very high. And his prospects for the foreseeable future were dismal.

Then again she had come to him. His heart gave an awkward thump at the same time his stomach burned. What must she think of him?

Ashton took his indecision as a moment to press. He put a hand on Evan’s shoulder and turned him back towards the door. “She is not the same girl I proposed to. And you look as though you haven’t slept for a month. Now, go back in there and get this straightened out. Trust me when I say, the longer you let it go, the more things will fester.”

Evan dug in his bare feet and resisted the pressure. He couldn’t believe it. He’d spent the entire evening—actually all of their time together—knowing she was lost to him. His brain would not make the transition. “If she wanted to accept my offer, why wouldn’t she say so?”

Why hadn’t she just said so instead of implying she didn’t want Farringate to be the one to take her virginity—which now that he thought about it was a big club of a clue that should have hit him over the head.

“She’s a stickler for rules our Lady Susanah. You asked, she said no. Now you have to ask again, and she’ll say yes. She couldn’t possibly ask you to marry her.”

It was too much to believe.

Ashton was reaching for the doorknob.

Evan shook his head. “I just…” he gestured toward the door.

“Showed her the heavens?” supplied Ashton. “She has no basis for comparison.”

That hadn’t been what he was about to say. Evan stared at the other man trying to get his objections in order. He wasn’t certain he could make her happy. But then his thoughts circled the concept that she might not understand how amazing their lovemaking had been. How he finally understood the biblical command to worship her with his body.

Ashton pushed his jaw up with a finger underneath Evan’s chin. “If you want I can have Annabelle speak with her, but it would be much better if you go back in there and sort it out for yourself. Women are odd ducks. They need the words.” He dropped his voice. “And just in case you do too, she loves you.”

Did she? Why, the devil, wouldn’t she just say so? Because a man was supposed to go first with declarations. How could he have been so blind? Evan reached for the doorknob himself.

“Good man.” Ashton clapped him on the shoulder. “And do not under any circumstances tell her that you have to marry her or have lead for breakfast. She won’t understand.”

Evan opened the door. Ashton gave him a thumbs up, for luck no doubt. After closing the door behind him, Evan dropped his shoes and various pieces of clothing. He crossed the empty and silent sitting room. Surely she hadn’t just turned over and gone to sleep.