The Earl of Davenport: Wicked Regency Romance (Wicked Earls' Club #7)(16)

He refused to ask what she meant by that. Her smug smile had put him on edge and time was of the essence if he was to get back to the Cleveland home and back on the road with time to spare. His plan was to make it halfway there by nightfall and he’d already sent a servant ahead to make the appropriate accommodations at an inn.



He and Anne were on the road in no time. He’d been surprised but pleased to find her standing beside a valise on the steps of her family home at precisely the time he’d indicated.

As he helped her into his carriage, he asked, “Did you speak to your brother?”

She nodded but that answer did not quell his curiosity. What had she told him? That she wanted to marry him? Surely not. But it was her decision and she was here, that was all that mattered. Still, he found himself probing. “Did he approve of your choice?”

She turned, halfway in the carriage, laughter making her eyes a vivid blue. “Would it make a difference?”

No, not at all, he realized. Even if her brother were to object, he would swoop her into his arms and into his carriage. His mind had been made and, once decided, he never wavered.

When he didn’t immediately respond, she tilted her head to the side. “I thought not. And I can assure you that even if Jed disapproved, he would not be able to do more than wish us well.”

Her lips tightened and her nostrils flared, making it obvious that she was irritated with her brother. And who could blame her? After all, it was Jed’s reckless management and addiction to the gaming tables that led to their financial predicament. He’d be damn angry at her brother himself if their dire straits hadn’t given him the bride he’d been searching for.

Once they were settled, he thought to reassure her. “I’ve made arrangements to ensure that your family is taken care of as soon as we are married.”

She’d been looking out the window, watching her family home recede into the distance, and when she turned to him, she surprised him with a cheerful smile. “I know that.”

He blinked. She did? Her ready acceptance that he would protect her and her family made his chest tighten in an unusual, though not unpleasant manner.

He couldn’t tear his eyes away from her as the carriage took them north. His gaze moved over her red hair glinting in the sun, the ivory skin that glowed as if from within, the cloak that frustratingly obscured his view of her body.

But his gaze kept returning to her rosy lips, which were turned up at the edges as though she was out for a pleasant drive and not being whisked away to marry a man society had deemed the worst sort of devil.

Finally, he couldn’t hold back any longer. Shifting in his seat so he could lounge back as he studied her, he asked the question that had been running through his mind from the moment she’d entered his carriage. “Are you not frightened?”

Her eyes widened as she turned to face him. “Should I be?” Again, laughter filled her voice and warmed him as surely as a draught of whiskey.

He found himself returning her teasing smile. “Most would be.”

She tilted her chin up in a way he was starting to recognize and love. “Well, I am not most.”

“No, you most assuredly are not,” he murmured. He’d always known that his little hellion was in a class of her own and it was becoming clearer by the second that her singular status held true as an adult as well.

Her gaze held his as her smile grew. “Besides, I know better than anyone that you are not the devil people say you are.”

His brows shot up in surprise. “Do you?”

Though his voice was low and taunting, she continued on without so much as a pause. “Of course.” She leaned forward slightly as though to let him in on a secret. “You seem to forget that I’ve known you since you were a boy.”

A flicker of an age-old, nearly forgotten pain shot through him at that unintended reminder. Some would argue that as a boy was when he was the most wicked. His parents would attest to that if they were alive.

As would Robert.

But Anne’s mind had clearly not followed the same dark, dismal path. Instead she was outright grinning at him. “Do not pretend that you don’t remember being my savior as a child.”

He frowned. Savior? Him?

Never.

“You always came to my defense when I was being teased.”

He stared at her. Had he?

“You must remember standing up to that bully Roger Griffin,” she said, sounding entirely confident that he would remember.

He did not.

Her head cocked to the side as she sighed. “Perhaps you do not. I do, however. It wasn’t every day that two boys fought over me.”

Ah. A hint of a memory came back to him of that large, thickheaded boy from the village getting a pounding for calling Anne names. He supposed he had come to her defense. He shrugged in the carriage, oddly uncomfortable at the praise, and even more so by the look in her eyes. Almost as though she admired him.

“I was always looking for an excuse to fight,” he said. “I didn’t need a good reason.”

Her smile didn’t falter. Instead, it grew. “And what about the time you leapt to Jed’s defense.” She shook her head then, a hint of sadness marring her happiness. “And don’t think my siblings and I don’t know the way you tried to steer Jed away from gambling all those years ago.”