Chapter 43

"Lord Hawley ..."
As the coach door shut behind him, Cass snapped her mouth shut in advance of asking what he wanted. After all the last time she'd asked him that, look at the resulting mess. Anyway nothing would stop her leaving.
"Checking for stolen silverware, are you?"
In reply he eased his limbs, long and lean in immaculate fawn breeches and a robin's-egg colored coat, onto the seat opposite. Good God, what had he done to his face? Two of the worst nicks she'd ever seen sliced his wonderfully chiseled cheekbones.
He canted his jaw. "That depends on where the hell you're going, Miss Armstrong."
Although she gave a little laugh, it took every ounce of her self possession not to open the other door, gather her skirts, and leap out onto the driveway. Going? Where indeed was far enough?
She should never have shown him her scars. What on earth was she thinking? He wasn't a man she could help, any more than she was a woman who ever did such things.
"It's fine. I can walk." She reached for the handle. So did he.
"I advise you not to tempt me."
"Really?" She jerked up her chin. "And I advise you to do the same. I won't withdraw the accusation a second time."
She waited for the rejoinder. In all probability something about shrubberies and Gil. Unless that was what he meant to accuse her of?
She could explain Gil. The notion of trying to avoid notice and not wanting to cost the state a fortune for a funeral was tempting. She was sure she could get Lord Koorecroft to believe it. Devorlane Hawley would look dumber than a tongue-less donkey trying to rescind the fact he'd helped her.
If not she could leave the area before ever a party arrived with spades to dig Gil up.
He shifted uncomfortably, then he cleared his throat. "I'm not asking you to withdraw anything."
"Goodness. I should be flattered. But I'm not."
"Look you ... you showed me something and I was undeniably rude to you about it."
"Dear me, how much opium have we taken this morning, Lord Hawley? It'd have to be the whole bottle for you to imagine I showed you anything, and even more, that you, of all people, were rude about it. A paragon of politeness like you? Oh, and really, you should try not to shave when you've-"
"You took me by surprise. I didn't realize just how hard your life must have been and that's the truth. Now I do-"
"You what? Want to make me laugh?"
"No. What I want-"
"Oh, we know what you want. So save your sodding breath." She lowered her eyelashes. It was far more important she veiled her gaze than meet the one he leveled on her. She knew exactly what he thought of her, so an apology now amounted to nothing. "That bit of my life is what it is. Past."
"It can't be, because you talked to me about your brother the same way, so don't lie."
"Yes. Yes, I did tell you. I did it in the hope that maybe you wouldn't demand what you soddin' did. But then that hope left me, like every other soddin' one's ever done my whole life, so there's not a great deal more to be said. Not about Matthew. Not about anything real-"
"That's where you're wrong."
She muffled a shriek as the coach turned sharply and inexplicably to the left. Every thought about Matthew and that night ripped from her head as the gates flashed past, with her clinging to the leather coach seat on the wrong side of them. A mistake to think it was anything other than deliberate. Her orders to Carson were precise. A bigger mistake would be to do more than fix her bored glance on Devorlane Hawley's waistcoat.
"I think you're the one who's wrong, my lord. You must excuse my sense of geography being on the same par as the rest of my education, certainly you must excuse it not being on a par with yours, but Barwych isn't this way. But then I suppose it's not that long since I saw you pouring narcotic-laced brandy down your throat? Or maybe it was brandy-laced narcotic?"
He sat forward.
"Let's begin with that first night, shall we?"
"I'm sorry?"
"Where you struck me after I obviously had the temerity to ask you if you were a virgin. Do you want to know why I asked you?"
"Not especially." She glanced out the window as if she was interested at her half-reflected face against the trees there. Beyond its stark whiteness, her chin set as she best knew it, she'd watch the leaves falling like endless colored rain, brown, orange-washed, crisp red.
Not if the horses dragged her around and around the driveway for the duration of December, January too, was she going back into Chessington. And, over her dead body was she going to discuss that night. The reasons why she'd been what she was. The things she kept to herself. It was bad enough she'd shown him these scars.
"I think you'll find that my wants are surprisingly simple. Anyway, you put me out. So I don't want to hear anything, except the coach wheels trundling along the road to Barwych, sometime today. Thank you."
He gave an exasperated sigh. "Hell's teeth, take your nose out the window, will you?"
"Just because I can doesn't mean I will, Lord Hawley."
"Devorlane."
Had he said he was the Lord God come down from heaven to while away a weary hour driving around and around the Chessington driveway in a coach, no greater rod of surprise could have raked her scalp. Or might weren't she counting the red falling leaves, separately from the brown. One, two, three.
"Devorlane, please, or Devorlane, thank you, makes no soddin' difference to me, Lord Hawley. If you don't stop this coach now, I shall jump. Then you can be in trouble for kidnap. Causing severe bodily injury too. That is my final word on the matter."
"A trifle dramatic. Twenty-seven is hardly the age to carry on as if you were seventeen, Miss Armstrong, so why don't you drop this?"
No. Twenty-seven was sensible enough to know however this ended, it could only be badly.
She wasn't a moth to the hungry glitter in his eyes but she had given far more than she'd ever given any man and not just her virginity. She'd given him Matthew, beatings, scars. Now she had these papers there was nothing for her here. Nothing he could say would change that.
"Says the man who has a behavior age of ten."
"Listen to me. There's something I need to say. About this. About all of this. About me. About you. The other night. Everything."
"Very well. Don't say I didn't warn you." She grasped the other handle. He lunged across her, grabbing her hand.
"Christ, just what is so awful about us starting this again? Would you tell me that? What exactly are you so damned afraid of that you won't step back into Chessington with me?"