They passed a throng of on-lookers and Katherine blinked, remembering…
“My sister!” she blurted. She could not leave Anne to find her own way home.
“How old is your sister,” he rumbled.
“Nineteen.”
“Then she can certainly find her way,” he said, not breaking his stride.
Katherine gasped at his ungentlemanly reaction. “Y-you a-are a m-monster,” she stammered.
Since she’d first stumbled into the gentleman, the unyielding expression gave way to a smile; it was a dark, hard, rendering devoid of all merriment and it chilled her like the frozen River Thames. “Yes. Yes, I am.”
He stopped beside a black lacquer carriage with a golden crest emblazoned upon the door. A lion reared upon its legs, a blade clenched between its vicious teeth.
The sight of it gave her pause, and she shoved against him. He was a monster.
A servant attired in crimson red livery with gold epaulets pulled the door open.
The monster tossed her unceremoniously inside the carriage. Katherine landed amidst the thick, upholstered red velvet seats. She crawled into the corner of the conveyance, and huddled into the folds of his jacket.
“R-release m-me. I-I need t-to f-find m-my sister.”
He climbed inside, and the enormous space shrunk, filled instead with his overwhelming presence.
The door closed behind him and he settled into the seat as though he were King George himself. He folded his arms across his chest and stared at the point above her forehead. “Where is your residence?”
She glanced at the back of the carriage, until she realized he was in fact directing his question her way. He refused to meet her eyes, as though she were some kind of Medusa…her lips flattened into a hard line. Well, with his unbending countenance and hard coldness, he’d been turned to stone long before her. “I demand…”
He leveled her with a hard glare, and her breath caught.
Perhaps he possessed the potent stare of Medusa.
She wet her lips.
Katherine provided the address of her residence.
He barked the directions of her Mayfair townhouse, and then the carriage lurched forward.
Katherine gulped as the carriage wheels rolled along. They picked up in speed, and her heart’s rhythm increased until her pulse pounded loudly in her ears. Her sister was alone….and yet, she trusted Anne would take the very same hackney that had been paid to wait for them back, without difficulty. After all, Anne was the mastermind of all the great schemes and scrapes they found themselves in.
The budding panic blended with the terror that had consumed her that day, only exacerbated by the foul stranger’s presence, and she reached for the carriage handle.
He settled his large, hand over hers.
Katherine jumped.
“I suggest unless you merely want to trade death by drowning for death by the wheels of a carriage, that you release the handle, madam.”
His flat, emotionless tone conveyed boredom. Why, he might as well have been commenting on the weather or offering her tea.
Katherine snatched her hand back, feeling burned by his touch. “You are a m-monster,” she repeated.
He tugged free his wet gloves and beat them against one another. Drops of water sprayed the carriage walls. “Your charge grows unoriginal and tedious, madam.”
And in that moment it occurred to Katherine just how ungrateful she must seem. The towering stranger might be a foul-tempered fiend, but he’d saved her. Her lips twisted. Whether he’d wanted to or not.
“Forgive me, I’ve not yet thanked you.” She took a breath. “So thank you. For saving me. From drowning,” she finished lamely.
His shoulder lifted in a slight shrug. “I’d hardly ruin the amusements of the day by watching you drown beneath the surface of the Thames.”
She expected she should feel outraged, shocked, appalled by those callously delivered words…and yet, something in his tone gave her pause. It was as though he sought to elicit an outraged response from her. Instead of outrage, Katherine was filled with her first stirrings of intrigue, wondering what had happened to turn his black heart so vile.
Katherine did not rise to his clear attempt at bating her. “My name is Lady Katherine Adamson.” Pause. “I imagine I should know the name of my rescuer.”
He said nothing for a while, and Katherine suspected he had no intention of answering her. She sighed and reached for the curtained window.
“Jasper Waincourt, 8th Duke of Bainbridge.”
Her eyes widened. “You are a duke,” she blurted.
He arched a single, frosty black brow at her. “You’d be wise not to make designs upon my title, madam. I’d not wed you if you were the last creature in the kingdom.”