The Heart of a Duke(106)
Ignoring him, she straightened and rapped her knuckles against the back panel.
“No one will answer. I gave them leave to take a short break, for I required a moment of your time.”
Everyone rushed to do the bidding of a damn duke, she silently seethed. “Well, I do not want a moment of yours,” she snapped, cringing at the peevish tone in her voice. She drew a deep breath, and spoke in a calm manner, the antithesis of what she was feeling. “Please, we have nothing to say to each other. I must ask you to leave.” She refused to spar with the man. Had forgotten her sabre and gloves. Perhaps more importantly, the Manton revolver.
Edmund snorted. “Don’t you sound properly aggrieved. Like a maligned innocent, but we both know otherwise, don’t we?” He slipped off his leather gloves and lay them across his lap, crossing his legs as if settling in for a leisurely chat. “I doubt my brother would approve either. All the more reason to remain. As I am sure you have been apprised by now, we never did see eye to eye on things. Never will, but that is all to end soon.”
“If you are not inclined to leave, Your Grace, then allow me to do so.” She slid forward but froze when he leaned over and slapped a large hand against the door, his ducal ring mocking her. His eyes were hard, mere slits.
“You always did have a mutinous streak. It is time you learned your place.” He arched an imperious brow.
She paled and slid her shaking hands beneath her blanket, hoping the tremors in her legs didn’t convey her terror. She moistened dry lips. “What do you want, Edmund?”
He leaned back, his calf with its elegant silk stocking swinging casually. He straightened his cuff and flicked a piece of lint from his nut-brown jacket. “I want you to listen very carefully to everything I have to say because if you do not, I promise you, you will rue the day.”
She swallowed. “I am listening.”
“Good. Shortly, we will leave this coach, and you will accept my escort into mine. I will make the explanations and you will go along quietly. Should there be a scene, it will not go well for you. My men will carry out my orders and it will be your men who will suffer the consequences. Do you understand?”
She nodded. It was as if his words had sucked all the air out of the carriage, and she needed to concentrate on taking small breaths.
He appeared to become aware of her pallor, and his eyes narrowed in warning. “You are not one to swoon, so please do not adopt the odious habit now.”
If she had felt faint, his condescension snapped her out of it. Bristling, she found the voice she had lost. “Where are we going? What do you want?”
“You know damn well what I want, and you are going to help me get it.”
He was wrong. She didn’t know what the devil Edmund sought other than some possibly incriminating papers that once belonged to his late father’s solicitor. But she did know enough to be petrified. Perhaps if she helped Edmund to retrieve what he was so desperate to acquire, she might just survive this nightmare. If he wanted her to beg, she would do so. “Please, Edmund, let us discuss this in a rational manner. I am sure we—”
“We cannot.” His eyes, the compelling moss green, were a perverted mirror of Daniel’s. “It is time to go.” He slid on his gloves, uncrossed his legs, and eased forward.
“Why do you hate him so?” she breathed.
He paused and his smile was slow and insidious, never reaching his eyes or warming his expression. “Let us just say he has something I want. But now we are even. Because now I have something he wants.”
“But why—
“Enough!” His hand shot up, and she recognized the rage in his eyes, a flame that lit and died when she eased back into the cushions of the seat, cowering.
“Behave and no one gets hurt. Of course, it is your decision, Julia, but I doubt you will be so foolish as to jeopardize your servants.” He smiled triumphantly.
In her fear, she was oblivious to the explanations Edmund gave to her driver and footman. She could not resist a small cry when his gloved hand vised around her elbow, but one sharp look had her biting her lip so hard she drew blood.
She stumbled going up the steps to his coach, and his arms were there, lifting and pushing her inside. She scrambled onto the seat and buried her unsteady hands in her cloak.
Edmund climbed in behind her and the click of the lock echoed in the cabin.
She lifted her chin and ventured to speak above the pounding of her heart. “Where are we going?”
“To meet my brother. Where else?”
When he flashed Daniel’s smile, she closed her eyes, unable to look at the perversion.
She marveled at the strange irony that the one person whom her heart had been yearning for every hour of every day over the past week was now the last person on earth she hoped to see.