Page 17 of The Rebellious Countess
“It’ll be your bloody damned death!”
He smirked at her profanity, and she wanted to throw her ale in his face. The knock at the door saved him. How dare he act as if they were on their wedding night! Elias—the name suited him she thought, much better than Ellison. Elias Drake, the Earl—blast him! Was he an earl? He’d tricked her into marrying him, so why wouldn’t he have lied about his title?
Her glass smashed against the wall next to the door before she even realized she’d thrown it. Elias flinched, but opened the door to two boys carrying a pair of buckets, each full of steaming water.
Her husband said something in French to the teens that sounded very much like, “My wife will be needing a broom to clean up the mess I made.” Then he winked at them as if they understood how things were between men and women.
The boys laughed, then looked at her angry face and cast their gazes downward as they made their way to the tub. They knew Elias hadn’t broken the glass. It was obvious to everyone and sundry that she had lost her temper. She had let the drama of the afternoon get the best of her and allowed Elias to turn her into a shrew. She wasn’t a shrew. Yet she’d acted like one. Everyone at The Happy Hag thought she was one. And she strongly suspected they believed her husband was the man to tame her.
She closed her eyes and took several calming breaths, counting to ten as she did with her youngest sister in the midst of a tantrum. She didn’t need taming. She was the calm sister. The one to soothe and heal the surliness between siblings. Yet somehow the man she’d married brought out the worst in her.
“If you could bring my husband some clothes, that would be wonderful. He would like to go down and have a drink with the men while I freshen up.” She smiled sweetly at the boys. Elias would not win this battle. He was not going to use the lack of clothing as an excuse for staying in the room with her while she bathed.
“Nous ne parlons pas anglais.” The oldest bowed his head to her when he finished emptying his buckets into the bath.
“We don’t speak English.” Of course they didn’t. No one in the blasted village did. She’d used a similar phrase countless times in the past twenty-four hours. Máira closed her eyes, searching for patience to find the proper words in French. She’d studied the language as a girl, but the only conversations she’d ever experienced in French before this nightmare of a honeymoon involved fripperies, bonnets, and gowns.
She repeated her request for clothing in a choppy mixture of English, French, and a language she’d obviously created from the look on the boys’ faces. Her French had gotten better since landing on shore, but her request was as foreign to her as it was to them. The older of the two, who couldn’t have been more than fourteen, nodded as if he understood. Elias stood at the door, his arms crossed over that gorgeous chest of his, his face a mask of humor as he watched her struggle.
“Your French isn’t bad,” he said, after he closed the door behind the retreating servants. “Although I think you would prefer I wear a shirt and trousers, not a night shirt.” He grinned that devilish smile that could melt the drawers off a seasoned courtesan, and she wanted to hurl another glass in his direction. As if sensing her temper about to boil over, he took another tack to gain the upper hand. “Could you see if Hag has a pair of socks I could put on so I don’t cut my feet.”
“Of course.” She searched through the wardrobe and found one pair of mended men’s socks, and she suddenly wondered ifhe knew they were there because they were his. Determined not to show how the discovery affected her composure, she grabbed them, along with a chair so he could sit to put them on.
“The chair wasn’t necessary, but I appreciate it.”
“You’re welcome.”
They sounded like strangers. Before their wedding, conversation had always flowed freely between them, yet now it was as if everything they had in common prior to exchanging vows, never really existed, kind of like Ellison Collins.
“Are you an earl?” She asked,
“No.”
“No?”
“No.”
“No. That’s it. You’re not going to expand on that and tell me why you lied to me?”
“It’s the same reason I told you my name was Ellison Collins. In order to complete a business transaction, I needed a Scottish wife and a title. The gentleman would only deal with members of thetonwith Scottish brides. Rather a short-sighted fellow, considering how few members of thetonmarry Scottish ladies. My decision to lie about my identity was strictly business.”
She tried not to flinch, but his words stung. While she had been falling in love, he had been calculating a business deal. She could have been any of her sisters—no, that wasn’t true. Her two youngest sisters were too young, Iseabail was married, and Caillen was at the country home of Simon Clark, Earl of Astley, visiting with his mother and sisters. That left Máira or Ailsa. She asked herself if either of them would do, or if it hadn’t really mattered as long as he snared a Scottish bride in his trap.
“Why not the blacksmith’s daughter?” she asked, and he looked pained.Shewas pained. He could answer her bloody damned questions.
“A gentleman of thetonwould require a lady.”
“Why me?”
“Why not you?”
“Because I’m one of the Blair bastards.”
“I didn’t know that.”
“And if you had known?”
“I would have chosen you anyway.”
