Page 13 of Loving a Beast of a Marquess
“He thought he could rely on our generosity rather than his own.” Evangeline slammed her hand on the dressing table, rattling the earrings she had just laid upon it. “He thought our house would be more comfortable than his, and so, he intends to abuse our hospitality. But I will show him that we are not what he thought us to be.”
“Be careful,” Dorothea said.
Evangeline laughed, the sound hard and angry. “Perhaps it is he who ought to be careful. He does not know what I am capable of.”
ChapterSix
Having the Marquess stay with them was just as obnoxious as Evangeline had feared. He rose early and did not eat breakfast with them, thank heavens, but they all ate together in the evenings. Lady Harley was a kind and gentle woman who immediately bonded with her aunt, but the Marquess remained as brooding and obnoxious as ever.
The first thing Evangeline did was use her butterfly net to catch a bee and place it in his boots. A yell from upstairs told her that she had been successful, and so, she planned several more pranks. Harmless ones, she told herself—ones that would persuade him to leave rather than cause actual damage. She hated the Marquess, but there were limits to what she was willing to do to remove him from the house.
The salt in his tea resulted in him spitting it out across the carpet in a most delightful exhibit that had Evangeline smiling down into her own tea. The mud smeared across his best coat gave birth to a brief fit of rage Evangeline had the pleasure of witnessing. He calmed down quickly enough once it became apparent his poor valet had nothing to do with it, but Evangeline saw the man’s face as he hurried back downstairs from the guest quarters—the poor man was white.
She hid a single glove from every pair she could find. She opened his bedroom window once the servants had finished tidying the room for the evening, so his bedroom was always cold. She spilled ink across his half-written letters, so he was forced to write them again. And with every prank she played, the look on his face darkened, and his responses became shorter, curter. She was getting to him, she was certain of it.
Her latest prank involved a rather large toad she had discovered in the gardens. She hadn’t dared pick it up with her bare hands, so she used a shovel to carry it upstairs and into the Marquess’ bedroom while he was downstairs listening to Emily serenade the family. Emily’s voice was a sweet one, and Evangeline stopped to listen in pleasure—until Emily didn’t quite hit the top note, and Evangeline winced, dipping the coal shovel to the ground. The toad hopped off.
“No,” she hissed, dropping to her knees and peering under the bed. Only darkness greeted her. “Come back here. You’re supposed to go under the sheets.”
“Praywhois supposed to go under my sheets?” a cold voice said from behind her. Evangeline turned to find the Marquess standing in the doorway, dark fury on his face.
“Ah,” she said. An inadequate response, really, but for the life of her, she couldn’t think of anything else to say. Being caught in his room was one thing, but being caught in his room grubbing on the floor with a shovel in her hand—that was something else entirely.
She stood, holding the shovel aloft as though she could defend herself with it, something that proved utterly false as he strode forward and caught the hand holding the shovel in his, pinning her against the wall.
“Soit isyou,” he said, that anger curling around every syllable. She had never known such anger before; it was corrosive, eating into him and destroying all pretenses of kindness and softness he might have known. When he was angry like this—no, furious—he became the beast everyone claimed him to be.
Evangeline would have liked to say she was scared of no man and nothing, but helpless as she was, pressed against the wall, she felt the unfamiliar stirrings of fear. He could hurt her here. Hurt her and no one would know.
“I thought perhaps it was a servant sabotaging me.” His long fingers tightened around her arm. “I thought perhaps one of them was angry I had inserted myself into the household. And I was going to let it go. I was going to bite my tongue and accept that perhaps I was precipitous in inviting myself here, but to discover it was the Lady of the house—”
“Unhand me, My Lord!” Evangeline tugged at her arm to no avail. “You will gain nothing by holding me here like this.”
“Will I not?” A sardonic eyebrow raised, and he leaned closer, forcing her to press her head against the wall. Up close, she was at liberty to see the flecks of green in his blue eyes, like sunlight caught on the waves, and although there was such darkness there, now, she could imagine how beautiful they might be when he was laughing. Not that he ever laughed, of course.
“It is not gentlemanly,” she answered.
“And these acts of sabotage have been ladylike?” He laughed, a bitter, angry thing. “Did you think there would be no consequences to your actions?”
“I—”
“Did you think you would scare me away?” He was sneering now, and all thoughts of his eyes disappeared, replaced by thoughts of his mouth, and how unpleasant the sneer looked on him. “Did you think my resolve was so weak that I might be compelled to leave by such schoolboy acts?”
“You—” Evangeline struggled against him. “You have no right to hold me like this.”
“And you have no right to creep into my bedchambers, yet here we are.”He really was too close now. Close enough that she could feel his breath on her face. Close enough that although she hated him—and she did hate him, especially now he was actively pinning her to the wall—there was a stir inside her of anticipation and a different kind of fear. The kind of fear that pertained to wanting something you shouldn’t.
The sneer left his face, and she was forced to admit that when he wasn’t sneering, the softness returned to his mouth. It was a thin mouth, all too given to scowling and anger except for now when he looked at her with that burgeoning awareness.
Heavens, she was in his bedchamber. She had been on her knees in his bedchamber, and now he pinned her to the wallin his bedchamber,and she dare not make a sound for fear someone discovered them.
“You remind me of someone,” he said, the rage having left his voice. “I believe she was as pretty as you although less inclined to leave—what was it? A frog under my bed?”
Evangeline swallowed, noting the way his gaze dipped to her throat. “A toad.”
“A toad you intended to place under my sheets.” He looked up at the coal shovel as though the last pieces of the puzzle were in place. “And now you’re asking me to release you as though you have any right to escape unfettered.”
“I am a Duke’s daughter,” she said helplessly. “I am—”
