Page 39 of Rules for a Bastard Lord
“But ’ow am I t’ get there? A lady doesn’t take the mail coach.”
He didn’t answer. And though he pretended to be focused on the paint, his mind was seething with thoughts. This had been her plan all along. To get him to take her to London in a fine carriage, just like a real lady. A fine, newly whitewashed carriage.
The idea that she could have planned this from the very start stunned him, but he knew ladies who could think strategically. Scores of them. It was how they survived. Still, it burned in his gut that she was one of them. That she manipulated and schemed to get what she wanted.
He was silent a long time, fighting his murderous thoughts. Just because he had been hurt by one such bitch before—nearly killed, in fact—that didn’t mean Bluebell should be damned by the same stroke.
And yet his emotions didn’t seem to care. While stroking white on the carriage wood, his insides turned darker and darker. By the time she noticed his silence, he was in such a fury, he would frighten his own mother.
“Mr. Hallowsby?”
“Miss Bluebell?”
“Do you ’ave any ideas for me?” Then she frowned. “Do youhaveany ideas?”
“I do,” he said, his fury merging evilly with his resolve. It had happened only a few times before, but each time, the anger had changed the course of his life.
Just as well. He’d grown tired of his current path anyway.
“What?” she said, her face lifted in innocent query.
He looked at her, seeing her milky white complexion, the sparkling blue of her eyes, and the sweet curve of her lying lips. He saw innocence there in a mask over an evil heart. He saw so many things that had nothing to do with Bluebell but everything to do with his dark past.
He slowly set down his brush. The white dripped, wasted into the dirt, but he didn’t care. He stalked slowly toward her.
She straightened up on her perch, her brows drawn together in confusion. “Mr. ’Allowsby?”
“Say theh,” he corrected automatically.
“Hallowsby.” But her voice shook as he towered over her.
“You want me to take you to Oxfordshire and then on to London. You want me to dress up this fine carriage and let you appear before your relations like a fine lady. You’ve been planning that from the moment you met me.”
“Ooo, an’ me a simple maid from ’Ull. Wot makes ye think I could muster all that?” She exaggerated her accent such that his back molars ground together in disgust.
“Admit it. That’s what you want.”
She lifted her chin. “And what if I do? You’re free t’ say no.”
“No.”
“There. Fine. Ye’ve said it. But I can pay—”
He grabbed her chin, pulling it—and her—toward him. Part of him thrilled at finally touching her pristine skin. Part of him watched her eyes widen and the pupils darken, her mouth slipping open on a gasp. Was she afraid of him? Yes. Obviously. And he tried to care. He tried to tell himself that he didn’t wantto punish her for crimes she hadn’t committed. But she was a schemer like all the others, and he damned her for it.
“I will take you to London,” he said, his voice low, his breath hot.
She didn’t answer, and he didn’t care.
“But there’s only one payment I’ll take.”
“No,” she whispered. “I’m a lady.”
“Say it all you like, Miss Bluebell, but I know the truth.”
She swallowed, trying to pull herself back. But she was still sitting on the barrel with nowhere to run. So she stilled even as strength came into her body.
“Wot truth?” she challenged. “That I want to go to London? That I want proof o’ my father? Or that you’re nothing but a man with ruttin—”
