Page 14 of The Proposition
“W-Why of course,” she replied blithely.
Audric swallowed a snarl and bent to grab his coat, continuing his bid for sainthood by draping the garment over her shoulders. Wordlessly, Miss Fry wrapped it tighter about herself, the size of it swallowing her up.
“Thank you,” Miss Fry said. “For my things and the coat. Not for surprising me so rudely.”
“I did not…” Audric bit back his retort. Was his plan worth suffering this indignity? He closed his eyes and thought of Delphine’s melancholy little face and decided that he could damage his pride a while longer for her sake. “We can litigate this later, Miss Fry. Beswick is a neat ride up the hill there, and the hearth beckons.”
He saw something like confusion or calculation flicker across her face, but only the devil would know what the minx was thinking. Now that her hair had begun to curl again in a soft frame around her face, and the bloom in her cheeks swelled, he almost regretted giving her the coat; the wet muslin had clung to her in an admittedly alluring way. Now she more resembled an impudent turtle, her head poking out of his immense coat while she considered her reply.
“Very well,” she agreed at last.
Chuckling, Audric couldn’t help but cock an eyebrow at her demure manner. “What,” he teased, “no saucy response?”
Already she had begun walking toward his horse, her words whipped back to him over her shoulder by the wind. “Do not tempt me, Mr. Ferrand.”
She tried to pull herself up into the saddle unassisted, but she winced the moment her injured arm bent in the attempt.
“Allow me.” Audric needed apply only the scantest amount of strength to hoist her onto the black mare. Some skill for riding must have been part of her education, for once she was up on the animal she adjusted her angle, sitting sidesaddle with her weight shifted toward the pommel. Riding with her nestled against his chest and lap would be a special kind of torment, no doubt she was already thinking up a storm of pert remarks to hurl at him while they trotted the mile back up the hill.
But to his surprise and confusing disappointment, she said nothing once he had joined her. Miss Fry kept her seat admirably while cradling her wounded arm, huddling under his coat, and clutching her hat and glove, and she also kept her silence. Audric decided that was a deliberate tactic too, meant to draw attention to the icy tension that grew swiftly between them, and though they were almost as close as two people could be, there was no mistaking the firm wall building itself between them.
When halfway through the journey it became clear she would not speak, Audric broke the silence himself. “Do you know Beswick well?”
Miss Fry roused herself as if out of a dream. She turned her cheek toward him, her hair sweetly fragrant of soap. He had not had the pleasure of viewing her in profile for an extended period, and Miss Fry at that angle was as handsome as any ivory cameo.
“It is the nearest estate to my family’s,” she replied. Raising her good arm, she pointed back the way they had come. “Just across that dastardly river? That is Claridge; that is where our property begins.”
Audric had to laugh. “Then I bring glad tidings, Miss Fry. We are to be neighbors.”
She went rigid, the pink in her cheeks fading. Again, he sensed her choosing her reply cautiously. “Glad indeed. Beswick is a magnificent home; it is time it was let and had life in it again.”
“You do not object, then, to the proximity?”
“I do not know you, Mr. Ferrand, and so I cannot muster any specific objections,” she said.
His curiosity piqued, wanting to see where this might go, Audric slowed the horse’s pace. He navigated them expertly through the dense trees standing sentinel on the expansive grounds.
“You are wearing my coat, Miss Fry. I think you know me a little.”
At that, she smiled brightly, and he had to remind himself sharply that this woman, however clever and comely, was only to be a pawn in his schemes. One could admire her but absolutely go no further.
“I suspect our acquaintance will advance if, and only if, you provide the evidence we discussed last evening,” she told him, watching him from the corner of her left eye. “Otherwise, propriety demands that I freeze you out. You have after all made outrageous claims about my intended.”
“Ah.” Audric could not find fault with her answer. Any woman of good breeding would shun him if he was lying.If. “Our shared interest.”
“A subject I expect you can speak on at length.”
The house showed itself at last, first just a glimpse of silvery stones through the heavy cover of trees. Then the roof appeared above the leaves, and the elevated southern veranda with its plethora of wide stone steps sketched itself in. It was almost ludicrous of him to take the place, especially when heand Delphine and their servants wouldn’t even fill the bottom floor. But taking Beswick was an important move, and it sent a deliberate message to his enemy: I am not going away anytime soon, I have the means and motivation to unmake you.
Fear me.
“I need only say a little,” Audric told her with a shrug. “But it is much better said when we are dry, and at the fire, and you are not bleeding into my coat, Miss Fry.”
She lapsed into her stony silence again, and it did not unnerve him that time. Let her keep her blessed ignorance awhile longer, let her think on her doomed relationship in peace, for soon she would have cruelly little hope to cling to.
—
The estate, empty for more than a year, looked as if it had known only the company of ghosts. The grand halls lay cavernously empty, the walls barren, an echo booming through the house at each step, the only inhabited room a small salon in the east wing. Some fine, polished chairs had been brought in and put near the charming fireplace, and a single pink chintz sofa pushed beneath the tall, thin windows.
