“Bless you.”
He nodded.
“Do you have a cold?”
“No.”
“Perhaps we should discuss the details of our arrangement now.”
“There is no arrangement. There is a single afternoon. We exit the carriage, you remain silent by my side as I convince Mr. Barlow to sell to me, we enter the coach once more, and when we return, you may enter Hestia. Once.”
“You said I could poke around as much as I like, make myself a little mouse hole.”
“You changed your mind. So did I. I can’t have odd women roaming about my hallways.”
“I only want to go the once, anyway,” she grumbled. “And I’m not odd.”
Like hell she wasn’t.
Another hell entirely—he liked it. Apparently, he was odd, too.
“And another thing,” she said, sitting taller, “your plan is rubbish. No true wife would follow her husband meekly about his business. What you describe is a servant. A wife would want to meet Mrs. Barlow and peek into all the nooks of the inn. She’d want to picture what it might look like once her husband bought it, what changes he might make, if she might convince him to do this or that or—”
“My wifewould not do that.”
“And that is perhaps why you are not yet married at your advanced age.”
“Advanced…” He grit his teeth. “I am not yet thirty.”
She leaned forward, her hands wrapping around the edges of the seat as she peered at his face. He wanted to look away from her, to save himself from the fatal depths of her blue gaze, endless like the sea in every direction. But that would be admitting defeat. And he knew how to swim. So he let her look, and he looked back.
Then she blinked and plopped against the back of the seat. “It must be the s—”
“I don’t need commentary on my appearance. It hardly matters.” She’d been about to sayscar. The scar aged him, ruined him. He didn’t care.
She made atsksound with the tip of her tongue against her teeth. “If you weren’t sosurly, you might look more your age.”
Surly? Little liar. “You meant to say scar. You were going to say that my scar ages me.”
“Your scar?” She laughed. “Heavens no. That makes you look rather…” Damn. She was peering at him again, and he was drowning in her eyes once more, and what had he been saying about knowing how to swim? “Dashing. It has the… unfortunate effect of… making you look… dashing.” Each part of her sentence grew more hesitant than the bit before, quieter, too, so that the very last word seemed more mouthed than spoken.
Dashing. Him?
Hm.
“It doesn't scare you?” he asked because she must be lying or… trying to make him feel better. She seemed the type.
She tilted her head to the side. “Why would it?”
No pity in that gaze, and despite the untrustworthiness of her blue eyes, no lies there either. “Excellent answer.”
“Are you sure we should not discuss the details? Of our arrangement?”
“There's nothing to discuss.”
She regarded him for a long moment during which she slightly parted her mouth, and the tip of her tongue darted out and ran along the edge of her top teeth. Then those teeth disappeared behind pink lips, and she said, “Very well.” She yawned, placing a gloved hand over her mouth. “I think I'll take a little nap.” And she did, slipping almost instantaneously into a light sleep, her mouth slightly parted, tiny little snores emitting from her now and then.
She’d conceded and quite easily. Should he worry about that? She did not seem the type of woman to concede at all. But then, he was not the type of man to accept anything else. Clearly, she had recognized his superiority, recognized the wisdom of his simple plan. More than being a woman who did not back down, she must also be a woman who bowed to common sense.
