earl turned from his friend, bellowed for someone named Randolph to fetch him two overcoats. Seconds later a bald man, short and muscled, appeared with two black wool greatcoats. The earl hurriedly shrugged one on and draped the other over his arm before departing the house, pulling the door closed with a resounding slam.
Chapter 25
Thomas didn’t feel the cold. The heat of his blood warmed him against the biting wind sending his hair flying about his head in a whirlwind. He walked with no destination in mind; he just knew he needed to walk off the corrosive anger inside him, the primitive urge to do his boyhood friend bodily harm.
He shouldn’t have allowed Cartwright to rile him. But in matters concerning Amelia, he was like a dog in a manger. And he bloody well hated that Cartwright had challenged him with the truth.
Rounding the hedgerows along the side of the manor house, a gust of bone-chilling wind finally penetrated his anger. To be out in this weather without a coat proved just how foolhardy he was acting. If he possessed one iota of sense, he’d go back. But as it stood, freezing seemed a better alternative than going back to face Missy, Rutherford, Cartwright … and, dear Lord, Amelia. He might as well have branded her with a KEEP OFF MY PROPERTY sign, sodding imbecile that he was.
Approaching footsteps sounded behind him. Thomas shot a glance over his shoulder. Rutherford. Blast. The last thing he wanted was company—even that of the well-meaning variety. He wanted to be alone. Then an involuntary shiver shook him as the cold crept under his shirt collar. Although he wouldn’t refuse the coat his friend was carrying.
Without saying a word, Rutherford reached his side and offered him the coat. Thomas paused to pull it on, gratified to have the thick garment to defend against the winter elements. He then continued on his way to nowhere in particular.
Rutherford fell in step beside him. “Are you going to tell me what that was all about?” he asked quietly.
They walked a good half a minute in silence, their breath creating icy smoke trails in the air.
“It’s nothing,” Thomas finally replied. Even if he had the desire to do so, how did he explain himself?
“Has it to do with Lady Amelia?” Rutherford regarded his profile.
Thomas refused to look at him, his pace steady as their footprints disturbed the white tranquility of the newly fallen snow. “This is between me and Cartwright. Leave the matter alone,” he said crisply.
Shoving his hands deep in his coat pockets, Rutherford stared at the ground. “I can certainly understand why you wanted to refuse Harry—Lady Amelia looks to be quite a handful. I bet she’s even more petulant and spoiled than you’d thought.”
Thomas shot his friend a sharp look of censure as something inside him instinctively protested his friend’s unwarranted criticism of her. “I would hardly call her petulant or spoiled.”
“But you did. The last time you were here. I believe you also referred to her as rude and insolent.” The earl innocently returned his gaze.
And so he had. But that didn’t give Rutherford the right to malign her character. Bloody hell, the man didn’t even know her.
“She’s not all that bad,” he grumbled, somewhat annoyed at himself for his own defense of her.
A wry smile tipped the corners of Rutherford’s mouth. “Well, she is very beautiful,” he conceded.
“My mother and sisters are extremely fond of her. And she is as intelligent as she is beautiful.”
A choked sound came from the earl, before he quickly cleared his throat. “Really? She sounds like a veritable goddess.” Another choked sound emerged as Rutherford’s shoulders began to shake in swells of amusement.
Good God, the bloody man was laughing at him. “Christ, if I’m going to have to deal with you too, I’ll bloody well go back to Devon.” Thomas pivoted abruptly to start toward the front.
“You’re in love with the woman. Why can’t you just admit it?”
It was Rutherford’s words that caused him to halt, not the restraining hand he placed on his coat sleeve. Thomas slowly turned to face him, feeling as if he’d been struck in the head by a heavy instrument, numb from the bluntness of the question and the starkness of that word. Love.
“I ran from Missy for four years, and where did it get me? Bound to her for life—and happier than I ever thought possible. There’s something to be said for beautiful, stubborn, willful, infuriating females. They can prove to be