same scene, the same face, over and over and over until he was exhausted with it, and still he’d not been able to block her from his thoughts.
Perhaps he’d simply been too tired to sleep. Seeing Reginald again; dealing with the consequences of being sent home midterm from Eton. Again. It was all a right bloody mess. He’d been stewing, secretly sick with dread, the entire trip back, although Laurence and Chloe had eased matters somewhat.
Well, Laurence had. He was out of school, likely forever, so why wouldn’t he be cheerful? But Lady Chloe Pemington, joining them at the last moment after attending some royal wedding or another in Norfolk, had been less than her usual carefully charming self.
The water served aboard the train was not chilled enough. The wine was not French enough. The staff was not prompt enough. She’d desired roasted lamb for supper and was served ham croquettes instead, and she had been coolly and surgically tearing apart the sweating steward until at last she’d noticed Armand’s steady, interested gaze upon her.
Then she’d shut right up. And smiled.
They’d all dined upon the ham and frankly he’d thought it damned delicious. Or possibly he’d just been giddy with relief at her sudden lack of complaints.
If her parents hadn’t already wired the duke to confirm she was to spend the night at the manor house, he would have taken her straight back to the school and been done with it.
Yes. That was why he’d been so eager to get to Iverson. Not just to see if that girl, that girl with the remarkable gray eyes, was there yet. Not just that.
She had been the specter haunting his night. Hers was the face that had burned behind his eyelids until the sun had risen, and cursed if Armand could figure out why. She wasn’t even pretty. Not really.
From somewhere inside him, sly and surprising, came a response to that thought.
Not yet. Wait.
The Atalanta jounced over a fresh rut. Like clockwork, Chloe and Lucille let out their little peep screams.
Then a tyre blew. He felt it, heard it, and held hard to the steering wheel as the automobile snarled into a spin, fighting to flip. The world blurred into a whirlwind of sunlight and grit and the girls screamed again, really screamed, full-throated. Armand himself might have been screaming. Or laughing. Both.
And for just an instant—with his lips peeled back and his knuckles clenched white and Chloe’s voice a high, keening cry in his left ear—that sly thing within him welled up strong and demented, compelling his hands to let go.
But he didn’t.
They came to rest not two inches from an ancient rowan tree growing bent in a meadow, one that surely would have smashed the chassis and maybe them as well into shiny tinfoil had they spun any farther.
It took more than three hours to change the tyre. He’d discovered the jack broken and had to push the Atalanta across the meadow and over to a drainage ditch so that the wheel might hang free, but without anyone to help—his lady guests had withdrawn to the shade of the tree to dab at their foreheads with handkerchiefs—it was slow going.
It took nearly another hour to drive back; the girls insisted upon stopping at the nearest farmhouse to tidy up before returning to school. The farmer’s wife had offered water and cider, and they’d all accepted both.
By the time they reached Iverson again, tea was done.
He found out later from the housekeeper that Miss Eleanore Jones had attended after all.
Nuts.
Chapter 8
Letter dictated and signed by Rue, M. of L., dated August 3, 1808
My darling girl,
You’re sixteen. I’ve counted the years until this day, felt them pass in my marrow, each minute creeping, each second a fresh bleeding ache. How I long to be with you during this time. You’ve no idea what’s to come, and those with you now have no real way to prepare you. Not as I could. I knew the moment I first cradled you in my arms how strong you were going to be. How different. Our blood is thinning, and there are not many born such as you. Perchance that’s a blessing; I truly don’t know. But what I do want you to know, the very first thing, is that it’s going to hurt. It’s going to hurt so very much that you will wish you could die.
You must not die. Not yet.
When it first begins, you’ll feel a sense of tearing within; I can think