For the next forty minutes Daniella tried to ignore Trelissick as much as she could. She didn’t make eye contact again, but did as the modiste instructed. She tried to choose out gowns that she could fasten herself but ladies’ fashion just didn’t allow for doing much on one’s own.
“Do you have anything that is not so extravagant?” she asked Madame Perèt.
“Such as?”
“Such as a sturdy gown for walking or working?”
The modiste looked back at Trelissick. “Why would the…lady…wish for a gown like this?”
“My wife enjoys gardening and worries when the maids cannot remove the stains.”
“You should not worry about such things, madame. Your husband will simply buy you a new gown, no?”
Trelissick nodded. Daniella glared. “Since my maid had to stay behind, who will help me with these dresses?”
He rose and came towards her, a predatory look replacing his earlier annoyance. “I’m sure I will be able to manage.”
“You can’t. It’s not appropriate.”
“As you said, I have seen your skin. And since we sleep in the same bed—” he raised his hand, his thumb smoothly stroking her cheek in a caress more intimate than she had managed earlier “—I will be there to help you in and out of your clothes.”
It was Daniella’s turn to gulp. “You won’t always be there.” It more hope than a question.
“Yes I will, ma chère.”
The world stopped moving about her in that moment. She knew he was trying to get a response out of her, daring her to put an end to the charade but also knowing she could not, she was lost. The warmth of his fingers on her neck, of his breath against her chin, caused her heart to race, caused her to sway into him until her chest was almost leaning against his, her eyes on his mouth as she waited for his next move.
But then Trelissick snatched his hand away and stepped back. She nearly stumbled without his support. What the hell?
“We’ll take two day gowns, the riding habit and the nightgown. My wife will also need underthings, shoes if you have them and a woollen cloak. Hers is not suitable for cold nights.” He snapped out the orders and it was clear the army major had returned. Thank the Lord. She wasn’t sure how much longer it would have been until she forgot where she was and begged him to kiss her.
Chapter Ten
What was wrong with him? He wasn’t a child. He didn’t accept a challenge when the challenger was clearly insane. What else could explain her behaviour? Had she been trying to prove something to him by tricking him into staying while she undressed?
He sure as hell had proven to her that he was in charge and that all his faculties were in order. But only just.
“I bet you’re happy.” The bane of his existence sulked in her corner of the carriage, arms crossed over her now covered chest, sullenness drawing her mouth into a frown as her body rocked with the motion of the road.
“Happy?” He bloody well was not. The, ah, state their little act had left him in had hurt. A lot. His arousal had been almost impossible to hide from Daniella and the modiste.
“Imagine the fury when my father discovers I am your harlot.”
“I don’t think your father will actually learn of any of this before I hand you back to him. You can deal with all of that down the track. Any pursuers, on the other hand, will hear of chaperoned siblings in one town and an outrageous marquess and his doxy in another.” Perhaps if she understood that part of his plan she would stop tormenting him.
“Anthony will have your head.” Though she didn’t sound entirely convinced of that herself.
“You think he’ll blame me? He’ll know you are the bad influence, not me.”
“Do you even know my brother?”
He had seen Germaine from afar. At a horse race. Despite saving the prince’s life, he was not universally accepted yet, especially as all of London knew who his father was. Who their father was. “Not personally, no.”
“He’ll force you to marry me if he catches us up before we get to Scotland.”
“I doubt that.” Of course it was a possibility. But what he didn’t know was whether Germaine would hold his sister’s honour high enough to call him out. Would he risk his neck for a sister who sold her virginity? Who swam in the moonlight in nothing more than her skin for half of London to see? A sister who tried to disgrace herself within the circles he wanted to be a part of? Hell, even James needed to shore up his place in those influential groups. For two years he had tried his hardest to erase the blemish his brother had left on their lives when his addiction to opiates became known. The Trelissick name had been nearly drowned in scandal when Bow Street investigated whether his brother had killed their father and then himself, or whether the reverse was true. He could have told them his father was incapable of hurting anyone, let alone his eldest son.
The story they’d concocted had concluded robbery but it had taken quite a substantial bribe. Not many believed the official causes of death and speculation spread faster than a sandstorm in the desert.
The last letter James received from his father was a plea for him to return and help him to help John. He wanted James to cash in his commission and return to the family seat.
But he hadn’t done it. In London, as the spare, he was next to nothing. He hadn’t been able to make a difference to anything or anyone. Anytime he wanted to try something new or daring, he would be encouraged down another path. The second sons of England weren’t destined for bigger things. They were to stand in their brother’s shadow. They were to stand in the bubble of possibility of a tragedy befalling. Only then could they become visible and
