True that until they consummated their union, Darius could apply for an annulment. What if he did so after he had her money in hand? She would be so much more than ruined.
But he liked to kiss her. She knew that much. Was it that he didn’t find her attractive enough to bed her? No, that couldn’t be it either. There were times when he’d stared at her like a wolf does a tasty lamb. But since their wedding night, he’d kept his distance and his hands and mouth to himself. She fell asleep on her own and he was always gone from his bedroll on the floor well before she woke. She had no experience and wouldn’t even know where to begin if she did indeed decide to seduce her husband.
She damned Nathanial for putting such suggestions and logical conclusions into her mind. She had already sold her soul to the devil, better she didn’t hand him her body as well she supposed. But therein lay the largest problem of them all. Darius wasn’t the devil. He was her dragon slayer and her champion and there was a very large part of her that wanted to bestow on him more than a mere boon.
She kept thinking about the fact that she was his wife. He was certainly going to be her only husband even if he did try to apply for an annulment. None other would have her. If he never touched her intimately, she would die an innocent with the world believing her already sullied before the vows. She hated to admit that unless they consummated the union, Darius would always have the upper hand. How long could they possibly go on for? She knew ton couples slept in separate beds but the common folk did not.
Her cheeks heated once again. If she blushed furiously each time she had an inappropriate or wanton thought, she was going to be in serious danger. Darius had a way of reading her emotions well. Now that she no longer had to worry so much for her brothers and sisters, she had more than ample time to dwell on the state of her virginity.
“Are you warm?” Darius asked from the settee across from where she sat, supposedly reading papers sent from London. If he guessed the direction of her thoughts, he gave no indication.
Eliza looked up from her own book, having not turned a page in some time but lost all the same, she wondered how long he had watched her. “A little.”
“Should I open a window? Let some fresh air in?”
Eliza shook her head. Such inane propriety. Such manners. Such boredom. How she’d longed for boredom rather than danger but now that she had it, she didn’t want it. “Perhaps I will take a walk in the garden. The rain looks to have eased for the moment.”
He turned back to the papers on his lap and asked in an even, disinterested tone, “Would you like company? I can send one of the men for Gabriella or Nathanial?”
Resisting the urge to roll her eyes, Eliza stared upwards to the ceiling. Marcus sighed from the corner of the room and she could have sworn she heard one of the men swear a rather colourful oath. “I believe I should like to be alone.” And with that, she fled the room before she could say something she might regret. Not that she would regret calling Darius out on his current treatment of her. For all she knew, this was exactly how he reacted to members of the opposite sex. Or perhaps he was already beginning to regret marrying her. Perhaps that’s why he kept his distance?
Once she’d escaped the house and taken ten steps into the melting snow, she stopped and pressed her hands to her cheeks. It was freezing but she needed to refresh and rethink. Oh, the things she wanted to say, the things she wanted to do, but she couldn’t. She was the daughter of a duke and had been taught from an early age to mind her manners and her tongue, suppress her wit and never make a man feel as though she was smarter than him.
Her mother’s parents may have been born in a different country but by the time they’d birthed their third daughter, they had been well and truly versed in the ways of propriety. Henrietta Penfold held her heritage in her white-blonde hair and vibrant blue eyes but she was English to the very bone and had begun to raise Eliza exactly the same way. It was sinful to be wanton. Suppress and behave.
Only, Eliza felt the constraints as surely as a bit between her teeth and a harness on her soul. Her father had once accused her of having the spirit of a gypsy, a curse from some long-ago relative who’d gone quite insane and lived in a carriage on the continent for the rest of her mad days.
Eliza fancied the woman probably grew tired of always having to behave with decorum when she doubtless wanted to scream at some of the men in her life to leave her be and one in particular to take her in his arms and…and…blast it, take her!
Just as Eliza entertained uncharitable thoughts about the men around her, Nathanial appeared at the edge of the courtyard and beckoned for her. Her brows rose but she went to him anyway. Her footsteps crunching in the snow. Something about the panicked look in his eyes caused a prickling at her nape.
“What is it?” she asked as she neared.
Nathanial shook his head as though what he had to say, she would not like. “The rains have washed away the snow and most of the churned grounds at the graveyard. We were checking on the house and trying to decide what to do with it when I noticed.”
“Did Darius’s men notice it also?”
“I don’t think so but I can’t be sure. Eliza, what if we didn’t bury him deep enough and someone comes
