She colored fiercely. “No. But the money is yours. You don’t have to pretend to be engaged to marry me.”
“I keep my word. I am still yours to command, my lady.”
A number of lewd suggestions flashed through her mind, but the saner parts of her body protested, and anyway, she still needed to help him heal. That had been the main purpose all along, and now she knew what must happen next.
“Then we visit your home for a few days,” she said. “Just us.”
He stared at her. “Why?”
“Why not? If I were really to be your bride I would want to.”
“But this is mere pretense.”
She tried not to show that the flat words stung. “Why not?” she asked again.
“It’s been virtually uninhabited for a year and before that it hadn’t been kept up too well.”
“Then it’s time you assessed what needs to be done.”
He rolled away to lie on his back again, but this time it was hostile. “I know what needs to be done.”
Her mouth dried, but she had to continue. His fierce resistance showed that it was important. “You will soon have the money to care for it. You need to start making plans.”
He did turn back to look at her then. “Is this a command, O ruler of my heart?”
At the biting edge, she wanted to say no, to let him escape, but she said, “Yes.”
He rolled away from her, out of his side of the bed, shocking her with his beauty because her mind had not been in that place. Every muscle, every bone, was angry.
He turned. “Didn’t you want to get back to your room?”
She was tempted to clutch things around her and scuttle, but this was another of the demon’s damned battles. She climbed out of her side of the bed stark naked. Not trying to cover herself,but glad of her curtain of hair, she asked, “When can you be ready to leave?”
“In moments if necessary. How do we travel? Horseback?”
She winced at the mere thought, and knew he’d said that deliberately. “Curricle?”
“I don’t have one.”
“I do. You can drive if you want.”
“I don’t know how.” At her look of surprise he said, “It’s not something you do in the army in wartime. I can ride twelve hours at a stretch, though, if I have to.”
She wondered if it was only her lustful side that caught an ambiguity there, and leaped toward it even as most of herself recoiled. She turned to look for clothing, even if it did lose her points. Her shoes. Her corset. Her dress... Where was her shift?
Still in the bed. She turned and he had found it. He tossed it to her. She realized she was going to have to hide it and hope her maid didn’t notice the loss. She looked at him again. He was slightly erect.
She scrambled into her dress over nothing, and tugged the laces tight beneath her breasts. Without her corset she had to push them up first, and she glanced anxiously at him.
Anger had been replaced with a hint of a smile.
“What are you laughing at?”
“You’re beautiful, even if you’re not eighteen. And that comes free of charge. And I like to make you turn from a lily to a blush-pink rose. The journey will take four to five hours. Can you drive that long?”
It astonished her that he asked instead of stating it. Warmed her. “Probably not. We’ll travel post.”
“Where will we stay?”
