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“Not my duke,” Adelaide retorted.
It was true, but he didn’t like how quickly she said it, as though she couldn’t wait to be rid of him.
Her gaze flickered away, and she moved around to inspect the back side of the wreck, crouching down, reaching a hand into the broken slats, searching for something.
“At odds again, are we?”
She didn’t look to him. “Aren’t we always?”
He supposed they were. But there were moments—last night, today as they’d raced, on the docks as they’d kissed—when it seemed there was another path. “And yet, you remain with me instead of leaving me to . . . whatever this is.”
“A little gratitude wouldn’t be out of line, Your Grace, considering what Lucia and her boys would have done to you.”
She turned to smile as the brutes neared. The enormous men smiled back, as though they were all at a holiday fair, and not lingering about a carriage on the side of the road.
Clayborn clenched his teeth at the ease among the trio. He didn’t want her smiling at other people. He wanted her smiling athim, dammit.
It didn’t matter that the last time she’d done it, he’d been so dazzled he’d flipped a carriage.
No. It did matter. The woman was mayhem.
Clayborn pulled himself straight and looked down his nose at her. “I do not require your protection, Miss Frampton.”
Everything stilled at the words. Tobias and Rufus froze. Lucia looked up from where she was rummaging through another bag, this one unlocked.
“Of course you don’t. You were perfectly fine out here with your brougham tumbled into a ditch,” Adelaide said, extracting a lantern from within the wreckage.
Dammit, he could have done that.
She shoved it into his hands. “Let me be clear, Duke. On the list of people I am interested in protecting, you are at the very bottom. But the absolute last thing I need is Lady Havistock telling half the world that the Matchbreaker is the reason the Duke of Clayborn lies dead in a ditch. It would be extremely bad for business.”
“And here I was thinking you’d miss me if I were gone,” he retorted, reaching into his pocket to fetch a match and light the lantern.
“I’m sorry to disappoint you.” The words were full of frustration, and something else that he did not like.
Once more, he felt like an ass. “Adelaide.”
She looked away. “Next time you decide to race someone across Britain, you should choose better wheels.”
Silence fell between them, heavy and uncomfortable, and Clayborn had never been more grateful for a highwayman—highwaywoman—than when Lucia interjected, “You should know, Duke, your brother passed through here about six hours ago. Had a pretty girl with him, and they were gazing at each other like there was nothing else in the world for them.” She cut Clayborn a firm look. “He’s better looking than you.”
“He’s a decade younger than me.”
“It’s probably the broken nose,” Adelaide added.
Lucia turned away, considering the dark road that turned to inky night outside the pool of light from the carriage.
Clayborn slid Adelaide a look. “Never fear. Between The Bully Boys and my luck when I am near you, I expect my nose to be broken in no time.”
Lucia held up a hand. “Shush.”
He shushed and heard the sound in the distance.
“Single rider,” Lucia said softly, not looking away from the darkness. “Coming at a clip. Best hide your toff.”
“Not my toff,” Adelaide said quietly, already moving, pulling him to crouch low behind the wreckage and reaching for the blade in her boot.
Every ounce of Clayborn resisted her. “I don’t need hiding.”
