“I would offer all my guests that kindness,” he said, “and you are my guest.”
“I offered to help look for your sister.”
“And your help may be invaluable, but that doesn’t mean you are any less my guest.”
“Thank you.”
“And please,” he added before he could help himself, “call me Aaron.”
Her stare turned mocking. “But there is no one here that we must deceive.”
“Do you think I asked for you to call me by my name merely because we were playing a part?” he asked. “I am indeed the Duke of Hexham, but that is not all I am.”
“You are also Aaron,” she said, raising her eyebrows. “Are the two not one and the same?”
“Occasionally, I am the man, not the Duke.” And whenever she was around, he found himself more inclined to be the man—and more inclined to break societal conventions. “I beg you will do me this honor.”
“And to have such a man beg…” she paused, her eyes dancing. “I suppose I can do you this one honor.”
He made no mention of the other honors he would have her perform or the way he would haveherbeg though he shifted as his body responded to the image.
“Do you think it likely Constance is at your estate?” she asked, drawing his mind from the rather explicit daydream in which she featured on her knees before him.
“I doubt it,” he confessed. “Unless, of course, she is resting there awhile. I think it more likely she made her way to Gretna Green. I intend to make inquiries there.”
“You really think she married?”
“I can think of no other explanation for her behavior unless more nefarious methods were engaged in her capture.” For a moment, he stared out of the window, the hedges replaced by his sister as he had last seen her in her wedding dress. “Yet I fail to see how anyone could have entered the house and snatched her away without notice.”
Charlotte frowned, her brows puckering. “Were you aware of another suitor?”
“No one. She told me nothing.”
“Perhaps he was not in possession of wealth or a title,” she mused, and although that thought had previously occurred to him, he had hardly been able to stomach the idea.
“If she had been inclined to a man such as that, she could have told me.”
“And is that because you would have prevented her from making an unfavorable match?”
“I would have encouraged her to consider her position. There are more things at stake here than her heart.” He narrowed his eyes at the look on Charlotte’s face. “I take it you disagree.”
“How could I not? Is she not to decide whom she marries?”
“She is but nineteen—what can she know of love?”
“At nineteen?” Charlotte asked dryly. “I suspect a great deal, even if she chose not to confide in you.”
Although he knew her to be right, Aaron gritted his teeth at the disdain in her voice. “As you have no siblings of your own, I hardly see how you can think yourself in a position to judge.”
“Oh, to be sure,” she said, folding her arms in her lap and offering him a glare. “I utterly fail to see how I, as a woman who has endured the heavy-handedness of a cousin presuming to know best, would know on the subject.”
“You, I notice, have not run away to elope.”
“No,” she fired back, “I have merely agreed to a false engagement. Is that so very different?”
“Than fleeing over the border to Gretna Green? I should think so.”
Momentarily silenced, she leaned back against her seat and turned her attention to the road. A single blonde curl fell down her shoulder, and she folded her arms against her chest. A defensive movement but one that only served to enhance her figure. Damn her for being so alluring when he wanted nothing more than to be angry with her.
