Alexander-Fyn-Sanguinarian

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    that she screamed. “What have I done, Miss Rutledge?”
    What had he done? Evangeline rose from the table and went to stand before the fire. He stepped away to allow her access. Even in her wool gown she was chilled in this great tomb.
    She took mental inventory of all he had done in the last two days.
    He was a self-centered, arrogant, unnatural man. He was a bully and he was probably dangerous. A woman had screamed as they drove into the courtyard and now all her plans to keep him from suspecting her duplicity were going awry.
    “It’s the gown,” she lied, wiping her cheeks with the backs of her hands like a child.
    Raven stopped in front of her. When Evangeline looked straight at him, her wide, wet eyes rested somewhere in the region of his mid-chest. He bent forward to peer into her face, causing her to step back, nearly stumbling into the fire. With one arm he caught her around the waist and drew her safely away.
    “It is most unnerving when you lean into my face like that, sir,”
    she said, disentangling herself from his long arm.
    “You said it is the gown? That is why you are crying? You cry about a gown?”
    “I know this wedding means nothing to you, my lord, but are you so callous that you would see me wed in a gown someone left at your home? A cast-off? I might just as well wear this.” She indicated the plaid wool. “At least it’s mine.”
    Raven swallowed hard, seeming truly disconcerted by her tears.
    “You want something new?” he enquired gently.
    “Yes.”
    “I’ll buy you lots of new gowns in due course.”
    “I want a wedding gown.” She almost stamped her foot.
    “Ahhh. You want to look like a real bride for me? You want to do the thing properly. Is that it?”
    “Yes, my lord,” she lied.
    A smile crept across his face and the light from the hearth caught 50
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    all the sharp angles, making him appear to be made of dancing shadows. He was almost handsome. Content, he turned to the table and took another glass, filling it from the decanter. “So you have accepted your fate and are willing to marry me, would that be correct?
    Your willingness is irrelevant, but I would prefer that you accept it and make no more trouble.”
    “Yes, my lord. There is no point in fighting with you. I have decided to make the best of the situation, and since you are getting the better end of the bargain, I think you could do me the courtesy of arranging for a proper wedding gown for me.” By the time her little speech was done she managed to sound quite self-righteous even though she was shivering with cold and apprehension.
    “And why would I be getting the best of the bargain?” Raven turned a chair from the table and threw himself into it, his impossibly long legs stretched out before him. He glared at Evangeline, his eyes narrowed with irritation. “You, Miss, get a castle to live in, my name, which is centuries old, a title, and immense wealth such as you could never hope to acquire without me since you have neither name nor dowry. You are doing very well out of the bargain I made with Silas Sidley.”
    Even with her determination to keep him in the dark about her intentions to escape, Evangeline could not allow that little speech to pass unchallenged. She faced him squarely, wiping the last traces of tears from her cheeks. “A castle? This monstrosity is nothing more than a heap of old stones, ugly, cold and extremely damp! Immense wealth I have no interest in and you won’t get it anyway unless I marry you. I am a very capable lady and could do very well for myself with the £5,000 my parents left me. As for your name, I think you know as well as I do what that is worth.”
    Before she could utter another word Raven sent his second glass crashing into the fireplace, the wine sizzling on the logs. Without moving from his reclining position, he caught her wrist in his tremendously strong grip. Evangeline found herself dragged toward Sanguinarian 51
    him and in an instant was sitting in Raven’s lap. The sinewy muscles of his thighs pressed against her buttocks. He held her waist in one arm while he gripped her chin with his other hand, forcing her to look at him.
    “Another word from you would be a mammoth error in
    judgment,” he whispered very close to her face. “I should lock you up in the tower.”
    While she could muster no more tears, Evangeline decided that the only way out of this situation was to behave herself at once. The thought