Man of My Dreams (21 page)

Megan quickly swiped up a napkin to fill with the food she hadn’t gotten a chance to eat. Wretched man. What had set him off all of a sudden? Could he possibly have wanted her to say yes? After he had rejected her? Not likely. And she wasn’t about to leave herself open to another rejection. If he wanted her, he was going to have to say so.

Megan blushed furiously when the butler came in with a picnic basket full of food for them to take along, but like any good servant, he deigned not to notice. “Have a pleasant journey, Your Grace.”

Her blush increased. She was really starting to hate that title that she’d once coveted.

She stuck her pilfered food into the basket as if she did such things every day and marched
out into the foyer, where Devlin was waiting. As usual, he was a convenient target for her annoyance, this time over her embarrassment.

“You’re going to drag me off before I even get a chance to thank our hostess?” she asked.

“Lady Margaret is visiting friends in Edinburgh and isn’t expected back until tomorrow,” he informed her rather stiffly. “Did you want to wait?”

“And risk the chance of her knowing the real duke?” she hissed in a whisper, since the butler was still there, though he had moved over to the front doors. “Certainly not. You can send for Caesar.”

“I already have, as well as a carriage for your convenience.”

“You found a carriage for rent?”

“I’m borrowing one of Lady Margaret’s.”

Megan groaned. “Not again.” Then she added sternly, “I’m really going to have to insist that you not take advantage of this lady.”

Devlin glanced down at her with a supercilious expression that would have done a duke proud. “How, pray tell, am I taking advantage?”

Megan leaned closer to whisper, “You know very well she’ll think you-know-who has borrowed her carriage and not mind in the least, even be thrilled to oblige such an exalted personage when that isn’t the case a’tall.”

“Why deny her that gratification, then, since she’s not here to miss the carriage anyway?”

That was a very good point, though entirely self-serving. “It still isn’t right,” she insisted.

“Then let it rest on my conscience, my dear, and be grateful you won’t have to carry that cumbersome basket on your lap atop Caesar.”

Another excellent point which she hadn’t considered, so she said no more, though she made sure her expression told him she still wasn’t happy about it.

After another moment when their transportation still hadn’t shown up, she set the basket down and remarked, “That’s the first time you’ve ever mentioned a family.”

He gave her a wary glance, but she was staring across the way at the butler and didn’t notice. “When did I mention family?”

“In the dining room, in reference to divorce. You can’t have forgotten that quickly.”

Devlin relaxed. “So?”

“So do you have family, brothers and sisters, that sort of thing?”

She appeared only mildly interested, but he knew her better than that by now. Her curiosity was more powerful than most people’s. It had even led them indirectly to this state of marriage. And Devlin was sure that now that it was aroused, she’d find a hundred other ways to get that question answered if he tried to avoid it.

He should have come to that realization sooner, for there were several ways that he could use her curiosity to his own advantage. He’d have to give that more thought, but right
now he said, “A grandmother, a great-aunt, and numerous distant cousins.”

“No one closer than that?”

“Not for some time.”

“Where is your family from?” she asked next.

“Kent.”

“Near Sherring Cross?”

“Very near,” he said dryly.

“I suppose that’s how you ended up working in the duke’s stable?”

“You could say that. Now, why are you suddenly so interested in my past?”

“It’s something I ought to know about, don’t you think, now that we’re married?”

“I don’t think. A wife doesn’t need to know, nor should she know, everything about her husband.”

Megan’s mouth fell open. “Who says so?” she practically sputtered. “Men?”

He shrugged. “I suppose.”

“And you agree with that nonsense?”

It was hard to keep from grinning, she was so incredulous.

“I believe I was a man last time I looked.”

Her eyes narrowed suspiciously. “Are you teasing me, Devlin?”

“You finally noticed?”

It was his turn to be incredulous when she gave him a full smile, the one that brought out both dimples and made him want to grab her and kiss her. “That’s all right, then,” she told him. “I don’t mind being teased.” Since
he was too speechless to reply, she added, “Now where were we? Oh, yes, your previously undiscussed past.”

“No,” he disagreed after a moment, “we were going to get to yours, or did you think this exchange of information would be one-sided?”

“But my life hasn’t been all that interesting,” she protested, then sighed. “Oh, very well, what would you like to know about?”

“Nothing for the moment.”

Her eyes went back to narrowed. “I believe I’m going to develop a new habit—screaming. Consider yourself warned, you odious man.”

Devlin burst into laughter. Megan opened her mouth to begin her new habit. But Mr. Mears opened the front doors first. The carriage had arrived. Only it wasn’t their carriage, they found as they went outside. An elderly lady was being helped from it by two attendants who were quickly shooed away the moment she was firmly on the ground. And then she noticed Devlin, and a pair of faded turquoise eyes widened.

“I don’t believe it,” the woman said to herself. “After all these years—what the devil are you doing here, Devlin? I just had a letter from your grandmother last week, and she didn’t mention you were coming.”

“Because she didn’t know. I didn’t come for a visit, but to get married, which I’ve just done, and you have only to look at my bride to see why I was in such an all-fired hurry. She was
planning a Season. I wasn’t about to let the rest of the ton get a look at her before she was safely mine.”

“How divinely romantic, Dev,” Margaret exclaimed, “and so unlike you.”

Megan was already blushing over his nonsense, meant to put everyone off from wondering about the real reason for such a hasty marriage. That this sweet-looking lady believed it was obvious by her answer, and Megan blushed the more. But worse and worse, the lady’s eyesight must be nearly gone, for she actually thought Devlin was someone she knew. An odd coincidence, however, that both men were named Devlin. Or was it? Could the lady possibly know him somehow?

Megan was introduced. The old lady welcomed her into the “family” with a great deal of warmth and sincerity, which was making Megan feel simply horrible about the ruse Devlin was playing. But was it a ruse? Half the things Margaret MacGregor was saying didn’t make a bit of sense. Then she was speaking to Devlin about people they supposedly both knew, and he was coming up with a satisfying answer for every question she asked.

Now that was just too damn coincidental as far as Megan was concerned. Something definitely wasn’t right here. And Devlin kept giving Megan the most probing looks, which only increased her suspicions. But Margaret MacGregor was so genuinely pleased to see him, Megan didn’t have the heart to ruin their
“reunion” if she could help it. But she would have some answers the very second they were alone.

“What’s this?” Margaret said now as the borrowed carriage and Caesar were finally brought up. “Don’t tell me you’re leaving?”

“I am.”

“No, you’re not.”

“Yes, I am.”

“You’re not,” Margaret insisted stubbornly. “After all these years of promising you’ll visit—you’re here, you’ll visit a while.”

“I’m not alone, Margaret,” he reminded her pointedly. “And I have obligations. Duchy doesn’t even know yet that I’ve married.”

“Oh.” She thought about that for a moment, then laughed. “You mean for once I actually know something about you before my sister does? She’ll be furious with me for that.” She laughed again, enjoying the prospect, then ended with a sigh. “Very well, it looks like I’ll have to do the visiting as usual, but then I’ve got nothing better to do, whereas you never have enough time for anything. Don’t know how you found the time to meet your bride, much less elope with her, but mind you, I expect to hear all about it when I come to Sherring Cross.”

“Sherring Cross?” Megan said in a small voice that wasn’t heard, since Margaret hadn’t quite finished with her admonishments.

“Now that you have a wife,” the old lady continued, “you can’t spend
all
your time in
the House of Lords, dear boy. I’ll expect lots of great-great nephews and nieces to carry on in the St. James tradition—”

Margaret paused now because Devlin was suddenly groaning for no good reason. But before she could ask what was wrong, his beautiful young wife was calling him a nasty name and kicking him in the shin, quite viciously, Margaret noted with a sympathetic wince.

He yelped, and lifted his leg to squeeze the injured area. Hopping around on one foot for a moment, he didn’t notice that his wife wasn’t staying around to be reprimanded.

“I say, Devlin, should she be riding that animal?” Margaret asked.

“What animal?” He swung around only to see Megan setting Caesar into an immediate gallop. “Bloody hell. Megan, come back here!”

He didn’t exactly expect her to obey him. She didn’t.

Since she wasn’t paying any attention to where she was going, Megan came upon another town quite by accident. It was more a village, no bigger than Teadale, but the sight of its one eating establishment reminded her that she didn’t have her purse or anything else that would buy her a meal. Like her bonnet, what little money she had brought with her had been left behind in the coach yesterday.

No money for food or lodgings. How was she supposed to get home? But the thought of returning to her husband was out of the question. She’d rather go hungry. And she had Caesar. With him she could reach home in half the time, only three days likely. She wouldn’t starve in just three days, would she?

But what was the point? He’d only show up
a few days later, so she’d have gone hungry for no good purpose. Then she’d simply leave again, and be better prepared the next time.

The trouble with that plan was that he had the right to drag her back if he wanted to, as many times as he wished. He could even lock her up if he got tired of chasing her around the country. She’d given him that right by marrying him.

But she hadn’t married
him
, she’d married Devlin the horse breeder…Maybe he hadn’t put the right name on the marriage paper, so she might not be married to him after all. That was wishful thinking that she couldn’t count on. He’d done the noble and responsible thing in his mind, after all, so he’d have made sure he’d done it right.

Only she didn’t want to be married to him now. She hated him and meant it this time. He’d lied to her, deceived her, misrepresented himself, and who knew what else.

Shouldn’t you be telling him all this?

Yes, by God!

Megan turned around and headed north again. And again she was too deep in angry thoughts to pay attention to where she was going. But Caesar stuck to what road there was, and it wasn’t all that long before the carriage was there and was almost upon her before she even noticed it.

Megan stopped. Devlin did the same. She didn’t dismount. He leaped out of the carriage and yanked her off Caesar, not giving
her an opportunity to leave again on the one animal he’d have no chance of catching up with. Megan, too intent on her fury, didn’t even notice his precaution.

“I have a number of things to say to you,
Your Grace
,” she began while in his arms—he was carrying her from the horse to the carriage—putting all the contempt she could muster into his title.

“You can say them in the carriage,” he began calmly enough, then abruptly released some of his own anger, growling, “Don’t you
ever
take off on my horse again, Megan, when I’m not on him with you!”

“
Your
horse? He happens to be—”

“
My
horse.”

“I see,” she replied stiffly. “Another lie, and one you even involved my father in.”

“Actually, your father confessed he’d have difficulty with subterfuge, so for the duration of my stay, he did in fact own Caesar in what you might call a short-term, cashless sale, to terminate with my leaving—which I’ve done.”

“I don’t care how nicely you twisted it around for my father’s honest scruples. It was still another lie,
Ambrose St. James
!”

“Ambrose
Devlin
St. James,” he corrected her, dumping her into the carriage none too gently. “No one calls me Ambrose, brat, so don’t you start.”

She had to yell after him, because he’d turned to tie Caesar’s reins to the back of the carriage. “I don’t care what everyone else calls you! I
have a few choice names that are more appropriate. Care to hear them?”

“No!”

That deflated her for a moment, long enough to notice that he was limping as he came back to get in the carriage. She looked pointedly at his leg and said, “If that’s to make me regret kicking you, it’s not working. I’m thinking of doing it aqain—in the same spot—only harder.”

“Appreciate the warning, so I’ll return the favor. Kick me again with those pointed little shoes of yours, and you will travel across England barefoot.”

“You wouldn’t dare!”

He cocked a brow at her. “I thought we had established the extent of my daring.”

“You are exactly what you claimed you were—probably the only true words you ever said—a bounder, a cad, and I am not going to speak to you for the rest of my life!”

“Do you promise?”

Obviously not, for she wasn’t done railing at him. “You are the most wretched man who ever breathed breath. The most despicable man in all of England—no, make that the world. And you’re probably a terrible duke, too.”

“You might want to reserve judgment on that, since you haven’t actually met him yet.”

“Met who?”

“His Grace, the Duke of Wrothston.”

Her eyes flared. “Are you telling me I was mistaken in what I heard, that Margaret
MacGregor isn’t your great-aunt, and she didn’t say she was expecting some St. James nephews and nieces from—”

“Yes, yes, you heard exactly right,” he cut in impatiently. “I
am
the fourth Duke of Wrothston. But kindly recall that I’ve been playing a role since we’ve met, which is what you’re in such a snit about. Naturally, my behavior had to conform to that role, and that behavior was my interpretation—what I’m trying to say, Megan, is the way I’ve acted with you is completely different from how I normally am. I am usually quite circumspect, utterly proper, and I’ve even been called stuffy, though I can’t imagine why.”

But that wasn’t the man she had fallen in
—I wasn’t going to say that
.

Yes, you were
.

Stay out of this
.

“Are you claiming you’re not the least bit arrogant or bossy?” she asked.

He flushed slightly. “It’s called leadership, not being bossy, and so a few of my own traits got mixed up in the role. I didn’t say I’d got the horse breeder down perfect.”

“Oh, I agree absolutely. If you had, you might not have been so provoking.”

“Actually, I enjoyed our verbal skirmishes—some of the time, since I so rarely get to let go like that. Are you saying you didn’t?”

She would be lying if she said no. “That’s entirely beside the point,” she answered primly. “The fact remains that you misrepresented
yourself from day one. I did
not
marry a duke.”

“But you wanted to,” he reminded her with a good deal of smugness.

Megan’s face went up in flames of mortification as she recalled the day she’d told him,
him
, that she was going to marry the Duke of Wrothston. How he must have laughed over her vain presumption and…

“My God,” she said, appalled as the rest came back to her. “You rode all the way to Hampshire just to humiliate me with an improper proposition so I would no longer want to marry you. I didn’t realize you despised me that much.”

She was no longer angry, she was deeply hurt, and Devlin was horrified that he’d caused it. “Dammit, that is
not
why I went to Hampshire. I was merely annoyed because you were so bloody determined. I thought you were a scheming opportunist out to marry a title no matter how despicable the man holding that title might be. What I did was in the way of a lesson. I certainly didn’t think it would work to put you off the idea altogether.”

“How delighted you must have been to find out otherwise,” Megan replied bitterly. “And appalled to end up caught anyway. I suppose you now think I got myself in my present condition on purpose.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” he snapped. “It takes two to get you in that condition.”

“But you were foxed at the time, and I, of course, am a scheming opportunist who would
have taken quick advantage of that.”

“Bloody hell, weren’t you listening to me? I said I thought that previously. I don’t think it now.”

“And you’re a very good liar, Your Grace, proven once again.”

“You don’t believe me?” he asked incredulously.

“Of course I don’t believe you. Or are you going to tell me you would have asked me to marry you if a baby weren’t involved?”

She was infuriating him as usual. “How the bloody hell should I know what I would have done down the road, which is entirely irrelevant now. You
are
expecting. We
are
married. And you’re being unreasonable.”

“I’m not surprised
you’d
think so. Any time
I’m
right, I’m unreasonable.”

“You’re wrong, dammit!”

Her chin went up in the air as she looked away from him. “I don’t care to discuss it anymore.”

“Then I’ll bloody well count my blessings.”