He was watching her.
He had arranged himself with that same maddening composure he had displayed in the church—one long leg crossed elegantly over the other, one gloved hand resting on the silver head of a walking stick he had not, to her knowledge, been carrying when they left the altar. His other arm lay across the back of the bench in a posture of such studied ease that it could only be deliberate.
The morning light slanted through the carriage window and fell across the strong, clean line of his jaw, and for one disorienting instant, she was reminded of the mouth that had pressed against hers not twenty minutes past, warm and unhurried and far more thorough than the occasion had required.
She felt her face heat and despised herself for it.
“Well,” Tristan said, then one of his eyebrows arched.
The single word arrived with the weight of a verdict.
His voice was perfectly pleasant. That was the worst of it. There was no shouting, no thunderous ducal outrage, no flung accusation. Only that low, civilized tone, with something coldand amused threaded carefully beneath it, like a knife wrapped in silk.
“I will say that I am not often surprised. And I had not expected,” he continued, “to be making the acquaintance of my wife on the journey home from my own wedding. It does rather rearrange one’s afternoon.”
Imogen lifted her chin. “Your Grace?—”
“Tristan,” he corrected mildly. “Under the circumstances, I think we may dispense with the formalities. We are, after all,intimatelyacquainted now.”
The faint emphasis on the wordintimatelywas so precisely placed that her cheeks burned anew.
“Tristan, then.” She wet her lips, found her voice, and was grateful that it emerged steadier than she felt. “I owe you an explanation.”
“You owe me a great many things.” He inclined his head, an almost courteous gesture. “An explanation will do for a beginning. Pray do not stint on the detail. We have rather a long carriage ride ahead of us, and I find I am suddenlyverycurious about the woman I have married.”
She drew a breath.
She had rehearsed this in the carriage on the way to the church, and again as she had stood in the vestry waiting for the music to begin, and again at every step down the aisle. She had thought, then, that she would know precisely what to say when this moment arrived. She had imagined herself calm and reasonable, marshaling her arguments with the same orderly logic with which her father had once explained the principles of Latin grammar.
What she had not imagined was Tristan Somerset opposite her in a confined space, watching her with eyes the color of cold weather, his entire attention bent upon her for the first time in the four years of their acquaintance.
She had imagined fury. She had not prepared for his focusedattention.
“Eliza is in love with another man,” she said.
Tristan’s expression did not change. He merely tilted his head a fraction, the way a man might tilt his head to examine a curious specimen pinned to a card.
“Indeed. You say that as if it explains everything.”
“A Mr. Ashworth. He is a—” She faltered.A clerksounded so paltry, said aloud. “He is a man of modest means but considerable character, and Eliza has loved him these two years past. Her father refused the match. He had already accepted your offer, and—” She stopped herself. “Forgive me. I do not mean to imply thatyou?—”
“That I am the obstacle to true love?” He smiled, and the smile did not reach his eyes. “Pray, Imogen. Do not soften it on my account. I am quite robust.”
“I only meant to explain that this wasn’t a rash decision on Eliza’s part. If one is presented with true love, then one cannot simply walk away from it. Thus Gretna Green.”
“And in the meantime, you stood in for her at the altar.”
“Yes.”
“Wearing her veil.”
“And her dress. As ill-fitting as it is.”
“Speaking her vows,” he continued.
“I—” She stopped. “I spokethevows. I did not speak in her name.”
A flicker of something—not quite amusement, but adjacent to it—crossed his features. “Ah. A legal nicety. How very thorough of you.”