To Wed His Christmas Lady (The Heart of a Duke #7)(11)

A mocking grin pulled at his hard lips. “Nothing to say, brat?”

Outrage blotted out the nervousness swirling in her belly. Brat? Why, the lout had called her brat. Twice. And challenged her, before this small, shocked cluster of strangers. Finding her courage, she settled her feet on the wood floor. “How dare you?” She prided herself on those evenly delivered words when inside she quaked. By God, the man was a foot taller than her own five-foot four-inch frame and his powerful muscles strained the confines of his coarse garments.

He folded his arms at his chest, stretching the fabric of his white sleeves over his defined biceps. She really had no place ogling a figure such as him and yet—she warmed. She’d spent most of her life filing men into the category of worthless, shiftless bounders such as her father. Never before had she admired a man, and warmed at his mere presence, alone.

“How dare I? You are a spoiled ice princess who’d send out her servants to rescue what? Your fine gowns?” His condescending opinion jerked her back from her foolhardy musings with all the effect of being dumped into that icy snow outside.

Cara ground her teeth. “Do not call me ice princess. Furthermore,” she raked a gaze over him. “It is not your business.” What should she expect a rude-mannered lout such as this one to understand about that necklace buried in the bottom of her trunk?

He took another step closer and her courage deserted her. “Not my business?”

Oh, dear. She’d never before been expected to account for her opinions to anyone beyond her father. And he cared even less for her opinions than he did for her on the whole. Cara retreated until her back collided with the wooden door. She winced, managing a jerky nod. “That is correct. N-not your business.”

“Not my business that a spoiled lady would send a man out into a bloody blizzard for her fancy baubles?” A seething fury graveled his voice.

His highhandedness grated on her last nerve. In a bid to goad him, she tipped her chin up a notch. “I see by your words, you at least understand.” What did he know anything of her?

It proved the wrong thing to say. He ate away the distance between them in three long strides. His alacrity wrung a gasp from her and she held her hands up to ward him off, but he continued coming until a hairsbreadth separated them.

Even weakened from fever, Alison managed a fierce look for the stranger. “How dare you? Do you know who—?”

Cara glanced around the hulking beast’s shoulder, silencing the girl. It would hardly do to reveal the truth of her birthright before this thunderous brute. Despite his cultured tones, he clearly detested those of noble birthrights. He was likely some indulgent nobleman’s by-blow son who despised anyone and everyone of the peerage. Who knew what an uncouth lout such as he would do with the truth of her identity?

“I do not give a jot if your mistress is the Queen of England,” he directed his icy words to Cara. He stuck a finger under her nose and she went cross-eyed staring down at it. “If you are in such desperate need of your fineries, then risk your own life but not another person’s.”

She wanted to spew rancorous words at him, lauding her station and birthright that would effectively silence him. Except, by the unrelenting set of his strong, square jaw, this man would never be suitably, or even unsuitably, impressed by any of that. Cara swatted his hand. “You mannerless lout. Do not put your finger near my face.”

“Mannerless I may be, but I am not a self-centered snob who’d put my own well-being before that of another’s because of some inflated sense of self-worth.”

That harsh accusation ran through her. Never before had anyone spoken to her so. There was something humbling in being so disparaged by a person’s words and his thoughts. Only, this desperation was not for her fineries and fripperies as he’d called them, but rather for one particular finery. “You know nothing about it,” she bit out between clenched teeth.

“Oh, don’t I?”

“No, you don’t!”

The servants swung their heads back and forth, as though they took in a game of racquets.

A wry, condescending smile pulled harder at his hard lips. “Nor do I care to know anything about it.”

It, as in her. Humiliation slapped her cheeks with heat. Embarrassment…but something more blended with that emotion. Hurt. Which made little sense, and surely could only be accounted for by her blasted maudlin thoughts at this silly time of the season with her father’s latest display of indifference.

The earl’s driver cleared his throat. “I-I can fetch my lady’s belongings.”

She swallowed back bitter regret. A bit late for that. All of this mortifying exchange could have been avoided if he’d made that offer before this uncouth stranger put his aquiline nose in her affairs. Cara gave a brusque nod and the man turned to go.

“You will do no such thing.” The brute’s icy, commanding tone would have impressed her austere duke of a father.

Pain stabbed at her heart. In a desperate bid to feign nonchalance, Cara snapped her skirts, and with her nose in the air, stepped around the servant’s champion. “I would like to be shown to my rooms.” That request contained what little remained of her pride.

“Of course.” The old woman rushed over. “If you’ll follow me.” She motioned to Cara and Alison.

With her neck burning from the hard gaze the stranger fixed on her, she forced her steps into the practiced, unhurried ones meant to convey control when all she wanted to do was shut herself away in the miserable rooms of this inn, lock the door, curl up in a heap on her borrowed bed, and forget this whole blasted day.