Page 33 of The Iron Earl
She blinked hard at him. Then blinked again.
His hazel eyes almost twinkled in the light of the lantern hanging by the front of the tent. Hazel eyes that, for the first time ever, seemed to look on her without scorn lacing the edges.
She looked around the tent.
Was this a joke? A cruel joke set up by the men who were now surrounding the tent and hiding their laughter?
Her look centered on Lachlan. “I lied to you, and that purchases me respect?”
He shrugged. “In this instance, yes. You were desperate and you were willing to do whatever it took to change your circumstances. That is admirable. Far too many martyr themselves to their circumstances without attempting to change them.”
“Even though I entangled you in my dire predicament?”
“Why did you entangle me?” He ran his fingers through his ruffled brown hair. “From the moment I stepped foot into Wolfbridge, you said.”
“I was in the drawing room when you arrived with your men. I watched the lot of you trail down the main corridor. You were at the front, raging, searching for your sister.”
“That should have evoked fear, not pinned me as a savior.”
She chuckled. “I think it did—for most of the women in the drawing room. They shrieked and gasped at the clanging.”
“But you are not most women?”
“No. I saw you pass by first and I slipped out into the corridor, hiding along the shadows of an alcove to watch. Then I went up to the gallery to observe you and your men once you entered the great hall.” Her fingers twisted together. “That was where I heard you say you were there for your sister. You wanted to stop the wedding.”
He stiffened. “I did.”
“I thought you were to drag her out of there. But then you cleared the room and it was just the two of you.”
“You eavesdropped?”
“I did. I knew I should not, but I was already hidden in place above in the gallery and I didn’t want to draw any attention by moving away. But what I saw there—you, with your sister. You softened.”
“I was yelling at her.”
“Yes. But you were yelling with kindness. I could see that, even if she could not. You were trying to stop her from making the worst mistake in her life.”
“Yet she still did it.”
“And you supported her—or at least didn’t stop the wedding.” Evalyn drew a deep breath, a soft smile coming to her face. “That moment in the great hall, I expected you to strike her for all the anger palpitating from you. But you did not. You held. That was when I knew you could possibly be the key to my last chance.”
“You made the determination of my worth from that moment? I’m surprised you didn’t run as far and as fast as you could away from me.”
“I did determine your worth—or at least what I hoped it was—in those minutes. But I would have chanced anything to escape out of there—including the puffed up ravings of a man that was only trying to protect his sister.”
Lachlan ran his palm against the dark stubble of hair along his chin that had filled in during the past days. “So that night in the gardens was not happenstance.”
“Not at all. I heard you talking to your men—you had gathered them in the billiards room during the festivities. I was against that wall—you didn’t notice me—no one noticed me—and I heard you make plans to leave with your men. So I followed you when you moved out to the gardens.”
He slowly nodded for a long moment, then his head stilled. His hazel eyes pinned her. “I noticed you, Evalyn.”
He said the words with a rough rumble that almost turned to silk by the time it reached her ears. Heated, raw even.
She’d never had a man speak to her like that. Her stepfather only spoke to her with disdain. And Mr. Molson’s words were always sneering, laced with lechery, threats—what he would do to her, do to her body.
But Lachlan’s voice, the way he looked at her, was the exact opposite—as though he wanted her just the same, but only so he could worship her body.
She could feel herself slipping, getting caught in a current she had no way to control. Slipping away just as quickly as she had hours earlier in the stream.