The Earl Claims His Wife by Cathy Maxwell

inner thoughts.
    Gillian closed her eyes and pretended to sleep. No one had to talk when they were asleep. She stayed quiet for a good long time, but eventually the silence became too much for her. She half opened her eyes a bit to see if he’d noticed she’d gone to sleep.
    He appeared to be asleep, too.
    No, he really was asleep. Here she sat, her every thought taken up with him and his outrageous behavior and he had the indecency to put her out of his mind and take a snooze.
    She glared hard at him, willing him to wake.
    Wright didn’t move. In fact, it almost sounded as if he snored. Not awful, room vibrating snores but the soft sound of someone who was exhausted.
    Gillian threw herself back into her corner of the coach, glad she’d met Andres. Wright had the disconcerting ability to upset her. He didn’t have to do anything. Even sleeping he upset her…except it gave her a chance to be silently critical of him.

    He needed a shave. The growth wasn’t heavy but it was definitely out of character. Wright had often shaved two times a day all those years ago when she’d been close enough to him to notice these things. He appeared now as if he’d missed his morning shave, which wouldn’t be surprising considering he’d been traveling, but it wouldn’t explain his overlong hair.
    Interestingly, there were other signs about him that his valet was not doing his job well. Four years ago, Wright had been meticulous about his dress and his person. His valet Hammond was infamous for being just as much a stickler. Either Hammond had left Wright’s service or the valet was going a bit daft.
    For example, Gillian remembered Hammond boasting that he used a special starch on neck cloths and had a secret method for applying it. However, right now, the ends of Wright’s drooped like any other mortal man’s. And one of the buttons on Wright’s greatcoat hung by a thread.
    Every female instinct inside her sensed there was a mystery here. Something was not as it should be.
    Then again, hadn’t that always been the case with her husband?
    He snuggled closer to his door as if trying to make himself comfortable.
    Gillian wished she had thought to bring along some needlework. Then perhaps she wouldn’t be so distracted by Wright’s presence that she was counting his whisker hairs.
    She imagined he had not taken the marquess’s orders for him to return to England well. Wright had always been a bit of a rebel in his family. Of course, as the youngest son, no one had cared much.
    There had been two other sons between him and the title. But that had all changed with their deaths.
    Gillian had been living under Atherton’s roof when they’d brought news that the oldest, Anthony, had died in a wild coaching accident. Supposedly he had bribed the mail’s driver to give him the reins and that action had almost cost all the passengers their lives. The marquess didn’t waste a beat but had ordered that his second son Thomas be sent to him.
    And then Thomas had died in a misfortunate accident. He’d been walking along a narrow side street in a very disreputable area of town after losing a sinful amount of money at a gaming club. It was said a cat had jumped on a window ledge, knocking over a heavy clay flower pot. The pot had fallen on Thomas’s head, killing him instantly.
    When the marquess had ordered them to send for Wright, Gillian had known the time had come to leave. She’d hated living in that cold house where even the servants had treated her with disdain. She knew then that if she didn’t attempt to escape, she’d have no chance once her husband returned.
    And she wasn’t about to suffer what she’d endured before he’d gone to war when he’d spent his time with his mistress and not with her. The marchioness had once alluded that Gillian was less of a woman because of Wright’s preference for Jess. If that wasn’t a reason to pack her bags and leave, Gillian didn’t know of one.
    Her gaze slid back to her