She took a large step back. Dragged in a breath. Never took her eyes from his. She drew herself up, appearing almost regal. She inclined her head a fraction. “I appreciate that given the circumstances, you believe you’re honor-bound—”
“Honor has nothing to do with it.”
“—that you feel obliged to offer the protection of your name to shield me from scandal, but as I informed you earlier, I’ve turned my back on the notion of marriage and have my life, my future, already organized, and as that doesn’t involve returning to live in London, much less among the ton, then any scandal is irrelevant, so any obligation you might feel is misplaced.”
“Your family won’t think so.”
Her chin tipped up. “Perhaps, but they’re not me. Regardless, while I thank you for your kind offer, I must decline.”
With that, she whirled away.
“Damn it, come back here!”
“Why? So you can attempt to browbeat me into accepting your offer? I thank you, but no.”
“We need to discuss this like sensible adults.”
“There’s nothing to discuss. I am not going to marry anyone, but I am especially not going to marry a man forced to the altar by notions of honor and obligation.”
“Damn it! No one’s forcing me—”
Reaching the door, she swung around and pointed at him. “You don’t want to marry me—you know you don’t. Admit it.”
He hesitated.
“Aha—see?” Her eyes glittered. “You don’t want to marry me, I don’t want to marry you, and there’s no reason why we should, so we won’t, and that’s that.”
Hauling open the door, she rushed out and shut the thick panel behind her.
He stared at the door. “I do want to marry you.”
The words were too quiet to carry beyond the room.
After a long moment, in which she didn’t return, in which he wondered why he was hoping she would, he exhaled, then ran his hands over his face.
“Now what?”
Unsurprisingly, no answer came.
Increasingly grim, he tossed back the covers and rose, one thought resonating in his brain.
She might have her future organized, but what about him?
If she had her way, the future he’d imagined the previous night, the pleasant future that had started to take shape in his mind, would remain nothing more than a fantasy, a golden vision of what might have been. . . .
Jaw setting, he hauled on his clothes.
She wasn’t getting away from him that easily.
Chapter Fifteen
He found her at the high table in the hall, breaking her fast with porridge drizzled with honey. Although there were others nearby, groups of men at two of the lower tables chatting and exchanging predictions for the day, there was no one else at the table on the dais.
Drawing out the chair beside her, he sat.
A little maid appeared and bobbed at his elbow, then asked if he’d like some porridge. He managed a smile and agreed. The maid flitted off; the instant she was out of earshot, he said, “There’s no point running. We have to sort this out.”
Heather slanted him a glance filled with . . . irritation?
Before he could be sure, she shifted her gaze back to her bowl. “By which you mean we need to organize a wedding?”
“There is no other choice.”
Her lips tightened, but the maid returned at that moment with a steaming bowl of porridge.
He thanked the girl, helped himself to honey from the glass jar on the table, then slowly stirred the golden nectar into the thick oatmeal. “The situation is simple—I am, in case you’ve forgotten, commonly held to be the foremost rake in the ton. I didn’t come by that reputation by playing cards at White’s.” He kept his voice low, but his accents were clipped; he couldn’t find his usual, suavely persuasive tone. “Given that—who I am—then any gently bred unmarried lady with whom I even nominally spend one night alone will be deemed ruined, and marriage is the only acceptable way to mitigate that outcome—and before you start arguing, whether I in any way was at fault in bringing about that night alone is of not the smallest consequence, any more than the question of whether anything of an improper nature actually transpired is.”
He felt his jaw tighten, scooped up a mouthful of the sweetened porridge. Before raising it, he cast a swift glance sideways; her gaze was still lowered, but she was listening. “Add to that that you are who you are—one of the Cynster princesses—and there is no question but that a wedding between us is mandatory.”
She glanced sharply at him. “According to society.”
He didn’t deign to reply; she knew the reality.
The porridge was surprisingly good, nutty-flavored, smooth, and creamy. Looking down, he scooped up another mouthful. Savored, swallowed, then went on in the same low, tight tone, “As there is no chance of avoiding matrimony, I see no benefit in trying to fight the tide. There’s no reason we can’t wed. I’m already under sisterly edict to find myself a wife, and you’re unattached”—he realized he knew that for fact; if she’d harbored any feelings for any other gentleman she would never have allowed him to seduce her—“and our families move in the same circle to the point that a match between us would be considered an excellent one on all counts. Given all that, there’s no impediment whatever, no hurdle, no difficulty, standing between us and the altar.”
“Except for one fact.” Heather set down her spoon, her appetite gone. She met his hazel eyes. “I care nothing for society’s approbation, not over this.”
She didn’t have to fabricate the tension in her voice, the underlying determination fueled and given an edge by growing anger. “Understand this—I am adamantly opposed to marrying”—you. Despite her best efforts, the lie stuck in her throat. She dragged in a breath, substituted, “Under such circumstances. I have no ambition to marry, not you, not any man, just because society says I should!”
It wasn’t just her voice that was unsteady; her head was reeling; she felt faintly dizzy.
When he’d first stated, so baldly, that they would have to wed, she’d been so shaken it had taken all her concentration to rush out of his room before she’d given herself away.
Because the instant he’d raised the prospect of them marrying . . .
Anger had her by the throat and was threatening to strangle her. Welling fury at herself as much as with him. How the devil had she allowed matters to reach such a pass? Had some unforgivably witless part of her been secretly hoping and praying he would, after a few nights of passion, suddenly discover he was in the throes of love with her?
Drawing a tight breath, she held his gaze. “I am not interested in marriage to a man who doesn’t want to marry me.”
His lips tightened; his expression darkened ominously.
She tipped up her chin. “As I intend to remain in the country and henceforth eschew society, I see no reason to pander to its dictates. This is my life we’re discussing, and I’ll live it as I please.”
He was listening, his attention locked on her—it was one of the things she loved about him, the way he focused so intently on her to the exclusion of the world . . . no!
She blinked, shoved aside the distraction. She had to cling to her anger—anger at him for, even if unknowingly, suddenly dangling a prospect she’d never imagined before her, offering her everything that, to her utter shock, she now realized she wanted with every fiber of her being.
Except there was a nasty, slimy worm spoiling the rosy apple. He’d offered her everything her stupid heart had apparently all along desired, except for the one, vital, crucial element necessary to make it work.
She wanted him as her husband—had she always? She had a lowering suspicion her previous prickly attitude to him had been a symptom of unrequited regard—but no matter that her giddy heart had leapt at his bald statement, no
matter how rosily some foolish, hitherto unknown part of her wanted to paint their prospective future, no matter how much she yearned to walk into that future with him by her side, just as they’d walked over the mountains to the Vale, she wouldn’t—couldn’t—marry him like this, without so much as a whiff of love.
Hardening her heart, and her determination, she placed an elbow on the table and, eyes locked with his, leaned closer the better to emphasize her point. “Consider this. What sort of lady would I be if I willingly married a man coerced into it? How do you imagine that would make me feel?”
He frowned. “I didn’t say . . .” He shifted, faintly grimaced. “You don’t need to be willing in the sense of turning cartwheels—you just need to accept it’s what has to be, as I have.”
“No.”
“We don’t have a choice.”
“Yes, we do!” She glared at him.
Brows rising, expression mildly supercilious, he stared steadily back.
She exhaled through her teeth and faced forward. “You’re not thinking clearly.”
Damn him! She’d assumed that despite their intimacy, he would continue to see her as far too young for him and, when she offered him an honorable way out, that he’d be hedonistic enough to admit they wouldn’t suit and grasp the chance to return to and continue his self-centered rakehell’s life.
Turning back, she met his eyes, tried again. “You don’t want to marry me—I don’t want to marry you. And there’s no reason we need to wed because I intend to devote my life to taking care of homeless children, and I don’t need a husband, much less a socially sanctioned, spotless reputation for that.”
She couldn’t marry him. Especially not him.
If she did, he’d break her heart—nothing was more certain, more written in stone. He would break her heart because he didn’t love her back.
She pressed her lips tight; inside she felt like screaming. The only way out of this miserable mess was to say No, and stick to it, no matter what he said. Say no, and insist. “I’m not going to change my mind. Eventually you’ll realize that, and go back to London, and all the scented ladies awaiting you there.”
His eyes narrowed fractionally; she’d hit a nerve.
“That’s where you belong.” She tipped her head southward. “In London, prowling the ballrooms and the boudoirs. Being leg-shackled to me won’t be in your best interests. If it’s honor that’s keeping you arguing, then I hereby absolve you of all obligation.” She hauled in a breath, held it, then let it out with, “I’m not that desperate to marry that I’ll allow anyone to hold a gun to your head and force a marriage upon us both.”
She pushed to her feet, looked down into his eyes. “It’s not right for us to marry. Accept that . . .” She waited as, pushing back his chair, he slowly, gracefully, rose, too. Looking up, keeping her eyes on his, she continued, “Accept that there’s no reason for you to remain here—you can leave whenever it suits you. Regardless of all and anything else, I am not going to hold you back from your life, nor am I going to turn aside from mine, just because society thinks we should.”
With a curt nod, she went to swing away.
Breckenridge reached for her arm, halted her. Immediately had to fight to gentle his hold.
As he met her widening eyes, he continued to battle, as he had throughout their exchange, to subdue his inner self, the primitive male who knew she was his, irrevocably his, and had no reservations about making that plain. Keeping all sign of his inner snarling fury from his face, from his hands and eyes, demanded every ounce of self-control he had; he didn’t have brain enough left to counter her arguments.
Not without risking his leash slipping and letting her see far too much.
He couldn’t afford to forget she was a Cynster, and therefore very far from slow-witted. One slip . . . and she might glimpse enough to start wondering.
To start scheming.
Yet he couldn’t let her go.
“If we marry . . . there’s no reason you can’t follow your . . . vocation. With my wealth behind you, you’ll be able to be much more effective in—”
“No.”
His lips thinned. “If you married me, you’d be much more successful.”
“Perhaps.” She lifted her chin, met his gaze directly. “But not even for that will I marry you.”
Despite his control, he felt his face harden. “Why not?”
She studied his eyes. A long moment passed, then she quietly said, “If you don’t know the answer, then that’s proof we shouldn’t wed.”
His inner male roared. “What is this?” He couldn’t keep the growl from his voice. “Some secret test?”
Her eyes flashed at his tone; with a swift jerk she pulled her arm free. Inclined her head in clear and haughty warning. “I’m going to spend the morning with Catriona. I’ll see you at luncheon.”
She turned and walked out of the hall.
He kept his feet planted and watched her go. Frustration welled. Secret test, indeed. The test, it seemed—the challenge before him—was to weave a net of social compulsions and seduction, then use it to capture her, tie her up, and drag her to the altar . . . his primitive self liked the thought.
Savored it.
He would, he swore, do it—tie her up with passion and duty if need be, and marry her, stubbornness, willfulness, and all.
And—the true challenge—he would do it all without discussing or alluding in any way to what he truly felt for her.
To the feelings he had no intention of owning to, of ever letting out into the light of day.
Even for a rake—perhaps especially for a rake—some acts were simply too dangerous to contemplate.
Heather followed the stone stairs down to the dungeon below the manor. Whether it had ever functioned as a dungeon, she didn’t know, but it was now Catriona’s workroom. As she’d expected, she found her cousin-by-marriage there, busily compounding one of her remedies.
Bunches of herbs dangled from the massive blackened beams that crossed the ceiling, sending aromatic scents wafting in the warm air currents rising from the fireplace in which a small fire crackled and hissed. The chamber was large, lit by small windows high in the walls, and also by lamps burning fine oil. Algaria sometimes worked alongside Catriona but these days was more often to be found in the nursery, atoning for past sins by watching over Richard and Catriona’s children, especially Lucilla, the next Lady of the Vale.
Meanwhile, the present Lady of the Vale was standing at one end of the large central table busily grinding something in a mortar. She glanced up as Heather halted at the other end of the table, and smiled. “I thought you’d be by.”
Pulling up a tall stool, Heather plopped down on it. “Breckenridge is pressuring me to marry him.”
Catriona quirked one fine brow. “What did you expect? You and he have been traveling alone together for . . . how long? Eleven days?”
Heather thought back. “No—we weren’t traveling together until we escaped from the others, so it’s only been three days.” She grimaced. “Not that that matters.”
“Three days, three nights.” Catriona shrugged, glanced again at Heather’s face. “You had to have known Breckenridge would do the honorable thing.”
Heather saw no reason to equivocate. “I have absolutely no intention of marrying him.”
“Hmm . . . he is a rather daunting proposition.” Catriona paused to examine the contents of her mortar, then wielded the pestle again. “But if he’s too much for you to take on, then while I would be the last to claim a complete understanding of the ton and all its ways, given yours and Breckenridge’s respective backgrounds, I gather an acceptable alternative would be for you to marry some other gentleman, perhaps some second son nearer your own age, more gentle-tempered and meek, some mild-mannered and suitable suitor who was willing to overlook your abduction and its outcome—meaning th
e time you’ve spent alone with the ton’s foremost rake—someone agreeable to marrying you, presumably for your position and wealth, thus resurrecting your reputation.” Catriona frowned. “Mind you, I’ve never quite grasped just how and why a marriage can repair an otherwise irretrievably damaged reputation.”
Heather barely heard Catriona’s last comment; she was too immersed in horror at the vision Catriona’s earlier words had evoked. “It’s not . . .” She blinked, strengthened her voice. “While I have no wish to marry Breckenridge, the notion of marrying some milksop who was willing to overlook . . .” She focused on Catriona. “That’s an even worse prospect.”
“Ah. I thought perhaps you might have had some gentleman in mind.”
“No! It’s not that.” Heather dragged in a breath. “The truth is . . . I’ve decided that marriage is not for me.”
Ceasing her pounding, Catriona looked up. “Oh?”
Heather nodded. “We—Eliza and I, and Angelica, too, but she’s three years younger, so not yet nearing her last gasp, but Eliza and I especially have been searching . . . well, for the right gentleman.”
Catriona’s lips curved. She glanced down. “Searching for your hero?”
“Yes! Exactly. We know what we want—what sort of man he has to be. But . . .” Unbidden, the image of Breckenridge filled her mind—not as she’d so often seen him, the epitome of polished sophistication prowling the ton, but as he’d been while he’d held her hand and they’d walked through the hills. What had she been searching for? What manner of man?
A man who loved her.
Breckenridge didn’t qualify, not in that respect.
Pushing his image from her mind, determination firming, she refocused on Catriona. “It’s clear I’m not going to find the gentleman for me, not now this has happened, so I’ve decided that as fate has effectively decreed that I won’t find love, then instead I want to devote my life to helping children who are homeless and alone—who don’t have what we, the three of us and our whole family, were born with. So I wondered if I could stay here and learn from you. I know you oversee the care of a small army of such children. I thought that I might stay up here for a time, until summer comes and any scandal over my abduction has blown over. By then I’ll have learned so much from you and your helpers, I’ll be able to go home to Somerset and see about setting up a similar system there.”