Blake only smiled.
Elizabeth shook her head, feeling oddly off-kilter. Her world was crashing down around her with dizzying speed, everyone was talking at once, and the only thing she seemed able to hold on to for any length of time was her anger for James. She shook her finger at him, still glaring at Blake. “He’s an aristocrat. A bloody marquis.”
“Is that so bad?” Blake asked, raising his brows.
“He should have told me!”
“James,” Caroline said, kneeling down next to him as far as her costume would let her. “Are you bleeding?”
Bleeding? Elizabeth hated that she cared, but she couldn’t stop her gasp, and she immediately turned to James. She would never forgive him for what he’d done, and she certainly never wanted to see him again, but she didn’t want him to be hurt.
“I’m not bleeding,” James muttered.
Caroline looked up at her husband and said, “She hit him twice.”
“Twice?” Blake grinned. “Really?”
“It’s not funny,” Caroline said.
Blake looked down at James. “You let her hit you twice?”
“Hell, I taught her.”
“That, good friend, shows an incredible lack of foresight on your part.”
James scowled at him. “I was trying to teach her to protect herself.”
“From whom? You?”
“No! From—Oh, for the love of God, what does it matter, I—” James looked up, saw Elizabeth carefully inching away, and bounded to his feet. “You’re not going anywhere,” he growled, grabbing at the sash at the waist of her costume.
“Let me go! Ouch—oh—James!” She wiggled like a fish out of water, unsuccessfully trying to turn around so that she could glare at him. “Let. Me. GO!”
“Not in a million years.”
Elizabeth looked at Caroline pleadingly. Surely another woman would be sympathetic to her plight. “Please tell him to let me go.”
Caroline glanced from James to Blake and then back at Elizabeth. Clearly torn between her allegiance to her old friend and her sympathy for Elizabeth, she stammered, “I—I don’t know what’s going on, except he didn’t tell you who he was.”
“Isn’t that enough?”
“Well,” Caroline hedged, “James rarely tells people who he is.”
“What?” Elizabeth squeaked, whirling around so she could shove James in his aristocratic shoulder. “You have done this before? You despicable, amoral—”
“Enough!” James roared.
Six costumed heads peeked out from around the corner.
“I really think we ought to move inside,” Caroline said weakly.
“Unless you prefer an audience,” Blake added.
“I want to go home,” Elizabeth stated, but no one was listening to her. She didn’t know why this surprised her; no one had been listening to her all night.
James nodded curtly at Blake and Caroline and then motioned to the house with a quick jerk of his head. His grip tightened on the sash of Elizabeth’s dress, and when he started to walk inside the house, there was nothing she could do but follow.
A few moments later she found herself in the library, the cruelest stroke of irony. HOW TO MARRY A MARQUIS was still lying on the shelf, just where she’d left it.
Elizabeth suppressed an irrational urge to laugh. Mrs. Seeton had been right; there was a marquis around every corner. Nobility everywhere, just lying in wait to humiliate poor, unsuspecting women.
And that was what James had done. Every time he’d given her a lesson on how to catch a husband—a marquis, damn him—he’d humiliated her. Every time he’d tried to teach her how to smile or flirt, she’d been demeaned. And when he’d kissed her, pretending to be nothing more than a humble estate manager, he’d soiled her with his lies.
If James hadn’t been holding on to her sash, she probably would have grabbed the damned book and heaved it out the window—and then pushed him right along after it.
Elizabeth felt his eyes on her face, burning into her skin, and when she looked up at him, she realized that he had followed her gaze to Mrs. Seeton’s book.
“Don’t say anything,” she whispered, painfully aware of the presence of the Ravenscrofts. “Please don’t mortify me like that.”
James nodded curtly, and Elizabeth felt her entire body go limp with relief. She didn’t know Blake, and she hardly knew Caroline, but she couldn’t bear for them to know she’d been so pathetic as to turn to a guidebook to find a husband.
Blake shut the library door behind him, then looked up at the room’s occupants with a blank expression. “Er,” he said, his eyes darting back and forth between Elizabeth and James, “would you like us to leave?”
“Yes,” James bit off.
“No!” Elizabeth practically yelled.
“I think we should go,” Blake said to his wife.
“Elizabeth wants us to stay,” Caroline pointed out, “and we can’t leave her here alone with him.”
“It wouldn’t be proper,” Elizabeth hastened to add. She didn’t want to be alone with James. If they were alone, he would wear her down, make her forget her anger. He’d use soft words and gentle touches, and she’d lose sight of what was true and what was right. She knew he had that power, and she hated herself for it.
“I think we’re well past propriety,” James retorted.
Caroline sank against the edge of a table. “Oh, dear.”
Blake gave her an amused glance. “Since when have you been so concerned with propriety?”
“Since—Oh, be quiet.” And then, in a hushed voice she added, “Don’t you want them to marry?”
“I didn’t even know she existed until ten minutes ago.”
“I’m not going to marry him,” Elizabeth declared, trying not to notice that her voice broke on her words. “And I’d appreciate it if the two of you would not speak as if I weren’t in the room.”
Caroline’s eyes slid to the floor. “Sorry,” she mumbled. “I hate it when people do that to me.”
“I want to go home,” Elizabeth said yet again.
“I know, dear,” Caroline murmured, “but we really should sort this out, and—”
Someone started banging on the door.
“Go away,” Blake yelled.
“You’ll feel much better in the morning if we sort this out now,” Caroline continued. “I promise you that—”
“QUIET!”
James’s voice shook the room with so much power that Elizabeth sat down. Unfortunately, his hand was still wrapped around her sash, so she found herself gasping for air as it cut into her ribs. “James,” she wheezed, “let go.”
He did, although probably more out of his desire to shake his fist at everyone than anything else. “For the love of God,” he thundered, “how is a man meant to think with all of this noise? Can we possibly conduct a single conversation? Just one, that we all may follow?”
“Actually,” Caroline put in, probably unwisely, “if one wants to place a fine point upon it, we were discussing a single topic. Of course we were all talking at once—”
Her husband yanked her to his side with enough authority to force out a little yelp. She made no sound after that.
“I need to speak with Elizabeth,” James said. “Alone.”
Elizabeth’s response was sure and swift. “No.”
Blake started walking toward the door, dragging Caroline after him. “It’s time we left, darling.”
“We can’t leave her here against her will,” Caroline protested. “It isn’t right, and in all conscience, I cannot—”
“He’s not going to hurt her,” Blake interrupted.
But Caroline just hooked one of her feet around the leg of a table. “I’m not leaving her,” she ground out.
Elizabeth mouthed a heartfelt “thank you” from across the room.
“Blake…” James said, flicking his eyes over at Caroline, who had thrown her orange pumpkin arms around a wing chair.
Blake shrugged.
“You’ll soon learn, James, that there are times one just can’t argue with one’s wife.”
“Well, he can learn that with some other wife,” Elizabeth declared, “because I’m not marrying him.”
“Fine!” James exploded, waving an angry arm at Blake and Caroline. “Stay and listen. You’re likely to listen against the door, anyway. And as for you…” He turned his furious gaze on Elizabeth. “You will listen to me and you will marry me.”
“See?” Caroline whispered to Blake. “I knew he’d come around and let us stay.”
James turned slowly around, his neck held so tightly that his jaw was shaking. “Ravenscroft,” he said to Blake, his voice dangerously controlled, “don’t you ever get the urge to strangle her?”
“Oh, all the time,” Blake said cheerfully. “But for the most part, I’m glad she married me instead of you.”
“What?” Elizabeth screeched. “He asked her to marry him?” Her head snapped back and forth for several seconds before she managed to stop moving and fix her eyes on Caroline. “He asked you to marry him?”
“Yes,” Caroline replied with a dismissive shrug. “But he wasn’t serious.”
Elizabeth turned hard eyes to James. “Are you in the habit of extending insincere marriage proposals?”
James turned even harder eyes to Caroline. “You are not improving the situation.”
Caroline turned limpid eyes to her husband.
“Don’t look to me for help,” he said.
“He would have married me if I’d said yes,” Caroline explained with a loud sigh. “But he only asked to goad Blake into proposing. It was really quite thoughtful of him. He’ll make you a wonderful husband, Elizabeth. I promise.”
Elizabeth stared at the three of them in disbelief. Watching them interact was exhausting.
“We’re confusing you, aren’t we?” Caroline asked.
Elizabeth was quite without words.
“It’s really a rather remarkable story,” Blake said with a shrug. “I’d write a book about it, except no one would believe me.”
“Do you think?” Caroline asked, her eyes lighting with delight. “What would you call it?”
“Not sure,” Blake said, scratching his chin. “Perhaps something about catching oneself an heiress.”
James shoved his furious face up close to Blake. “Why not HOW TO DRIVE YOUR FRIENDS COMPLETELY AND IRREVOCABLY INSANE?”
Elizabeth shook her head. “You’re all mad. I’m sure of it.”
Blake shrugged. “I’m sure of it half the time, too.”
“May I please have a word with Elizabeth?” James snapped.
“So sorry,” Blake said in a voice that was clearly designed to annoy. “I’d quite forgotten why we were here.”
James sank his left hand into the hair right above his forehead and pulled; it seemed the only way to keep from wrapping his hand around Blake’s neck. “I’m starting to realize,” he growled, “why courtships are best conducted in private.”
Blake raised a brow. “Meaning?”
“Meaning that you have ruined everything.”
“Why?” Elizabeth countered. “Because he inadvertently revealed your identity?”
“I was going to tell you everything tomorrow.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“I don’t care if you believe me!” James shouted. “It’s the truth.”
“Pardon my interruption,” Caroline put in, “but shouldn’t you care if she believes you? After all, you did ask her to be your wife.”
James started to shake, desperate to strangle someone in the room but not certain with whom he was the most furious. There was Blake, with his mocking stares; Caroline, who had to be the meddlingist woman in all creation; and Elizabeth…
Elizabeth. Yes, she had to be the one he really wanted to light into, because just the thought of her name made his temperature rise by several degrees. And this was not due merely to passion.
He was furious. Bone-shaking, teeth-rattling, muscles-about-to-jump-from-his-skin furious. And his three current companions clearly did not realize what danger they were courting each time they cracked another asinine joke.
“I am going to speak now,” he said, keeping his voice painfully slow and steady. “And the person who interrupts me will be tossed out the window. Is that clear?”
No one said anything.
“Is that clear?”
“I thought you wanted us to be quiet,” Blake said.
Which turned out to be all the incentive Caroline needed to open her mouth and say, “Do you think he realizes that the window isn’t open?”
Elizabeth clapped her hand over her mouth. James glared at her. God help her if she laughed.
He drew a deep breath and stared hard into her blue eyes. “I did not tell you who I was because I was called here to investigate the blackmail of my aunt.”
“Someone is blackmailing your aunt?” Caroline breathed.
“Good God!” Blake exclaimed. “The cretin must have a death wish.” He looked over at Elizabeth. “I, for one, am terrified by the old dragon.”
James looked at the Ravenscrofts, then looked markedly at the window, then looked back at Elizabeth. “It would not have been prudent to inform you of my true purposes here at Danbury House, because, if you recall, you were the prime suspect.”
“You suspected Elizabeth?” Caroline interrupted. “Are you completely insane?”
“He did,” Elizabeth affirmed. “And he is. Insane, I mean.”
James took a steadying breath. He was about two steps away from spontaneous combustion. “I quickly cleared Elizabeth of suspicion,” he ground out.
“That’s when you should have told me who you were,” Elizabeth said. “Before—” She cut herself off and stared purposefully at the ground.
“Before what?” Caroline asked.
“The window, my dear,” Blake said, patting his wife on the arm. “Remember the window.”
She nodded and turned back to James and Elizabeth, her expression expectant.
James purposefully ignored her, focusing his entire being on Elizabeth. She was sitting in a chair, her back ramrod straight, and her face looked so tense he thought that the merest caress might cause her to shatter. He tried to remember what she’d looked like just an hour earlier, flushed with passion and delight. To his great horror, he could not.
“I did not reveal myself to you at that time,” he continued, “because I felt that my first duty must be to my aunt. She has been…” He fought for words that might explain the depth of his devotion for the crotchety old lady, but then he remembered that Elizabeth knew of his past. In fact, she was the only person to whom he’d ever told the entire story of his childhood. Even Blake knew only bits and pieces.
“She has been very important to me over the years,” he finally said. “I couldn’t—”
“You don’t have to explain your love for Lady Danbury,” Elizabeth said quietly, not raising her eyes to meet his.
“Thank you.” He cleared his throat. “I did not know—I still do not know—the identity of her blackmailer. Furthermore, I have no way of determining whether or not this individual might prove dangerous. I saw no reason to draw you into the matter any further.”
Elizabeth looked up suddenly, and the expression in her eyes was heartbreaking. “Surely you know that I would never have done anything to harm Lady Danbury.”
“Of course not. Your devotion to her is obvious. But the fact remains that you are not experienced in such matters, and—”
“And I suppose you are?” she asked, her sarcasm evident but not obnoxious.
“Elizabeth, I have spent most of the last decade of my life working for the War Office.”
“The gun,” she whispered. “The way you attacked Fellport. I knew something was not right.”
James swore under his breath. “My altercation with Fellport had nothing to do with my experience in the War Office. For God’s sake, Elizabeth, the man had attacked you.”
>
“Yes,” she replied, “but you seemed far too familiar with violence. It was too easy for you. The way you drew your gun…You’d had far too much experience with it.”
He leaned forward, his eyes burning into hers. “What I felt in that moment was far from familiar. It was rage, Elizabeth, pure and primitive, and quite unlike anything that’s ever before coursed through my veins.”
“You’ve—you’ve never felt rage before?”
He shook his head slowly. “Not like that. Fellport dared to attack what was mine. He’s lucky I let him live.”
“I’m not yours,” she whispered. But her voice lacked confidence.
“Aren’t you?”
From across the room, Caroline sighed.
“James,” Elizabeth said. “I can’t forgive you. I just can’t.”
“What the hell can’t you forgive me for?” he snapped. “For not telling you I had a bloody title? I thought you said you didn’t want a damned marquis.”
She pulled back from his anger, whispering, “What do you mean?”
“Don’t you remember? It was in this very room. You were holding the book, and—”
“Don’t mention that book,” she said, her voice low and furious. “Don’t you ever mention it.”
“Why not?” he taunted, his anger and pain making him mean. “Because you don’t want to be reminded of how desperate you’d become? Of how grasping and greedy?”
“James!” Caroline exclaimed. “Stop it.”
But he was too hurt, too far gone. “You’re no better than me, Elizabeth Hotchkiss. You preach about honesty, but you were going to trap some poor, unsuspecting fool into marriage.”
“I was not! I would never have married someone without making sure he knew my situation first. You know that.”
“Do I? I don’t recall your mentioning such noble principles. In fact, all I recall is your practicing your wiles upon me.”
“You asked me to!”
“James Siddons, estate manager, was good enough to be teased,” he sneered, “but not good enough to marry. Was that it?”
“I loved James Siddons!” she burst out. And then, horrified by what she’d said, she jumped to her feet and raced for the door.