Impulse

“My mother and I used to live in the village, my lady,” Cam told her easily. “Grace Monroe.”

The old lady gazed at him blankly for a moment. Then her brow cleared. “The seamstress?” she asked, her voice vaulting upward. “You are the seamstress’s son?”

“Yes, my lady. I am.” He stared back at her stonily.

The countess’s eyebrows vaulted upward, and she turned a sharp gaze upon her grandson. “Jeremy?”

“Yes, Grandmama. Mr. Monroe is our guest.” He moved forward to her chair, dropping his voice a little. “I am sure you will welcome him. He has come here all the way from the United States. He is Mr. Pettigrew’s employer.”

She shot a dark look at Mr. Pettigrew. “I’ve yet to determine what this Pettigrew is doing here. What are you about, Jeremy?”

“‘Tis business, Grandmama. Perhaps you remember that Cameron Monroe moved to the United States several years ago. He is the head of a company that, ah, I have been dealing with.”

“What he is saying, Grandmama,” Angela said crisply, “is that Mr. Monroe is apparently quite wealthy now, so we must be pleasant to him. Isn’t that right, Jeremy?”

She cast a sardonic look up at her brother, then at Cam, who was still standing in front of the couch, gazing down at her. Cam raised a quizzical eyebrow at her words, but his expression was more amused than offended.

“Angela!” Jeremy whispered, sending Monroe an apologetic glance. “I must apologize for the women of the family. They are used to a solitary life here at Bridbury.”

“That’s right. We don’t get out much, so we don’t know how to act,” Angela went on with false sweetness. “I am afraid that I have never before been called upon to meet a suitor who holds a gun to my head as he asks for my hand.”

“What?” Lady Margaret’s mouth dropped open in shock.

“Angela.” Jeremy groaned.

Mr. Pettigrew blushed to his hairline and looked away. Only Cam remained seemingly unaffected, still gazing at Angela with that cool half smile on his lips.

“A trifle dramatic, don’t you think, Angela?”

“Perhaps. But the drama is not of my making.” She stood up. “Grandmama, if you will excuse me, I believe that I will go up to my room now. I am feeling a trifle under the weather. Kate?”

Her maid moved quickly to her side, and the two women walked out of the room together, leaving a dead silence behind them.

Angela strode faster and faster, until by the time they reached her bedroom, Kate was almost having to run to keep up with her. “My lady … wait. Slow down.”

Angela swept into her room, but even then she could not seem to stop. She marched across it to the window, then swung back and looked around, as if trying to find somewhere else to go.

“What is going on?” Kate asked with all the familiarity of a friend, as well as a lifelong servant. “Why is Cam Monroe here? And what is he doing dressed up as a gentleman?”

“He is the one,” Angela replied tersely. “The man I told you about, the American who is trying to marry into the nobility.”

“Cam?” Kate had heard all about the Earl’s request that Angela marry a rich American to save the family, but she had a little trouble connecting the fearsome American with her former neighbor and the Stanhopes’ stable boy.

“Apparently. That Pettigrew man said his employer had arrived, and the next thing I knew, there was Cam marching into the room. And I realized that he was the one behind it all. The man trying to force me to marry him.”

“‘Tis no wonder you fainted.”

“I thought for a moment that I had lost my mind. I couldn’t imagine—Cam! It’s been so long—I never thought I would see him again. It’s been years since I even thought about him.”

Her grandfather had made sure that she was married before she could change her mind, whisking her away to London and getting a special license so that she could marry Lord Dunstan without having to wait for the banns to be read. When she returned to Bridbury, newly married, she had gone to Cam, hoping to explain what she had done and to give him money so that he could, at least, get away to America and the new life they both had dreamed about. But he had been too wounded and furious to allow any explanation from her.

“Do you think I don’t know why you married him?” he had roared, his dark eyes spitting fire at her. “Because he is a lord, and one of the wealthiest in the land, as well! I was too stupid to realize that you were just toying with me, amusing yourself until your nobleman came up to scratch!”

“No! No, please, Cam, that’s not—”

“Damn you! I don’t want to hear it!” He had hurled the purse she had offered him down at her feet, and the bright gold coins had spilled out onto the floor of his cottage. “I don’t want your whore’s money, either. I shall make it to America on my own.”

Then he had wheeled and torn out of his house, ignoring her pleas. She had not seen him again.

She had thought about him enough, God knew. At first she had been able to think of little else—missing him, aching for him, crying for him, that pain so great that it for a while somewhat masked the pain of her marriage. What had a blow mattered, when inside she had felt as if she had already died?

Later, when the fresh pain of losing Cam sealed over, and the realization of the lifelong despair and pain that her marriage would be settled in upon her, she had often dreamed that somehow Cam would return and rescue her. That he would find out, all the way across the ocean, what was happening to her, and he would come back and sweep her away from Dunstan. But she had known, even as she hoped and prayed, that Cam would not come back. Even if he had known her fate, he would no longer have cared. He hated her.

Finally she had accepted that her dreams were nothing but that, and that no one could save her from her fate. And, gradually, she had ceased to feel at all, either loss or the memory of love, all emotions ground into sand under the millstone of her marriage.

“So he got rich in America,” Kate mused, following her own thoughts. “He always was a smart one—and hardworking. If anyone could do it, I guess he could.” She paused, then continued, “And now he’s wanting to marry you again. He must never have forgotten you.”

Angela let out an inelegant snort. “Don’t wax romantic on me, Kate. I can usually count on your good sense.”

Kate allowed a little smile. “Hard head is more like it, my lady. But even I can see that if a man’s still wanting to marry you after, what, thirteen years …?”

“I don’t think it is romance that is on his mind. I think it’s revenge. It was my family that hurt him thirteen years ago, and now he has come back to extract his vengeance on us. He has already taken over control of our mines and acquired much of our land, not to mention buying up practically all Jeremy’s debts. The Stanhope family virtually belongs to him. And I, the one who hurt him the most, well, he can bring me permanently under his thumb by marrying me. What exquisite revenge—to have all of us subject to him, applying to him for whatever we might need, currying his favor, obeying him. I cast him off, and he wants to repay me for that. What better way than to make me do what I did not thirteen years ago—marry him! He will have the rest of my life to make me suffer, too, for now even Jeremy would not dare take me in against his wishes. Cam owns Jeremy.”

“Oh, no, my lady! Cam would not treat you ill,” Kate protested. “He is a good man.”

Angela raised an eyebrow. “How can you know that? He seemed so, I know, years ago. Gentle and good and—” Her voice caught for an instant, then she went on. “But how can you know what is really inside a man’s heart? And after so many years, with all the bitterness he felt about my marriage, with whatever he has had to do to make all the money he has, well, he is bound to have changed. He is obviously a very different man now. The Cam I knew would not have set out to wreck a family, as he has done with us. He would not have tried to force a woman to marry him.”

Kate shrugged. “Still … it does not mean he is a devil like Lord Dunstan. My pa, he was a strict one, and I’ve seen him madder than fire, but he never raised a hand against Ma. You know your brother is not like that. Why, even his old lordship wouldn’t have struck his wife.”

Angela cast her a speaking look. “Strike Grandmama? He would not have dared.” She sighed. “I know. You are right. Not all men are like Dunstan. Maybe Cam would not actually hurt me. He was never rough … before. But, oh, Kate, I could not. I could not marry him.”

She tightened her hands into fists, her stomach beginning to roil with the old, familiar fear. “To be under a man’s complete power again. Just to know that he could—” She broke off and turned away, crossing her arms over her chest and tucking her fists beneath her arms. “To have him in my bed.” Her voice came out a horrified whisper. “I cannot.”

Her maid gazed at her with profound sympathy, wishing, not for the first time, that she could somehow wipe Angela’s prior marriage from her mind. But even that would not be enough, she suspected. The lady’s scars were burned into her soul, as well.

“You need not, my lady,” she reassured her softly. “Your brother cannot make you. He would not, even if he could.”

“I know he could not force me. But I am dependent on him. He has done so much for me. I feel terribly guilty not to, when it would help him so much. I don’t know what he will do if Cam calls in those notes or closes down the mine. Or both. Jeremy will be destroyed.”

“Then you must convince Cam not to do it.”

“I? You jest. Cam hates me.”

“Hates you? A man who is asking for your hand in marriage?”

“I told you, that is only for revenge. It does not mean he has any feeling for me. I am sure he only wants to make me suffer for how I hurt him.”

“He may say that is what it’s for. He may even believe it. But deep inside, I don’t think so. I cannot believe a man would want to tie himself to a woman for the rest of his life—for any reason—knowing that he despised her. If you went to him, explained to him—”