The Marquess Tames His Bride

‘You had better explain how it came about.’

‘Well, I wrote to him, naturally, to inform him of Father’s passing.’

‘Naturally.’ And somebody must have written to him, as well. What a time for him to be trying to stay beyond the reach of anyone who might have been able to reveal his identity.

‘And within two days he was back, helping to arrange the funeral. And, say what you like about him, I cannot deny that I was very grateful for his help. He is very, very good at organising things. Keeps a cool head, you know, when I...’

He reached up and tapped the end of her nose with the tip of his forefinger. ‘You feel things too deeply. You don’t need to explain it to me.’

She jerked her head back, out of his reach. And he let her do so.

For now.

‘No, and you don’t need to bring up the curse of my red hair, either,’ she said mutinously.

‘It would, patently, be absurd to do so, when Clement has hair of almost exactly the same shade as yours.’ His features were similar, too, so that nobody looking at the pair of them together could doubt they were siblings. Yet Clare’s sharp little features and pale gold eyes made her look like some kind of sprite, or a woodland nymph, whereas Clement’s face just reminded him of a fox. A fox that was contemplating a raid on the nearest hen coop.

‘But do, pray, continue to explain how the saintly Clement provided you with employment.’

‘Oh, well, as I said, he has this network of elderly ladies willing to employ girls on his recommendation. So he just sent a letter to one of them recommending me as her companion. And she accepted me by return of post. So, you see, before the funeral was over, I had work and somewhere to live, whereas before that I...’

She didn’t need to say more. She’d had nothing. Believed she had no options. As she bit down on her lower lip, which had started to tremble, a strange feeling came over him. A feeling compounded of admiration for her bravery in the face of such adversity, coupled with a very strong urge to protect her from ever having to go through anything like it again.

Who would have thought he’d ever consider that the crusading Clare needed anyone to protect her from anything? But then who would have thought she could ever look so vulnerable as she did, sitting there trying not to give way to tears? Having just spoken of what must have been a horribly lonely experience in such a matter-of-fact way?

It made him want to hold her tighter. Tell her she was not alone anymore. That he would look after her...

‘And I am sure,’ she said, removing her arms from about his neck, reminding him that he was the last person she’d willingly accept help from, ‘she will still take me, if only you will arrange for me to get on the next coach.’

‘I am sure she will not,’ he said, tightening his own hold round her waist in instinctive reaction to her attempt to escape him. She was going nowhere until he was ready to let her go. Until he’d wrung every last drop of satisfaction from this encounter. She hadn’t anything like begun to repay him for the insults she’d heaped on him over the years. If he couldn’t make her eat her words, precisely, then he could at least rub her nose in the fact that she was where she was because she’d fallen so very far short of the exacting standards she’d always been waving under his nose. ‘Nobody wants to employ the kind of girl who gets into fist fights in public inns.’

‘I didn’t!’ She glanced guiltily at his nose. ‘That is, she isn’t likely to find out about it.’

‘Oh, but she is. Things like this get out. People like Johnny Bruton make sure of it.’

‘But she lives so far away from London...’

‘If she is part of a network of elderly women, who have little better to do with their time than write letters, somebody is bound to write and inform her of your part in this fracas.’

Clare’s mouth turned down at the corners as the truth of his observation struck home. Oh, but revenge could be sweet.

‘Even if she does not know anything about it to start with,’ he persisted, ‘the fear of discovery will hang over your head from the moment you inveigle your way into her household.’

‘I would not be inveigling my way anywhere!’

‘Oh, but you would. No doubt Clement promised her, and her family, the companionship of a gently reared, caring, competent young lady. Once they hear about this little escapade, they will think you have deliberately deceived them. That your brother deliberately deceived them.’

‘No, no. You are making it sound far worse than it was!’

‘And how do you think the likes of Johnny Bruton will make it sound? And how much do you think the tale will be embellished every time it is repeated? Why, the gossips will probably have the pair of us repairing to one of the bedrooms in this establishment and making up our quarrel in the most uninhibited fashion.’ Which would, now he came to mention it, be the way he’d rather like this interlude to progress. The taste of her lips had been every bit as sweet as he’d once dreamed it would. And, though she’d fought her response, there was no hiding the fact that she had responded to him. If this were any other woman, they’d be negotiating terms by now.

But Clare, being Clare, was looking wildly round the perfectly respectable coffee room, then wrinkling her nose in disgust.

‘You are probably right,’ she said gloomily. ‘Particularly given your reputation.’

And even though he’d been thinking along the very same lines, to hear her estimation of his character come out of her lips in such a disdainful manner was like a slap to the face.

He tried not to tense. He was not a rake or a libertine, but Clare had never managed to comprehend that a young man, with tolerable looks and plenty of money, was bound to make the most of the opportunities that came his way. In her opinion, men and women should never yield to the temptations of the flesh, outside the marriage bed.

‘Exactly,’ he purred, injecting every ounce of lasciviousness into his voice that he could muster. Living right down to her low expectations of him, the way he always did.

‘Nobody will ever believe that I could take a young woman into a private room, particularly not one to whom I have declared myself to be betrothed, and allow her to walk away with her virtue unsullied.’

‘Oh, dear.’ She buried her face in her hands and bowed over as though trying to curl up into a ball.

And hang it if another surge of protectiveness didn’t choose that very moment to sweep away his urge to needle her. Causing him to start rubbing his hands up and down the curve of her back.

‘Never mind,’ he said, wondering why humbling Clare wasn’t making him feel like the victor. ‘I am sure there are worse fates than marrying a marquess.’

She made a strangled little squeal as if of half-swallowed outrage. Bringing any inclination to show mercy grinding to a juddering halt.

Last time she’d acted as though his proposal was an insult, he’d had to walk away, licking his wounds. He’d been smarting under the insulting manner of that rejection ever since. So that every time their paths had crossed, he’d felt he had to make a point of demonstrating that he was over it. Over her. That he didn’t give a rap what she thought of him. In fact, on occasion, he’d gone so far out of his way to show her how unimportant she was that he’d even disgusted himself.

Yet she could still wound him by shuddering in genuine horror at the prospect of marrying him.

And suddenly, he couldn’t think of any sweeter form of revenge than actually doing it.

Marrying her.

Because, for the rest of their lives, if ever she felt inclined to look down her nose at him, or complain about his lax morals, or...anything...he’d be able to point out that it was entirely her own fault she was shackled to such a reprobate.

His lips quirked. He couldn’t help it. She could be his, now. For as long as they both would live, if he dug in his heels. And she would have nobody to blame but herself.

Because she’d lost her temper and swung that punch a split second before he’d made his own move. Since, he’d reasoned, she couldn’t think any less of him than she clearly did, since he hadn’t thought he had anything to lose, he’d decided he might as well kiss her. It would, he’d thought, have taken the wind out of her sails. Taken her down a peg or two.

Thank God for her temper. Because now she was the instigator of the scene which had fatally compromised her and he was the magnanimous one, stepping in to save the day. Rather than playing the role of villain for the rest of their lives, the villain who’d ruined her reputation by kissing her in the corridor of a public inn, he would always be able to claim the moral high ground.

He could hardly wait.

Chapter Five (#ub35c94aa-1c44-506f-963e-9e8d40b169c0)

‘You don’t really mean that, do you?’ She lifted a tragic face to his.

He hadn’t. Not to begin with. Announcing she was his fiancée had simply been the only thing he could think of, on the spur of the moment, that would both extricate her from her immediate difficulty and thoroughly annoy her at one and the same time. But now that he’d considered carrying through on his threat, the advantages were becoming clearer by the second.

Especially since he’d kissed her.

Because he’d been longing to get her into his bed for years. Even after she’d rejected him, she’d continued to fascinate him. He’d watched, with mounting frustration, as she’d blossomed from captivating girl to alluring woman. Always dancing just beyond his reach.