The Marquess Tames His Bride

But now she was sitting on his lap. And once he got that ring on her finger, she’d have no excuse for refusing him. Not considering the vows she was going to make, in church. Vows which she, with her heightened religious conscience, would consider binding.

‘Don’t I?’

She peered at him as though trying to understand him. Really understand him, rather than jumping to conclusions based on the lies and half-truths fed to her by the likes of Clement.

‘Well, I rather thought,’ she said, ‘that you only said it because it was the one thing that would guarantee getting me out of hot water. And while I appreciate the, um, brilliance of your quick thinking—’

‘Trying to turn me up sweet?’

‘No,’ she said with exasperation. ‘I was trying to give credit where it is due. But since I know you cannot really wish to marry me—’

‘Can’t I? And just why would that be?’

‘You are going to make me spell it out?’ She narrowed her eyes. ‘Very well, then. Since you seem determined to amuse yourself at my expense today, then I will freely admit that you ought to marry someone who is all the things I am not. Someone beautiful, for a start.’

And Clare was not beautiful, not in the conventional sense.

‘Someone with all the social graces.’

She certainly didn’t have any of those.

‘Someone with a title and money, and, oh, all the things I haven’t got. But because of my temper, my awful temper, you have told people you are going to marry me.’ Her eyes swam with regret and penitence. ‘But I’m sure, if we put our heads together, we can come up with another plan, an even better plan, to stop you from having to go through with it. We could perhaps tell everyone that we discovered we do not suit, for example, or—’

‘Put our heads together?’ Everything in him rose up in revolt. If he thought she could wriggle out of this, she had another think coming. There was only one way he wanted their heads close together. ‘Do you mean, like this?’ he said, before closing the gap between their mouths and stopping her foolish objections with a kiss.

She made a wholly feminine sound of surrender and fell into his kiss as though she was starving for the taste of his lips. With a sort of desperation that made him suspect she intended it as a farewell. As though she was giving in to the temptation to sample what she considered forbidden fruit just one last time.

At length, she pulled away and turned her face into his neck. She was panting. Her cheeks were flushed.

But when she eventually sat up, her face wore an expression of resolve.

‘That was not what I had in mind,’ she said, unnecessarily. Though it was pretty much all that was in his mind and had been from the moment he’d pulled her onto his lap.

‘Poor Clare,’ he murmured, without a shred of sympathy. ‘So determined to escape my evil clutches...’

She went rigid, as though his words reminded her she’d been making precious little attempt to escape him from the moment he’d taken her in his arms. And bit down on her lower lip, the lip he’d been enjoying kissing so much not a moment before. And with which she’d kissed him back.

Her expression of chagrin made him want to laugh.

She nearly always made him want to laugh.

It was a large part of why he’d proposed to her that first time. He’d just endured one of those days that were such a factor of life in Kelsham Park. His mother barricaded in her room. His father out shooting. The staff tiptoeing around as though scared of rousing a sleeping beast. Life had seemed so bleak. And then there she’d been, so full of life, and zeal, and all the things that were lacking in his. And she’d made him laugh. When he’d thought there was nothing of joy to be found anywhere in his life.

And he’d wanted to capture it. Capture her. So that he could...warm himself at the flame that was her spirit.

The proposal had burst from his lips before he’d thought it through. But then, as now, the moment he’d spoken he’d wanted it to become real. Wanted her by his side. In his life. Keeping the chill of Kelsham Park at bay.

He cleared away the lump that came to his throat, so that his voice would not betray the swell of emotion which had just taken him unawares.

‘So determined to escape me. Yet you are the only woman to whom I have ever made an honourable proposal.’

‘What?’ She looked completely flummoxed by that.

‘Yes. All the others,’ he put in swiftly, before the conversation could turn to that first proposal and all the hurt that had ensued, ‘were quite happy to receive dishonourable ones.’

Her puzzled frown turned to a veritable scowl. And she made her first real attempt to get off his lap.

Since he’d already decided they’d been starting to venture rather too close to territory he would rather not revisit, he let her go. All the way to the table where she seized the teapot with what looked like relief.

But the expression faded as she set the pot down after pouring herself a cup of tea, as if she’d realised that, although she’d scored one point in escaping his lap, there was still a major battle to fight. And the look she darted him as he got to his feet and followed her to the table was one of outright desperation.

‘I, um, should thank you, then, for doing me the honour of...though actually, you didn’t propose, did you? You just informed the world that I was your fiancée.’

‘Nevertheless,’ he said, pouring himself a glass of ale, ‘you will become my wife.’

‘I—’

‘And you will make the best of it. In public, at least,’ he added grimly. Even his own parents had managed that. ‘In private—’

‘There isn’t going to be any in private.’

‘You mean, you wish me to make love to you in public?’

‘Don’t be...oh! You provoking man! You know very well what I mean. That there isn’t going to be any making love, anywhere, since we are not getting married. You know we are not.’

‘But, Clare, what will become of you if I don’t make an honest woman of you?’

She flung up her chin. ‘I will be fine. I will...well... I will work something out.’

He couldn’t help admiring her stance, even though he still felt rather insulted by her determination to survive without his help. She was so brave. So determined to stand on her own two feet. No matter what life flung at her.

‘There is no need to work anything out. This solution will do as well as any other either of us could come up with. And it saves us the bother of racking our brains for an alternative.’

‘But—’

‘Really, Clare, this is getting tiresome. I am offering you a position amongst the highest in the land. Wealth you have never been able to imagine.’

‘I don’t care about your money, or your position,’ she retorted. ‘Worldly vanity, that is all you have to offer me—’

‘Have you never considered how much good you could do, as a marchioness? You will be mixing with the people responsible for making the law. You will be able to preach your beliefs to their faces, whenever they eat at our table. You will be able to use your wealth to make a difference to the lives of very many of the poorest and most deserving, should you care to do so.’

She froze. Like a hound scenting prey. ‘You would let me spend your money however I wish?’

‘I will give you a generous allowance,’ he corrected her, ‘which you may spend however you wish.’

Her eyes went round and she stared right through him, as though she was imagining all the ways she could spend that allowance. For a moment or two. Before she lowered them to the table and bit down on her lower lip, as though chastising herself for indulging in some extremely mercenary daydreams.

Time to put some steel in her spine again.