The kiss. She shouldn’t have thought about the kiss. It made every single inch of her feel far too...feminine.
He took a seat as close to hers as he could find, which didn’t help. Now he could reach out and take her hand, if he wanted. Or she could reach out and take his.
Not that she wanted to. Absolutely not!
‘Thank you for agreeing to speak with me alone,’ he said. ‘I know it is a little unconventional, but there are things we do need to talk about.’
‘Yes, there are,’ she agreed. ‘I understand that you felt obliged to make me an offer of marriage, yesterday, after kissing me.’ She couldn’t look at his face. Not with his mouth right there, close enough that if she leaned forward, and he leaned forward, just the tiniest bit, they could be kissing again. She looked hard at her hands instead, which she was clasping tightly on her lap. ‘And I’m also aware that you do not truly wish to marry me. And so I release you—’
‘You jolly well don’t!’ He leapt to his feet again. ‘No wriggling out of this. You gave me your word....’
‘Actually, I didn’t. You said a lot of things, and everyone congratulated us, but I never, not once, said I would marry you.’
‘Well, you are going to marry me and that’s that.’
‘No.’ She got to her feet, as well. She wasn’t going to risk backing down simply because she felt intimidated with him looming over her like that. ‘It is better to end this engagement now than to take a step we will both regret for the rest of our lives.’
She’d seen, at close quarters, just how miserable two people could become when bound together by chains of matrimony that neither of them wished for any longer.
‘Our engagement will only end one way,’ he growled, jabbing his forefinger at her. ‘In marriage.’
She flinched at the first physical expression of his anger, but held her ground.
‘I’ve already purchased the licence,’ he rapped out. ‘And spoken to your uncle, and taken a light-fingered guttersnipe into my employ all on your account. We. Are. Getting. Married.’
As the volume of his voice increased, the memories of raised voices that led to clenched fists, and thence to bruised ribs, made her recall how dangerous it was to be some man’s wife, some man’s property to deal with as he saw fit. And she began to tremble.
‘If this is an indication of the way you mean to go on, whenever your will is crossed, then...’
His eyes widened. He shook his head and ran his fingers through his hair.
‘I didn’t mean to scare you. Please...’ he waved a hand at the chair ‘...sit down again and I will try to talk this over calmly.’
‘Only if you sit down, too.’
He frowned, then nodded.
Gingerly, she sat in the chair he’d indicated and he sat down, too.
‘Look, Miss Carpenter. I have a terrible, hasty temper. Bane of my life, actually, but I do try not to let it govern my actions, the way it once did. I am sorry I let it get the better of me this morning. Ungentlemanly of me.’ He lowered his head for an instant, the picture of contrition, before lifting it, looking directly into her eyes, and saying, ‘Do you think you could find it in your heart to forgive my...outburst and start this interview again?’
She could hardly believe it. He didn’t appear to believe, the way her father had, that it was his God-given right to harangue a female, when he had her behind closed doors. On the contrary, he’d said it was ‘ungentlemanly’ behaviour. And had asked her to forgive him.
How could she do anything but forgive him? When she nodded, mutely, he heaved a sigh of relief.
‘Thank you. It is just that...this means so much to me. And I was so certain you felt the same way I did. That the fact you were a touch reluctant to get married would make us...allies. Then the cool way you talked about pulling the rug from under my feet just made me—’ He broke off, shaking his head as though he didn’t have the words to describe what he felt.
She felt every bit as confused as he looked.
‘But if you don’t truly want to get married, then...’
He heaved another sigh and ran his fingers through his unruly curls again.
‘I don’t truly want to get married, no,’ he admitted. ‘But I cannot see any other way out. But it’s not because I’m in debt, or anything of that nature. My trustees have done a sterling job of managing my capital, up till now. Of course the trust will wind up when I get married,’ he said gloomily. ‘So I’m going to have to learn all that side of things myself now.’
‘And you don’t want to.’
He shrugged. ‘In some ways it will be good to take up the reins myself instead of letting others drive the team. But I’m going to be far busier with that sort of thing than I’d like.’ He slouched back into his seat, his expression mulish.
‘Well, then, why? If it isn’t money? And you aren’t really ready to...take up the reins...’ And it certainly wasn’t because he’d fallen in love with her. There was nothing lover-like in the way he’d reacted to her rejection. Besides, men only fell for beautiful girls.
‘I suppose I should blame Ashe for suggesting I court a girl with brains,’ he said cryptically. ‘You aren’t going to be fobbed off with the usual nonsense, are you?’
‘Nonsense?’
He tilted his head to one side and made a wry attempt at a smile.
‘Nothing of nonsense about you at all, is there? Very well,’ he said, leaning forward and clasping his hands between his knees. ‘I will take you into my confidence. I hadn’t meant to until after we were married, but I can see you’re unlikely to marry me at all unless I give you a very good reason for me acting in a way that must make you think I’ve taken leave of my senses. I have a sister, you see.’
She didn’t see, but before she could say so he leapt to his feet and, clearly in some agitation, paced away from her. ‘Or, to be more precise, a half-sister.’ He had to stop when he got to the window, but instead of turning round, he stayed just where he was, his shoulders hunched, and started fiddling with the curtain tie-backs.
‘My mother died when I was eight, as I told you before, and then my father remarried pretty swiftly. Before another year was out, she presented him with a daughter. The marriage lasted a few more years before he died. And then my stepmother—’ He started in surprise as an ornamental tassel came off in his hand. He laid it down on the windowsill and, taking a step back from further temptation, turned towards Mary and kept his eyes fixed firmly on her as he took up his tale again.
‘My stepmother remarried. She...she was only the daughter of our village grocer. But she was beautiful. Her parents, I found out some years later, were so thrilled to have her elevated to the ranks of the peerage, that they pushed her into accepting my father’s proposal. She tried to make the best of it, but she was never very happy with him. Anyway, the minute Father died, she took up with the man she’d loved all along. A pretty decent fellow, actually. At least, he was good to me. Paid me more attention than my own father ever had, to tell you the truth, but that’s beside the point. He was a nobody, that’s what my own father’s family said. And they were correct. He hadn’t a title. Little money. No land, nothing of that sort, but...’
He turned and paced up and down, raking his fingers through his curls yet again.
‘It’s all such a tangle it’s hard