‘The fact that I do not wish to take laudanum has nothing to do with you, sir. It is just that I prefer not to take it. It makes me feel so sick, and leaves me feeling so confused—’
‘You do not need to worry about keeping your wits about you,’ he bit out. ‘I have never taken a woman against her will, and I am not about to start upon one who has injured herself whilst under my care.’
He straightened up to his not inconsiderable height, clasped his hands behind his back, and said, pacing over to the window, ‘Moreover, you need not worry that I shall importune you with repeated requests that you consider my proposal, since you find the idea so repugnant.’
Billy, his head lowered, began to tidy up the scattered towels, bowl and the stockings the Captain had tossed to the floor.
‘In the morning,’ he continued, ‘Jago will make whatever arrangements are necessary for your transportation back to the slums he plucked you out of.’
‘No, please,’ said Aimée, aghast to think of being sent straight back to London.
‘I find it hard,’ he said, not even breaking his stride, ‘to believe you would flee from the prospect of becoming a Countess, when you walked to my house in the pouring rain, thinking you were about to become a mere governess. Am I so repulsive to you? ‘
Countess? Mr Jago had told her that he was a naval officer. Not that a man could not hold a title, as well as a post in the navy, but …
He strode to the end of her bed, his large hands clenching on the footboard, and glared at her while Billy scuttled out of the door.
‘Not that it makes any difference now,’ he said in a tone of chilling finality.
‘Oh, but …’ she began, but he had turned away. His shoulders stiff with affront, he stalked from the room, shutting the door behind him with the exaggerated care of a man who would have got a great deal more satisfaction from slamming it hard.
Aimée sank back into her pillows.
‘Oh, no,’ she moaned, curling up into a ball and covering her face with her hands.
If only he had not used the very words Hincksey had employed when she had gone to him to request the services of one of his underlings, to forge her some convincing-looking character references!
‘Are you sure you want to go through with this?’ Hincksey had said, as he handed the documents to her. ‘It’s a miserable business, being a governess. You’d have a lot more fun sticking with me. And better conditions. You could have fancy clothes and jewels. Even set up your own house with servants, if you was clever about the way you worked your clients …’
‘Oh,’ she moaned, rolling on to her other side. No wonder she had jumped to the wrong conclusion, after the way her own father and that weasely Mr Carpenter had let her down.
Especially after his admission that he had lured her to Yorkshire under false pretences!
She rolled on to her back, thumping the counterpane at her sides. Yes, why had he gone to such lengths to get her to his house? Why had he placed an advertisement in a London newspaper that made it sound as though he wanted to employ a governess, when what he really wanted was a wife?
Men! They were all so untrustworthy. No wonder she had not recognised his meanderings about the glowing future he could provide as an honest proposal of marriage.
‘Marriage,’ she groaned, pressing the heels of her hand to her eyes. If she had not been so suspicious, so very frightened of the man, she might be an engaged woman by now. Not that marriage necessarily meant safety for a woman. Her mother’s marriage had been a mistake of monumental proportions.
But Captain Corcoran was not a penniless charmer like her father had been in his youth. He was not attempting to get his hands on her fortune, for she hadn’t one. Quite the reverse. He was offering to provide for her in a style she had hitherto only dreamed of.
‘Jewels and servants,’ she moaned.
Not that she was tempted by them, as such. If they were all she cared about, she could have become some man’s mistress years ago! Or thrown in her lot with Hincksey.
It was just … what would it have been like to never have to worry about where the next meal was coming from? Or what means she might have to employ to procure it?
What would it have been like to have had a home of her own? Somewhere she could put down roots? To be able to make friends with neighbours, rather than keeping everyone at arm’s length lest they see through the latest story her father had fabricated to explain their current mode of life?
Above all, to have become respectable.
No, more than that. The Captain had told her she might have been a Countess. She could have screamed with frustration. Her mother had always insisted she should set her sights on that kind of rank, should she ever consider matrimony.
She groaned again. She could not believe she had thrown away such a golden opportunity!
Not that the marriage would have been a great success. He thought she was too plain. Too thin and ragged to rouse his desire. She brushed a tear from her cheek.
What was she to do?
As ever, when faced with a dilemma, Aimée wondered how her mother would have reacted in similar circumstances.
Well, to start with, her mother would not have panicked, and run from the house without a bonnet and coat. She would have remained calm and dignified. Lifted her chin, and told Captain Corcoran to his face that he was a cad who ought to be ashamed of himself.
Instead of which, it was Aimée who felt ashamed of herself. She curled into a ball and wrapped her arms round her waist, burying her face in the sodden pillow. She might have had everything she had ever wished for. Instead of which, tomorrow, she would end up right back where she had started. No, she would be even worse off, because she would not even have the hope of being on her way to a decent job!
Oh, how she wished she had never met Captain Corcoran!
Chapter Four
Damn the woman!
Captain Corcoran slammed his bedroom door behind him with satisfying force. Give him cannon fire or a howling tempest any day in preference to crossing swords with a woman!
It was no use telling himself that he was still in charge of the situation. That she was in his domain, guarded by his devoted crew. That, beyond that, he was rich and she was poor. He had felt anything but victorious when he had felt her shivering in his arms as he carried her back to the house. It had been one of the lowest moments of his life, because she was injured and it was all his fault.
But, dammit, how could he have guessed she would do something as crazy as run away in the middle of the night, without so much as a coat to keep the rain off her?
He rubbed one hand wearily over his face, his fingers snagging on the eyepatch.
He tore it from his face, hurled it at the mirror and glared at his reflection.
Was it any wonder she’d fled, screaming, into the woods, rather than ally herself to that?
He turned from the sight that, truth be told, made his own stomach heave every time he looked at it, went to a side table where he kept a bottle of good brandy and poured himself a generous measure. Of late, he had begun to think the scarring was less revolting than it had been when he had first lost his eye and the suppuration and swelling had made him look truly monstrous.
But