Rule smiled. “Then Violet it shall be—as long as you call me Rule.”
She wasn’t about to address him as his lordship, so conceding was easy. “All right.” She took the arm he offered and let him guide her along the hallway to a sunny room at the rear of the house that overlooked the garden. It was done in shades of moss-green accented with rose.
Rule seated her at an ornate rosewood table, then went over to the sideboard and filled two porcelain plates from a row of steaming silver chafing dishes.
Awaiting his return, she draped her linen napkin over the skirt of her peach silk gown, then watched as he set the plates down on the table. The aroma of eggs and sausage drifted up from where they nestled next to several pieces of buttered toast.
She glanced at the servant hovering at her shoulder holding two silver pots, one of tea, the other of coffee.
“I prefer coffee,” she said, and the man poured each of them a cup. “Thank you.” Violet added sugar and cream and carefully stirred them into the strong, aromatic blend.
“While I was in Boston, I came to prefer coffee myself,” Rule said, taking a sip from his own porcelain cup.
“My father taught me to enjoy the taste.”
He set his cup back down in its saucer. “I’m sure you miss him.”
Violet felt a familiar stab of loss. “More than you could ever know.”
Rule’s thick black eyelashes swept down, hiding whatever he was thinking. He launched into his meal and they ate in silence for a while. It occurred to her that she hadn’t had supper last night and she was ravenously hungry.
When she looked up from the bite she had taken, Rule was watching her and smiling. He had the whitest teeth and there was a sensual curve to his mouth Violet hadn’t understood at sixteen. She felt the impact of that smile and for an instant, her breathing stalled.
Rule didn’t seem to notice. “I’m delighted to see that, unlike most Englishwomen, you actually eat as if you enjoy it.”
Her fork remained poised in the air. She forced herself to spear a bite of sausage. “Everything is quite delicious. The meals aboard ship were mostly just filling.”
She took another sip of her coffee as silence descended again. She finished the last of her breakfast, wiped her mouth and set the linen napkin aside. Rule was already finished, which meant the time had come to divulge the reason for her journey.
“Now that we’re done and I am feeling human again, I would like to discuss the reason I am here.”
He frowned. “The reason you are here? I assumed the reason you were here was to begin the marriage we started three years ago.”
This was it. The moment she had been looking forward to, the reason she had traveled thousands of miles.
To confront a husband who had married her for his own selfish purposes and had no interest in keeping the promise he had made to her father. She thought of Jeffrey and the plans they had made, straightened in her seat and looked at him squarely.
“Actually, the reason I am here is to end our farce of a marriage and obtain an annulment.”
The stricken look on Rule Dewar’s too-handsome face was worth every torturous mile.
For a moment, Rule just sat there. “Excuse me? I must have heard you wrong. What did you just say?”
“You heard me quite clearly. I came here to get our marriage annulled.”
Silence descended. He finally found his voice. “That is absurd.”
“It seems quite reasonable to me. We’ve spent only a few days in each other’s company. You never returned to Boston. Clearly, you weren’t expecting to see me here. It is time we ended the charade before it goes any further. Then both of us can get on with our lives.”
Rule forced himself to stay calm. His wife had finally arrived and now that she was here, she wanted nothing more than to be rid of him. “Aren’t you forgetting something?”
She gave him a sugary smile. “I don’t think so, no.”
“What you are forgetting, Violet, is the reason your father wanted you to marry me in the first place. He was looking out for your future—your personal welfare as well as that of the company.”
“The future of the company is another matter entirely. At the moment, what I wish to discuss is this ridiculous marriage we’ve entered into. Be honest, wouldn’t you prefer to continue living your life as you have been? Staying out till all hours of the night, gambling, spending time with any number of women—doing anything you please?”
Rule couldn’t seem to make his voice work. He straightened in his chair. “I told you, I rarely gamble. As for women—I remind you, Violet, thus far we are married in name only. There is a difference, I assure you—which I am very much looking forward to showing you.”
She blushed. Which told him she remained as innocent as she was the day he had married her. He felt an unexpected stirring at that.
“You don’t want to be married,” she argued, surprising him with her stubbornness. She had acquiesced so easily before. But then, he reminded himself, this woman was not the sweet little girl he had left in Boston. “If you had wanted a wife,” she went on, “you would have come to retrieve the one you married.”
“I planned to come.” Eventually. “I wanted to give you time to prepare yourself to become my wife. Your father insisted on that, if you recall.”
“He didn’t expect you to ignore me forever.”
It was true, and guilt assailed him. “Perhaps I should have come sooner. The fact is, you are here now and clearly you are a woman instead of a girl.” His gaze ran over her, settled on the swell of her breasts, and the blood pooled low in his groin. “You have reached your nineteenth year. It is time you had a husband and as I have already acquired that role, we shall proceed just as your father wished.”
Violet shoved back her chair and stood up. “You do not seem to understand. I am not asking—I am demanding. I won’t be your wife so you might as well resign yourself.”
Standing there in the sunlight streaming in through the window, head held high, small hands propped on her tiny waist, fiery hair gleaming against the perfection of her heart-shaped face, she was magnificent.
He had been searching for a mistress. No woman in London had caught his interest as she had, nor physically attracted him so greatly. His shaft began to harden. Violet was his wife and he wanted her in his bed.
He gentled his tone, suddenly determined to convince her. “Please…will you not at least hear me out? This is an extremely important decision for both of us.”
For several seconds she made no move.
Giving up a sigh, she eased back down in her chair.
“Your father had faith in me,” Rule began. “He believed he was looking out for your future when he convinced you to marry me. Before my own father died, he asked something similar of me.”
Her expression subtly altered and he knew he’d caught her interest.
“My father believed the Dewar family’s destiny lay in building an alliance between England and America. When your father approached me, I saw a way to fulfill my own father’s greatest wish.”
“You are saying it wasn’t merely greed.”
He frowned. “I have money of my own, Violet. I admit I have made a great deal more due to my association with your father and the success of the company, but I wouldn’t have agreed if I hadn’t intended to uphold my part of the bargain.”