Evening Star (Star Quartet 1)

He saw her shoulders slump. “I don’t know yet,” she said.

Dear God, he thought, he could not leave a twenty-one-year-old girl pregnant with his child. He drew a deep breath and said, “I have a proposition for you, Giana.”

“A proposition,” she repeated, looking up at him warily.

“We will announce that we have been secretly married. You will come with me to New York, as my wife. If you find the trappings of married life with me offensive, you can return to England after our child is born and simply say that we were divorced. Then no one would question the legitimacy of our child. And you would not be bound to me, ever, legally.”

“You mean live a lie, pretend that we are married. Lie to my mother, lie to everyone.”

“You may tell your mother or not, as you wish. If, on the other hand, you discover that living with me is not the appalling degradation you envision, we could wed whenever you wished it. It would be up to you, Giana.”

Giana pressed her hands to her cheeks. “I don’t know what to say. I must think.”

He smiled. “Even you, Giana, would admit that there are some benefits to marriage. I offer you those benefits without any of the ills.”

“Why, Mr. Saxton?”

“I can think of no other solution remotely acceptable to either of us. There is but one promise you must make me. If you decide to return to England, you must promise that I will be allowed to see my child, to have my role in his or her future.”

“It is insane—all of it. You cannot mean it.”

“I mean every bloody word, dammit. You must decide, and quickly, before all London knows you are breeding. Surely you wish to avoid that kind of scandal.”

“But you don’t even like me.”

“I trust you will become more amiable once the sword of Damocles is no longer hanging over your head. I am even willing to wager that you have a sense of humor.”

“But there is nothing in this for you. I know your reputation in the business world, Mr. Saxton. This is completely unlike you. Why?”

He wondered why indeed. He supposed he did not like to be thwarted. No, it was more than that. He had wronged her, taken her innocence, and at the same time created a child.

“I do like you, Giana,” he said. “It is true that I, like you, thought I would never again contemplate marriage. But the fact of our child remains. Will you agree?”

Giana slowly nodded. She raised her face to his and drew a deep breath. “I cannot think of any better result for the child, Mr. Saxton. I do agree.”

“Never have I had such difficulty convincing a woman not to be my wife. We will allow a couple of days to elapse, time enough for licenses to have been processed, inform the newspapers, and be on our way to New York by the end of next week.”

Seven months with him, living with him intimately, as her husband. Seven months in America. She pressed her finger to her temples, imagining her mother’s astonishment, after all she’d written to her about him. Aurora had played the devil’s advocate with her at first. Would she be dismayed now? She brightened, thinking of Derry.

“You are smiling, Giana. What are you thinking now?”

She glanced up at him. “I was thinking about a friend of mine, Mr. Saxton, a dear friend whom I haven’t seen in four years. She was full of all the romantic drivel young girls thrive on, then. She has been married four years now, and is likely miserable.”

He silenced a sharp retort that was blistering his tongue. He said, “I believe you’ve made yourself quite clear on your views, Giana. I think it wise that you contain your cynicism, at least in front of others. To the world, we will be a happily married couple.”

&nbs

p; “Ah,” she said. “Does that mean that I must hang on your every word and gaze at you with limpid, dewy eyes?”

He heard a quiver of laughter in her voice, and smiled. She did have a sense of humor, thank God. “Do so tonight at least. Now, Giana, let us return to the ball. I think it wise that you introduce me to a few people if our elopement is not to come as too much of a shock.”

He offered her his arm. Giana lightly laid her hand on his black sleeve. “Do you think you could bring yourself to call me Alex?”

“I think I can manage it, sir. I also think that first I shall introduce you to the Duke and Duchess of Graffton.”

Chapter 16

Giana gazed down from the third-floor window of her room at the Royal George Inn at the fog-laden streets of Bristol. The raucous singing of a group of rum-happy sailors drifted up to her.