“Rafe,” she gasped out, the panic taking hold now and making her stomach clench as surely as it made her flush in distress. “I can’t live in the Scottish Highlands! It might as well be the surface of the moon!”
The part of her that wasn’t swept away in the horror of the very idea of a city creature like herself condemned to some forced commune with the natural world that had never held the slightest appeal to her noticed that Rafe seemed to grow even more still, even more quiet.
“It is the ancestral seat,” he said softly. Dangerously, that distant part of her noted, but it was thrust aside. “It is home.”
“You must be mad!” she breathed. She waved a hand, indicating herself. She even let out a short laugh, trying to picture herself, all ruddy cheeks and jolly hockey sticks, milking a cow or shearing a sheep or whatever it was you did while slowly dying of boredom on an earl’s rural estate. She couldn’t manage it. She couldn’t even come close. “I am not at all suited to rustication. Clearly. I’ve never lived outside the city in all my life, and I have no intention of starting now—especially not when you have that lovely town house sitting idly by!”
“Unfortunately,” Rafe said in a tone that indicated it was unfortunate only for Angel, “this is not negotiable.”
He might as well have slapped her. Hard.
Angel felt herself go white, as reality asserted itself yet again. And it was harsh.
“Part of what you signed was an agreement to live where I live until any heirs we produce are of school age,” Rafe said in that cool way of his, as if he did not care one way or the other, but was simply reciting the facts. “I promised you I won’t rush you into the physical part of our arrangement, and I’ll keep that promise.” She felt his voice like another slap, so cold and sure when she was coming apart, when she was fighting so hard to keep from falling to bits all over the floor of the car. “I have no problem maintaining separate addresses in future if that is what you want, but not until the question of heirs is settled. And I apologize if this distresses you, but until then we will live at Pembroke Manor, with only occasional forays into Glasgow and even fewer trips down to London.”
Too many thoughts whirled through Angel’s head then, making her feel slightly sick. There was a heat behind her eyes that she was desperately afraid might be tears, and she knew that if she unclenched her hands they would shake uncontrollably.
And none of that even touched the storm that raged inside of her. It didn’t come close.
How could she have forgotten the truth about this relationship? How could she have tried to protect this man, tried to shield him from hurt, when she should have known he would not do the same? Because why should he? This was a cold and calculated arrangement, not a love match. Not even a like match—as they’d hardly known each other long enough to tell! Why had she let herself lose sight of that for even a moment?
Why was there a part of her—even now—that wanted it to be different when it so very clearly wasn’t and would never, could never, be?
He did not want her by his side at all times because he was swept away in emotion, which might have been forgivable, no matter how confining. No, he demanded it for the oldest reason in the world—because he wanted to make sure that any heirs that might turn up were his, and he had no particular reason to take her word on that subject or any other subject, because they were total strangers to each other. And she had no right to complain about that, or even about the fact he was whisking them off to Scotland in the first place, because this was the deal. This was what she’d signed up for—literally. She got access to his money. He got to make the decisions.
She hadn’t imagined how difficult it was going to be to swallow those decisions when he handed them down. You fool, she chastised herself with no small amount of bitterness. You pathetic fool—what did you expect?
“And what if I can’t do it?” she asked, not surprised to hear that her voice sounded like a stranger’s. So far away. So thin. Desperate, she thought. She didn’t look at him, but then she didn’t have to. He still occupied twice the space that he should have done, all that power seeming now to pollute the air around them.
“You can leave any time you like,” Rafe replied evenly. Angel noted that he did not sound unduly concerned about that possibility, though she thought she heard a faint undertone of challenge, even so. “But I feel compelled to remind you that should you choose to do so, you leave only with what you brought into the marriage. Your debt will remain intact, but instead of owing a credit card company fifty thousand pounds and any accrued interest, you will owe it to me.”