The Highlander's Forbidden Mistress (The Lairds Most Likely 7)

Cecil tugged her along a corridor. Selina started to feel dizzy with terror.

"Madam, I think we should go back," Kitty stammered behind her.

Selina did, too. She dug her heels into the wooden floor. "I’ll go no further."

"You’ll go as far as I say you will," he snarled.

He stopped outside a door and without releasing her, he unlocked it and slammed it open. Selina took a moment to register that this time round, Lord Derwent hadn’t invited Cecil to stay at his house. "Get inside, you faithless bitch."

"Sir!" Kitty protested as Cecil shoved a stumbling Selina into a large parlor crammed with ornate, old-fashioned furniture.

He released Selina to whirl around and bundle a squealing Kitty back into the hall. "I’ve had quite enough of you, you meddlesome jade."

"Sir! Miss Selina!"

Even as Kitty rushed forward to force her way back into the room, he kicked the door shut and locked it. Kitty’s shrieks of outrage were now muffled behind several inches of good English oak.

Panic turned Selina’s stomach to water, but she knew that if she showed the slightest sign of weakness, Cecil would destroy her. So she raised her chin and regarded him with the pride she’d learned over the last week. "Say your piece, Cecil, then let me go. Gerald is coming home from school tomorrow, and I’d like to be there when he arrives."

Her calm challenge startled Cecil. Given her spineless compliance the last time they’d been together, she couldn’t blame him. "You’re not fit to be a mother. To think I introduced a trollop like you to my mamma. I blush at the thought. She warned me about you."

"She warned you about me because she was jealous," Selina dared to say. "She wants to be the only woman in your life."

Cecil reddened with anger, and his beefy fists closed at his sides. "You presume to criticize a woman of such spotless reputation? I can’t believe I was so deceived in you."

Selina sighed. She had a feeling Cecil’s histrionics were likely to continue for a while.

However vile the consequences of becoming a fallen woman, her disgrace offered a new freedom. "I know you want to shout and call me names until Twelfth Night, but let’s take it as read. I’ve deceived and disappointed you, and now there’s going to be an almighty scandal when the world will label me a whore and you a dupe. But for the love of God, at least let us part with a modicum of civility."

"Have you no shame?" Astonishment had him gaping at her. "You sound as if you don’t give a fig about what’s happened."

She didn’t give a fig about Cecil, but not even her despairing recklessness let her say that. "Of course I care. I care that I’ve stained my good name. I care about the scandal. I care that I’m sure to lose Gerald."

"And you care that you’ve been found out," he said in a snide tone. "I’m assuming that you intended to rush from Bruard’s bed to mine and never confess your sins."

She had, at first. And because of that, she supposed she deserved whatever punishment the world meted out. But now she wondered if, even with Gerald’s future at stake, she could have steeled herself to accept Cecil as a husband. After experiencing Brock’s passion, how could she lower herself to marry Cecil?

She slid the diamond ring from her finger – she’d removed it a week ago, but replaced it this morning before she left the hunting box – and held it out. "Please take this back, Cecil."

He snatched it, which brought him too close for comfort. "I’ll find a woman worthy of this ring."

"I hope you do," she said, struggling for calm as she watched him shove the ring in his pocket. "Now I’m going downstairs to find my maid and my coachman and set off for London. I can’t imagine we’ll have reason to meet again. I know you won’t believe me, but I bear you no ill will."

His hard stare was somehow more threatening than his earlier blustering. "I suppose you’re hoping Bruard will keep you in luxury. Well, he might for a week or two. But everyone knows his short attention span, when it comes to his tarts."

"I have no idea what Lord Bruard intends," she said coldly.

"I know he’s stolen what belongs to me," he snarled.

This time the tide of fear that rushed through Selina turned her blood to ice. Don’t show him you’re afraid. Don’t show him you’re afraid. She battled to hold onto some authority. "You can’t mean to assault me here, Cecil. There’s an inn full of people around us to come to my aid."

He grabbed her wrist in a bruising grip and jerked her nearer. "Be damned if I want to marry you anymore."

"I know that," she said through tight lips.

"But that doesn’t stop you giving me what you gave that bastard Bruard."

Vomit rose in her throat, and she strained away from him. "Don’t be disgusting."