Head up, spine rigid, she looked straight ahead. “I told you. I’m a widow. Widows don’t need to get married to…”
In lieu of words, she gestured.
“Indulge?”
Jaw setting, Caro nodded. “Indeed. That’s what I thought this was about.” He was almost finished with her laces; she wanted nothing more than to flee, to retreat with dignity intact before any of the emotions roiling within her could rupture her control. Her head was spinning so badly she felt sick. A deathly chill was slowly claiming her.
“But you’re the Merry Widow. You don’t have affairs.”
The barb struck home in a way he couldn’t have foreseen. She sucked in a breath, lifted her chin. Forced her voice steady. “I’m merely extremely finicky about whom I choose to have affairs with.” His hands stilled; she tensed to leave. “But as that’s not your real goal—”
“Wait.”
She had to; the damned man had hooked his fingers in her laces. She let out a frustrated hiss.
“Having you is a very real goal of mine.” He spoke slowly, his tone uninflected.
She couldn’t see his face but sensed he was thinking, swiftly readjusting his strategy…she moistened her lips. “What do you mean?”
A full minute ticked by, long enough for her to grow aware of her own heartbeat, of the increasingly oppressive atmosphere building before the storm. Yet the elemental threat beyond the summerhouse wasn’t sufficient to distract her from the turbulence within, from the potent presence standing in the dimness behind her. His fingers hadn’t moved; he was still holding her laces.
Then she sensed him shift nearer; he bent his head so his words fell by her ear, his breath brushing the side of her face. “If you could choose, how would you wish this—what’s been growing between us—to develop?”
A subtle shiver tingled down her spine. If she could choose…she dragged in a breath past the vise gripping her lungs. Determinedly stepped forward—forcing him to let go. He did, reluctantly.
“I’m a widow.” Halting two paces away, she pressed her hands tightly together, then faced him. Fixing her eyes on his, she lifted her chin. “It’s perfectly feasible—a straightforward matter—for us to have an affair.”
He looked at her for a long moment, then said, “Just so I have this perfectly straight…you, the Merry Widow, are agreeing to be seduced.” He paused, then asked, “Is that correct?”
She held his gaze, wished she didn’t need to answer, finally, briefly, nodded. “Yes.”
He stood silent, still, studying her; she could read nothing from his face, in the dimness couldn’t see his eyes. Then he stirred almost imperceptibly; she sensed an inner sigh.
When he spoke, his voice was stripped of all lightness, all seduction, all pretense. “I don’t want an affair, Caro—I want to marry you.”
She couldn’t hide her reaction, the instinctive, deeply ingrained panic, her desperate recoil from the very words—from the threat in those words. Her lungs had clamped tight; head rising, muscles tensing, she faced him.
Even through the dimness, Michael saw her fear, saw the panic that dulled her silver eyes. He fought the urge to grab her, to haul her into his arms and soothe her, reassure her…what was this?
“I don’t want to get married—I won’t ever marry again. Not you. Not any man.” The words quavered with emotion, charged, resolute. She dragged in a breath. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I must get back to the house.”
She swung away.
“Caro—”
“No!” Blindly, she held up a hand; her head rose higher. “Please…just forget it. Forget all this. It won’t work.”
With a shake of her head, she picked up her skirts and walked quickly across the summerhouse, down the steps, then hurried—almost ran—away across the lawn.
Michael stood in the shadows of the summerhouse with the storm closing in, and wondered what the devil had gone wrong.
Later that night, with the wind shrieking about the eaves and lashing the trees in the wood, he stood at his library window, a glass of brandy in his hand, watching the treetops flex, and thinking. Of Caro.
He didn’t understand, couldn’t even guess what was behind her aversion—her complete and unequivocal rejection—of another marriage. The sight of her face when he’d reiterated his wish to marry her replayed again and again in his mind.
Regardless of that reaction, his intention had deflected not at all. He would marry her. The thought of not having her as his wife had become simply unacceptable—he didn’t completely understand that either, but knew absolutely that it was so. In some odd
way, the events of the evening had only hardened his resolve.