She really didn’t want to ask, especially given his tone, but he simply waited, so she had to. “How?”
“You may not expect me to marry you. However, as the one who was seduced, I expect you to marry me.”
He turned his head, met her gaze—let her read in the blazing hazel of his eyes that he was absolutely serious.
She stared—read the message twice. Her jaw actually slackened, then she snapped her lips shut. “That is nonsensical! You don’t want to marry me—you know you don’t. You’re simply being difficult.” With a twist and a tug, she wrenched her wrist free, aware she managed only because he let her. She scrambled from the bed. Anger, fear, irritation, and trepidation were a heady mix. She made for her chemise.
Tristan sat up as she left the bed, his gaze locking on the bruises circling her upper arms. Then he remembered the attack, and breathed again. Mountford had marked her, not him.
Then she bent and swiped up her chemise, and he saw the smudges on her hips, the faint bluish marks his fingers had left on the alabaster skin of her bottom. She turned, struggling into the chemise, and he saw similar marks on her breasts.
Softly swore.
“What?” She yanked her chemise down and glared at him.
Lips compressed, he shook his head. “Nothing.” He stood, and reached for his trousers.
Something dark, something powerful and dangerous was churning inside him. Burgeoning, struggling to break free.
He couldn’t think.
He grabbed her dress from the bed and shook it out; there was only the slightest stain, and a small red spot. The sight rattled his control. He blocked it out, and carried the gown to her.
She took it, conveying her thanks with a haughty inclination of her head. He nearly laughed. She thought he was letting her walk free.
He shrugged into his shirt, quickly buttoned it, tucked it into his waistband, then quickly and expertly knotted his cravat. All the while he watched her. She was used to having a maid; she couldn’t do up her gown on her own.
When he was fully dressed, he picked up her cloak. “Here. Let me.” He handed her the cloak; she glanced at him, then took it. And turned, presenting him with her back.
He quickly laced up her gown. As he tied off the laces, his fingers slowed. He hooked one finger beneath the laces, anchoring her before him. Leaning down, he spoke softly in her ear. “I haven’t changed my mind. I intend to marry you.”
She stood poker straight, looking ahead, then she turned her head and met his eyes. “I haven’t changed my mind either. I don’t want to get married.” She held his gaze, then added, “I never truly did.”
He hadn’t been able to shift her.
The argument had raged all the way down the stairs, reduced to hissed whispers as they crossed the ground floor because of Biggs, only to escalate again when they reached the relative safety of the garden.
Nothing he’d said had swayed her.
When, driven to complete and total exasperation by the notion that a lady of twenty-six whom he’d just very pleasurably initiated into the delights of intimacy should refuse to wed him, title, wealth, houses, and all, he’d threatened to march straight up her garden path and demand her hand from her uncle and her brother, revealing all if she made that necessary, she’d gasped, halted, turned to him—and nearly slain him with a look of horrified vulnerability.
“You said what was between us would remain between us.”
There’d been real fear in her eyes.
He’d backed down.
In real disgust had heard himself gruffly assuring her that of course he wouldn’t do any such thing.
Hoisted with his own petard.
Worse, hoisted with his honor.
Late that night, slumped before the fire in his library, Tristan tried to find a way through the morass that had, without warning, appeared around his feet.
Slowly sipping French brandy, he replayed all their exchanges, tried to read the thoughts, the emotions, behind her words. Some he couldn’t be certain of, some he couldn’t define, but of one thing he felt reasonably sure. She honestly didn’t think she—a twenty-six-year-old ape-leader—her words—was capable of attracting and holding the honest and honorable attentions of a man like him.
Raising his glass, eyes on the flames, he let the fine liquor slide down his throat.