She looked like she wanted to punch him in the nose. “Don’t be ridiculous! I don’t ever want to have a horrible man touch me again. I hated it. It was sweaty and embarrassing and humiliating. All that dreadful grunting and heaving, why—” She looked as if she had just blasphemed an angel to his face. She slapped her hand over her mouth. Her face turned red to her hairline. “Forget I said that,” she said between her fingers. “I didn’t say it, did I? No, surely I have sufficient breeding not to have spewed that out, don’t I?”

“Yes, you did say it. Sorry.”

“No, you must have misunderstood me. Please, Rohan, let me steal some money. All of us will leave and you’ll never have to worry about anything again.”

He studied his fingernail. It was short and buffed. He wanted to ease that finger inside her, he wanted . . . “You know, Susannah, physical love between a man and a woman doesn’t have to be horrible and embarrassing. I have no understanding at all of humiliation in lovemaking. What could be humiliating? S

weaty, probably so, but that’s not so bad when you’re enjoying yourself.”

She stared at him as if he had just grown another ear. Her chin went up again. “Since I didn’t say anything, I have no idea of what you’re talking about.”

He walked to her then. He took her hand and pulled her out from behind his desk. He pulled her against him. She tried to push away, her palms flat against his chest, but he was stronger and he was determined. “Say yes, Susannah.”

Her eyes were on his neck. She shook her head.

He began to stroke his hands up and down her back, easy, gentle strokes. “Everything will be all right if you will just say yes.”

Finally, she raised her eyes to the cleft in his chin. “You are a very kind man, despite your reputation. I would be a miserable woman were I to accept you. I would have no honor. Your brother didn’t believe I was worth anything other than what he got from me in his bed, which couldn’t have been very much. He didn’t think I was worth any more than ten pounds a quarter. Surely you aren’t willing to sacrifice yourself just because of George’s indiscretion?”

16

“I THINK I WOULD MAKE A SPLENDID SACRIFICE.”

“This isn’t a jest, Rohan. George obviously didn’t want me or his daughter. We simply weren’t important enough to him. Why would you want something that had no value at all to your brother?”

“What George did was despicable. It has nothing to do with us. Listen to me, Susannah. I will not allow you to say that you have no value—”

“It’s true. I have less worth than any decent mistress. It’s been proven. Only ten pounds a quarter for the likes of me. Tell me, what does one of your mistresses cost you per quarter? Or has one mistress ever been lucky enough to survive a full quarter?”

He grabbed her shoulders and shook her. He put his face right into hers. He said very slowly, “I will not let you goad me. I will say it again. You have great worth. Don’t you dare look down at your damned slippers. Look at me! It gives me pleasure just to look at you. It gives me great pleasure to hear Marianne sucking on her fingers. It gives me great pleasure to have Toby tell me he’s never indulged in a wild antic. You are an intelligent, caring woman. I want you for my wife. Let’s grow old together and have a dozen children.”

“A man of your reputation wouldn’t want a dozen children,” she said slowly, looking at him straightly. Then she paused, frowning. “Oh, I understand now. If I was pregnant all the time then I wouldn’t be in London to interfere in your outside pleasures.”

He held his anger. After all, a man of his reputation had to accept certain judgments about his character. The good Lord knew he’d worked hard enough to make sure that people had made those certain judgments. He drew a deep breath, saying calmly, with dead certainty, “Actually, I wouldn’t go to London at all. I would walk about patting your belly, telling stories to my child. I would probably wear a perpetual idiotic smile on my face.”

“I don’t understand you,” she said very slowly, still looking at him straightly, everything she felt so clearly writ on her expressive features. “You are reputed to be a great womanizer, a man of a satyr’s appetites. Everyone admires you for it, as they do your mother. As they did your father. You are renowned as a connoisseur of women. George said no man had a more splendidly lascivious reputation than you. Then he’d laugh and rub his hands. Naturally, now I understand why he laughed. He was trying to emulate you. I wonder if I was his first?

“No, enough of that. Why in heaven’s name would you want to marry me and have a dozen children?”

“Would you believe me if I were to tell you that none of that is true?”

“No.”

“But you haven’t seen me hieing myself off to have a woman since you met me?”

“It’s only been a bit over a week.”

“Yes, but a man of my reputation must have a woman at least twice a day. Maybe not even the same woman. You know, a woman in the morning and a different woman in the evening. Isn’t that what you’ve heard?”

She gulped. This was plain speaking indeed. “So you’re exercising some control. I appreciate it.” Then her eyes widened. “But wait—you’re jesting, aren’t you? Twice a day? That’s unimaginable, outlandish. Why, it must be sinful. Surely the biggest womanizer of all time didn’t have a different woman in for his pleasures twice a day?”

He was tempted to laugh, but he didn’t. “Would you consent to believe me were I to tell you that I have sown all the wild oats for a dozen men and am ready to settle down with one woman and that woman is you?”

She couldn’t quite say no so quickly to that. She could only stare up at him helplessly. “But why me? I am nothing, less than nothing. I am worth only ten pounds a quarter. I already have a child by your younger brother. Why me? Wouldn’t you want a young virgin of splendid birth and fortune? I have heard it said that rakes prefer virgins, that they—”

“Where did you hear all this about rakes?”

She flushed, a very charming shade of red, really, and he wanted to kiss her. He wanted to do a whole lot more to her, but he was willing to begin with a kiss—or perhaps half a dozen kisses. “Er, perhaps it was from Mrs. Bingly, who was the local seamstress. She spent her youth as a lady’s maid in London.”

Tags: Catherine Coulter Baron Romance
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