He did not give voice to his true answer to her question, for it would be surrendering to the fears. Instead, he concerned himself with the most important argument he could make to her.
“Marry me,” he said.
It was not the first time he had proposed to her.Hell, if he were to count, he would have to admit it was the third. It was also the most practical occasion upon which he had asked the woman before him to share her life with him.
The first time he had asked her to marry him because he had been hopelessly in love with her and about to leave England for an extended trip abroad and he had not wanted to lose her before his return. Ironically, he had anyway. The second time, he had been nettled to find her watching him in his private space as he exercised, and he had somewhat mockingly offered, knowing she would deny him. This time, he was determined to make certain she would never be harmed again. And neither would her daughter. This time, he would do everything in his power to make certain her answer was a resoundingyes.
“Marrying you will not solve my problems, Northwich.”
Her answer, cutting through the stillness which had descended, was not entirely a refusal. “I will be able to offer you my protection in a way I cannot now,” he explained simply, gesturing toward the scene of the terrible night’s sleep he had endured. “I cannot bed down on your floor each night.”
“You should not have done so last night,” came her tart reply.
Mayhap not. But he had not been willing to leave her here alone after she had been attacked. And neither had she wished him to.
“You agreed it was best,” he reminded her.
Maybe it was small of him to fling her words back at her, after the blow she had suffered to the head and the resultant haze in her mind. But Pippa had never failed to strip down all his pretensions of civility, until he was nothing but raw.
“I was not thinking clearly,” she said.
Stating the obvious.
He could not argue.
Instead, he offered a different tactic. “Perhaps, but regardless of your thoughts or the rightness of it, here is indeed where I spent the night. When you and your daughter are beneath my roof, I will be responsible for the both of you.”
“I have not agreed to marry you.”
But she would.
He could see the decision upon her face. She had never excelled at hiding her emotions, and he was glad for it now.
He pressed his advantage, determined not to surrender. “You were attacked last night. What if these same miscreants should come after your daughter next?”
It was wrong of him, perhaps, to suggest such a possibility. And yet, it was one she, and he, must face. Thus far, the criminals who had intruded upon her home had satisfied themselves with attacking the person who had investigated the uproar they had caused. Namely, Pippa. But what if the girl was awakened?
What if something were to happen to the child? It was not an impossibility.
“I do not think they would seek out an innocent child,” Pippa said then.
But her tone was hesitant.
“Do you truly wish to test your supposition?” he asked. “Your daughter will be safe at my home. You will be safe at my home. This, I promise you.”
“But…marriage? I have just discovered my husband deceived me. You cannot suppose I would ever wish to subject myself to that institution again.”
Again, he could not contest her logic, as it was an argument he had considered himself. Her countenance gave her thoughts away.
“I would never lie to you, Pippa.”
“But I do not know you.”
He clenched his jaw. “Do you not? Are we strangers, then?”
She shook her head slowly. “I do not know any longer. Everything I thought I knew has suddenly proven a lie.”
Fair enough. He could not counter the point. Surely part of her must be adrift.
