Melissande waited, warily, uncertain what to expect.
Quinn took a deep breath when she did not speak, then another.After the third such, he spoke again and his tone was remarkably temperate.“You have told me only half of the tale,” he said with a perceptiveness that startled her.“Tell me what truly troubles you this morning.”
Then he pivoted, his gaze locking upon her as if she was his prey.Melissande’s mouth went dry, for she sensed that he would not abandon the quest for this truth very easily.
Even through her dismay, she noted that his tone was even, his words compelling in their demand.He had not struck her.
He had scarce shouted at her.
She locked her hands together before herself.If naught else, she owed him the truth.
“You know that I had no interest in this match.”
Quinn snorted.“Yet I did?”
Melissande eyed him.“Why would you not be?I have a holding and some affluence.I am young enough to bear children and...”she faltered, unable to claim her own beauty as an asset.She was aware of it—how could she not be?—but she was not vain.
“And?”he prompted, teasing her as she blushed.
“You did express an admiration for my hair.”
His smile was quick and when his gaze swept over her, she saw his gaze heat.She was surprised by how much it pleased her to have some influence over him.
“Make no mistake, my lady, you are fair to look upon, to be sure, but I had always hoped to choose my bride.I had hoped to make a match to suit both my heart and my lady’s.”Quinn raised his gaze to hers and the intensity of that look pierced Melissande’s very soul.“I dared to hope last night that, despite the odds, we might have made such a match.”He held her gaze for a long moment, his own searching.“Was I mistaken?”
Melissande turned abruptly away.“Aye, you were.”
“Ah.”
The chamber filled with silence, but it was not one of expectation or desire.Melissande found tears pricking at her eyes and felt that she had lost something precious, and that by her own folly.
It was all a trick, she reminded herself, a feint by Jerome’s son to fulfill his father’s fondest dream.How strange that each time she told herself such things, they seemed less plausible than they had before.
Was she falling under Quinn’s spell, just as he planned?
“Tell me then, as you seem so inclined to do so,” he said.“What was your objection to this match?Is my father’s shadow so long that you cannot judge me in my own right?Or do you find me lacking so grievously that you would have chosen any other man in my stead?”
Melissande did not like to see this bitterness in Quinn and liked even less that she had provoked it.But he had to know the truth.
“I am pledged to another,” she confessed.
“What madness is this?”
Melissande met his gaze.“You heard me.”
“Pledged to another man?”Quinn ran one hand through his hair in his agitation.“Yet you did not imagine that this detail might interest me?”
“Tulley did not care.”
His eyes flashed and Melissande braced herself for his fury.Already, though, she began to trust that the sum of it would be shouting.
“I am not Tulley!”he roared.“Do you think that I am such a selfish cur?Do you think that I would care naught for a pledge you had granted?Do you think that I would not have walked away if I had only known?”
His reaction chilled Melissande to her marrow.Was it true?“You would not have abandoned Sayerne,” she insisted.
“I would not have willingly wed a woman sworn to another man.I would have told Tulley as much and insisted he change his terms.”
“He would not change them for me.”
