“What’s this?” She took the paper from his hands with ease.
“Oh, nothing.” He tried to take it back, but she was too fast.
“Your handwriting is rather cursive for me to read.” She squinted down at the page. “But it’s a poem, is it not?” She looked up, her eyes widening again in what was clearly an impressed look. “You write poetry?”
“I … attempt to write poetry. There is a difference.” This time, he managed to get the paper from her. “In truth, I haven’t written anything in years, but this evening, I don’t know. Things changed.” He didn’t look at the page but over the top of it, straight at her. “Maybe someone made me want to try again.”
“You are a charmer, aren’t you?” she said, mocking him as she cast her eyes to the ceiling. “I imagine you have a whole hoard of poetry somewhere. Let me guess, one dedicated to each lady who has gone to your bed?”
“Ha! Hardly.” He folded up the paper. “No lady has ever got a poem from me before, and I haven’t had a lady in my bed for some time.” At his confession, her face blushed a deeper red still. She bit her lip in that tantalizing way.
Don’t do that, or my fantasies will have to become reality!
She stood suddenly. He dropped the paper to the table beside him, realizing he had crossed a line.
“I’m sorry,” he said as she halted on the other side of her armchair, gripping the back. “For the strangeness of everything.” His suddenly serious tone seemed to capture her attention.
“You are aware of it then?” she asked. “Flirtation is fun, Your Grace.”
“Marcus. You said you would call me Marcus,” he pleaded again.
“Yet flirtation is trying to paint over the cracks, is it not? It cannot be denied that you have asked for my hand in marriage without ever meeting me. Is that not strange?”
Her question made the air feel suddenly cold, where seconds before, it had been heated and very pleasant indeed.
It’s time to have this discussion.
Marcus reached for his brandy glass and downed the last of it. When he was absolutely certain that his length was no longer hard and that his strong attraction to her would not be on show, he stood. He didn’t move towards her but shifted towards the fire instead and threw a log on the embers that were burning down. It made the sparks fly.
“I cannot deny it is what I have done,” he said, choosing to look into those flames and not at her now. “And I am truly sorry for it all.”
She made a scoffing sound.
“Truly,” he said again, looking up to see that, despite the sound, she was giving him her full attention, leaning on the back of the armchair. “I needed to marry. That is all, and your father offered you up as a solution.” He couldn’t deny the sheer scale of her dowry was what drew him in. It was astonishingly grand compared to any other lady he had heard of.
“Like some ornament on a fine shelf that could be sold.” She gestured to one of the ornaments on his mantelpiece. “Was it all that you thought of when you thought of marriage?”
“No,” he said honestly. “Yet it would be a lie to you to say it wasn’t my chief motivation. I am not so cold-hearted, though, as to think of nothing else. Why else would I invite you here so we could get to know one another first?”
His question challenged her so much that, apparently, she had no answer for it. She looked down at where her hands were resting on the back of the armchair.
“If …” He began with a hesitation. For all the flirtation between them, that pleasant dinner, and the heated dreams, he would not trap a woman in marriage who did not want it. “If you have no wish to explore what this is or what it could be, then I would not blame you for it.”
She snapped her head up.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean that you are welcome to leave.” He placed down his empty glass on the mantelpiece and took a step away so he was in the middle of the hearth rug. “If you find the notion of marrying me appalling, if you look at me and find all thought of the marriage bed completely repulsive, you are free to leave, Callie.”
Her eyes widened. She stepped out from behind the armchair and came a little closer towards him.
“You would give me that? You would give me … freedom?”
“Of course,” he said without hesitation. “I am not a demon who would force you into marriage. No, that is not me.” He was emphatic, shaking his head. “If you wanted to leave tomorrow morning, you could. I would make the arrangements for your carriage myself. I assure you of that.”
“Oh.” She gasped, then took another step forward so she was on the edge of the hearth rug. He did his best to keep his eyes raised from how far open her dressing gown was now. He stared at her eyes instead.
“Do you wish to leave?”
