Stuart grabbed her arm, stilling her steps. His eyes narrowed. “Are you throwing me over? You can’t be serious.”
“I’m sorry Stuart. I can’t see you anymore. It’s too risky.” She spoke low but firm. “I shouldn’t have let things get so…so—”
“Intimate?” he said.
She glanced around, there were a few people strolling ahead of them, but no one close enough to overhear their conversation. She nodded.
Stuart let go of her arm and moved his hand to cup her cheek. “But you gave yourself to me, you’re mine. Let me show you how much you mean to me. Give me a chance, luv.”
Susanna stared up into his eyes which swirled with emotion and her chest tightened with regret. “No, it’s too risky to continue our affair. I could end up with child. I have to be sensible.”
“I would love to fill you with my babies.” His thumb brushed her cheek. “Let me take care of you.”
She shook her head. “My father would never allow it.”
His expression darkened. “Bet he would give you to that toff, Hawksridge, though. Is that it? Have you gotten into the marquess’s bed?”
“No! Of course not.” She sucked in a sharp breath at his insinuation. “Stuart, I’m sorry, this was a mistake.” Susanna straightened her shoulders and took a step away from him. “Goodbye, Stuart.”
She turned and headed back toward Jenni, who stood glaring openly at Stuart.
“This was no mistake. You’re mine,” he called out.
But Susanna kept walking, not allowing herself even a glance behind her. She had to make it clear she meant what she said. She walked past Jenni and strode out from the park. Making a sharp left she headed home. She may have made a reckless mistake but she had done the responsible thing in ending it. Stuart would find some other woman to which to give his attention. She swiped a rogue tear off her cheek. It wasn’t his fault that she had used him so shamelessly to assuage her own loneliness. She swallowed more tears that threatened. She needed to take a hard look at the decisions she’d made. From now on she would behave as good as gold.
She entered her townhome and handed off her hat and gloves to the footman at the door. “Thank you, Jerry.” Then she tucked a stray hair that had escaped her pins behind one ear and headed down the corridor to the drawing room. She was pretty sure that she’d left her novel on the side table next to her favorite chair by the window. What she needed desperately was to escape to the world of the ancient Greeks. Anything to take her mind off the hurt and anger she had witnessed in Stuart’s eyes.
“Susanna, my darling.” Her father’s gruff voice called out as she passed by his study.
She swung around and paused in the threshold of his sanctuary. “Hello, Father.”
“Come in here, I have something to discuss with you.” He waved her inside.
Susanna entered her father’s study and dutifully took a seat in the leather armchair in front of his desk. Her father stroked a hand down over his beard. A movement she knew meant that he was considering what to say next. Folding her hands in her lap, she waited patiently.
“Here we are at the end of another season and you are still without a husband.”
Susanna clenched her fingers tighter. It was going to bethisconversation. The same one that he had given her at the end of last year’s social season and the year before that.
“This is your third year and I promised your mother that I would not choose for you but…” He held up a hand. “I do have a prospect that I think would make a good match for you, my darling.”
She sat up straighter. Her father had never interfered with her mother’s matchmaking efforts. He always seemed disinterested in the whole husband-hunting process. Something Susanna appreciated as having one parent rabidly throwing prospects her way was plenty. It was hardly her fault that another season was ending without a betrothal. All the men were so boring. Susanna was looking for someone to have an adventure with, or at the very least someone who was madly in love with her. Another selfish reason she had let herself be seduced by Stuart Kinrade. Superior trick rider and deliciously inappropriate, he had been an adventure.
“Susanna, are you listening? He is the elder son of the Earl of Roxburgh. He is eight and twenty, handsome according to your aunt Claire. Roxburgh is part of your mother’s clan and she approves of the family.”
Her mother’s clan? Did he mean he wanted her to marry a Scot? “But father, I haven’t even met the man. And well, Scotland is so far away.” So very far from her friends and her village. No, this was unacceptable. She wouldn’t consider it.
“Susanna, Scotland is not that far. His lands are just north of the border. He’s not some damn Highlander.”
“But I’ve never even met the man. I cannot possibly agree to marry a stranger.”
“I’m not intending to send you off to marry without you knowing him. Just that your mother and I agree that he is an excellent prospect and that I want you to consider him.”
She started to shake her head but stilled when her father’s eyebrows lowered in warning, pulling together to make one long bushy line across his forehead. Good as gold, she reminded herself. If her father ever found out that she had imprudently given her virginity away to some theater performer he would never look at her the same. He would probably send her straight to the convent.
“He is coming to pay you a visit at the end of July at home in Marbury. We will have him and his brothers as guests for a few weeks and you can get to know each other. Then we will make some decisions.” His expression shifted, a smile stretched toothy and overbright. “Give him a chance is all I ask of you. Here, he’s sent you a letter introducing himself.” He slid her a folded and sealed letter across the smooth surface of the desk.
Susanna picked it up and ran a finger over a wax seal depicting a falcon with a twig of something gripped in its claw. She picked up the opener and sliced open the letter. The handwriting was bold and neat.
