“Then what?” What else had happened that day? “You wanted money for wedding clothes? I can give you money for clothes if—”
“I wantmymoney, Edward!Mine!The money my father left me, and now it will all go tohim, to my uncle, who has more money than he knows what to do with already, and I shall have nothing at all. It is so unfair!”
“Why do you think it will go to the earl?” he said cautiously.
“I heard you talking, you and Captain Edgerton and the lawyer from London. My father stole it all, filched the tenants’ rent money and bought those gold bars, so it has to go back to my uncle, and I know it is the law, I understand that, but it is so hard! I hoped to get my hands on it before anyone realised anything about it. But that lawyer is too thorough. He asks too many questions.”
“So you knew? That your father was embezzling from the late earl’s estate?”
“I knew he was up to something, and guessed the nature of it. So much money, and it should have been mine. He intended it to be mine, and now I shall be penniless.”
That brought another flood of tears. Silently, Edward handed her a handkerchief.
“I have one,” she sobbed, waving the scrap of lace.
He laughed. “That little thing is useless for a real crying session. You need a man’s handkerchief for so many tears.”
That brought a wan smile to her face, as she accepted the offered handkerchief. “At least Ulric is safe from me now. There is no point in marrying if I have no dowry.”
“Oh Tess, I am so sorry,” he said. “I never wanted you to marry Ulric, but I truly wanted… I still want you to have your fortune. At the risk of being boringly repetitive, would this be an appropriate moment to remind you that you can still marryme? I would give you your fifty thousand pounds, free of all conditions, so you could do as you pleased.”
“But it would still beyours. You could change your mind at any time, and I would have no freedom with a string of babies to tie me down.”
“Well, a trust fund for the money, then, and a marriage of convenience, so no babies. Would that be acceptable?” He despised himself for the pleading tone in his voice, but surely she would marry him now? What alternative had she?
She turned her tear-streaked face to look at him. “You still want to marry me, even though I have nothing?”
“Dearest, I have never cared a straw for your fortune, except that it was of interest to you. I have a large fortune of my own, as it happens, which I should be delighted to share with you.”
“Would you do that for me? Why?”
“Because I love you, Tess. Surely you know that now. I want you beside me for the rest of my life.”
“But I do not love you. I could never love you.”
Oh, if she only knew the pain her words gave him! “I do not ask for love,” he said with what dignity he could muster. “Am I truly so unpalatable to you, Tess?”
“You are stuffy, like all men of your rank… like the earl, denying me even a thousand pounds of my own money. So patronising! He barely even listened to me.”
“Is there nothing about me that you like?” he said in desperation.
She whipped round to face him, mischief written on her face. “Why, yes! I like the way you kiss me.”
And to his delight and astonishment, she curled up against his chest and pulled his head towards her.
Edward melted. She was a minx, of course, and should have been reined in years ago, but he adored her waywardness with all his being. At first, he simply allowed her to have her way,her lips, salty with tears, warming him and sending hope fizzing through him. She could think him as stuffy as much as she liked if she would only kiss him like this more often. But gradually, when she made no move to break away from him, he could not help himself from responding to her with more passion. And she matched him every step of the way, until he was dizzy and shaking with the multitude of nameless emotions roiling through him.
When eventually she pushed him away, laughing, he gasped at the sudden change, like a drowning man suddenly reaching the air at the surface.
“That was fun!” she said happily.
Fun! That was not the word he would have used. Incredible, perhaps. Exhilarating. Magical. Good Lord, merefundid not begin to describe it.
Breathlessly, he said, “Well, you can forget the marriage of convenience. If you are going to kiss me like that, there is no way I shall be able to keep my hands off you.”
She beamed at him. “Now that is better than Tom. He tells me it is most improper when we kiss, and there can never be anything between us. Or he used to,” she added sadly.
Edward almost pushed her away in disgust. “I wish you would not compare me with Tom Shapman. It is most unhandsome of you.”
