‘You are rich – in looks, wit and courage, enough to turn even my jaded head.’
They stared at each other in a duel of nerves, neither wanting to look away first. Bryce’s eyes swirled with some great passion, and he seemed sincere when he said, ‘I like you, Maren, more than I want to and far more than is prudent. And I want you, lass, with every fibre of my being. You set a fire in my soul.’
She opened her mouth to say,‘I want you too.’Bryce Cullan was so beautiful. How could she not want to lay down beside him and be held in his strong arms, to be safe, to be wanted? But she rallied and brushed aside his flattery.
‘We would not do for each other,’ she said.
‘Why?’
‘Too different. My world is not your world.’
‘Tell me about your world.’
‘You would not understand it, nor do I wish to delve into a past I am not proud of.’
‘I could say the same. Come on. Unburden yourself. Where are your family, lass?’
‘My mother died when I was young in great bitterness, having fallen on hard times.’ She could not help but slide her gaze from his, and he noticed, of course.
‘Fallen? I thought you said she was poor and low-born. If so, how could she have fallen? Was there further to fall from poverty?’
‘I lied. My mother was not poor. She was high-born, well, not as high as you, but high enough to be a lady.’
‘So how did she fall into hardship?’
‘My mother wed my father for love, against her family’s wishes, but he turned out to be a villain, and when the shine of his comely, educated wife wore off, he returned to his villainous ways. She was left to rear his only child without the comfort she had been raised to expect. My mother got nought but the scraps from my father’s table now and again when he paid her any mind. But mostly, we struggled on in poverty while he grew fat on his thievery. My mother may have bitterly regretted my sire, but she did her best with his bairn, and so I grew up with a sheen of respectability.’
‘Just a sheen.’
‘Aye. Rub too hard, and it wipes off. I was taught to read and write and use my manners. I suppose I was set on a good path by her. But then she died, and my father decided, rather belatedly, to raise me. Unfortunately, it was in his image, not hers. So I have always been torn between two worlds, the one my mother came from and aspired to occupy and the one she had sunk to by wedding my father. And I fear I favour my father, for why else would I be here scheming with a drunken reprobate like yourself? If I was a fine lady, I would not give you the time of day.’
‘Oh, many fine ladies have, and much else besides,’ said Bryce with a grin.
‘Is that how you spend your time - in idle seduction, forever climbing into women’s knickers?’
He looked pained as he said, ‘Twas once the way, I suppose. But I feel I must change of late and become a better man.’
‘Well, taking a jailbird home to your father, you are making a woeful job of it.’
Bryce narrowed his eyes as Maren picked at a fingernail. ‘And what of your father?’ he said.
‘As good as dead. Well, dead to me, for he cast me out when I would not obey him.’
‘In what?’
‘Marriage, to another man I did not want.’
Bryce sat up quickly as though he had been stung. ‘Another man? You were married before?’
Could she tell him? Would he despise her weakness if she did? Why not? She would soon be gone, and what did it matter what Bryce Cullan thought of her. His eyes seemed to bore into her soul, demanding answers, so Maren started to speak.
‘I wed once, at my father’s command. I was but sixteen, and he was a bad man, the worst kind of villain.’
‘Why would your father choose such a husband for his daughter?’
‘Because he was the same kind of villain, and they were allies of sorts. Though I think they did not trust each other, given their evil natures.’
‘What happened?’
