Her brows snapped together. “No, not a’tall.”
“We’ll never be friends.”
It did sound preposterous from where they stood now, but she still insisted, “Stranger things have happened, and you haven’t heard my bargain yet.”
“By all means.”
“We can marry in name only, you won’t even need to see me. I’m used to avoiding ‘family,’ and I will encourage you to take mistresses. You can even bring them home.” She said it all fast, before she lost her nerve, but she hadn’t yet added the seal for this bargain. “If you will buy me a thoroughbred for each one, I will be quite pleased. So do have lots of mistresses. I want my own horse farm when your curse catches up with you.”
“So now you believe in curses?”
The curve of his lower lip was telling. She hadnotmeant to amuse him, but obviously she had. “No, what I think is, you are entirely too reckless with your life, duels, sailing right through blockades that are shooting at every boat they see, and who knows what other risks you are used to taking. It’s no wonder they say your family is cursed if the men in it were so cavalier about danger as you are. Besides, if you somehow manage to survive your twenty-fifth year, I would merely add my horses to your stock, as long as I have a say in their breeding program.”
“What about our breeding program for my heirs? D’you think you’ll get a say in that, too?”
Her cheeks lit up hotly. “Is that your way of saying you don’t want a marriage in name only?”
“I believe I’ve made it quite clear that the one thing I won’t mind about this marriage is you in my bed. And based on past experience, I got the impression you won’t mind lying with me in that bed.”
Brooke blushed. “You’re assuming too much!”
Dominic smiled sensually. “Am I?”
Her blush got deeper. “In any case, it doesn’t mean you won’t still take mistresses. I’m encouraging you to do so.”
“You’re making a bargain for me to do so.”
“Yes, exactly. I will even make suggestions if you like, help you pick them out, as it were—one reason why I thought we might reach a sort of friendship eventually.”
“And what is my incentive to agree?”
“To protect them,” she said without inflection.
He raised a brow. “Was that actually a threat?”
She shrugged. “I have sharp nails.”
“You’ve given this a lot of thought?”
No, damnit, she hadn’t. The idea had just come to her an hour ago. And spur-of-the-moment proposals rarely went well, at least, not without regrets. Had she just backed herself into an unpleasant corner?
But he didn’t wait for an answer. “If I’m going to die young, by your logic, why not just wait until all my horses are yours.”
“I don’t expect you to leave me anything. I expect your estate to go to your mother.”
“Your family would make sure that doesn’t happen.”
“So stop being so careless with your life and don’t die. Because I donotwant them to benefit from this, when it’s my brother’s fault that I’m here. In fact, if you don’t have a will, you should make one and be specific in excluding Whitworths from benefiting. And if I’m not of age yet, name your mother as my guardian so they have no further control over me.”
“Thank you, you’ve given me back my appetite.”
She frowned as he started eating the food that had been set before him. “You don’t think I’m serious?”
“We shall see.”
Chapter Forty-Three
DESPITE SWEARING SHE WOULDN’Tstep foot in Lady Anna’s room again, the next morning Brooke took the lady’s breakfast upstairs herself. She told herself it was just to see how much her teas had helped yesterday, but she really wanted to witness firsthand the supposed change in the woman’s attitude. Dominic might think his mother had seen the light, but Brooke highly doubted it.
