Nowthatwas unexpected.
Amelia flinched, glancing up at him. Had she misheard? She must have misheard.
“What?”
He gave a thin smile, glancing over her head and out the window. “I think you heard me perfectly well.”
“We cannot marry.”
“We must. My reputation is dented, and yours is damaged beyond repair. In cases like this, secrets always get out. The only way to save our reputations, I’m afraid, is to marry.”
“I can’t marry you.”
He glanced down at her, eyebrows knitting together. “Oh, no? Are you otherwise engaged? Some dull shop boy possesses your heart already?”
Color flooded her face. “No, of course not.”
“Well then, marriage it is. I like this no more than you do, Amelia. You have my grandmother to thank for this awkward position. Fear not, the marriage will be in name only.”
“Name only?” she echoed.
He shot her another Look. “A marriage of convenience, with no expectation of children or any such matters. They’re common enough in Society. Amongst the ton, marriage is no more than a business transaction, and I see no reason why we cannot do the same. I shall apply for a special license, and we can be married in a matter of days. The party my grandmother was planning can serve as our wedding breakfast. I only require that, after we marry, you ask no more of me than I am willing to give.”
It sounded as though he’d made his mind up already.
Amelia swallowed hard, trying and failing to think of something to say. She could sayno, she supposed. She could refuse to marry him.
But then what? Would she leave? Would he still force her to stay? What about his revenge plans?
How could I have been so foolish as to let him touch me again?
Oh, but she knew the answer to that. She’d let him touch her—and touched him, too—because it was the thing she had wanted most at that moment.
She had wantedhim.
Really, it didn’t matter whether a woman was a man’s mistress with a handful of his bastards, or simply a fallen woman who’d erred once. Fallen was fallen, and they all lay in the gutter together to be trampled and spat on.
If I leave this house unwed, I really will be ruined. He’s right. This secret will creep out, one way or another, and I’ll pay the price.
When the silence dragged on, Stephen turned and moved toward the door. It was clear to him why his grandmother had taken action now. She was afraid that the party would complicate matters, or that either Amelia or Stephen’s nerve would break. That Amelia would run away, or Stephen would send her away. Still, she could not have chosen a worse time for her little game.
Grandmother was always impatient to a fault,he thought grimly, clenching his jaw.
“I’m going to be here for longer than three months, aren’t I?” Amelia asked.
He paused, his hand lingering on the door handle.
“I think so,” he said at last, and left her alone.
CHAPTER 22
ONE WEEK LATER
She was avoiding him. That was pretty clear.
For the first few days after their engagement had been announced, Stephen understood that Amelia might not want to see him. She was never at the breakfast table when he came down in the morning, and found a way to excuse herself from the dinner table, too, taking her meals in her bedroom.
As the days dragged on, however, Stephen grew a little irritated. He was making her a duchess, for heaven’s sake. She was achieving what her mother never had—marriage to a man who could change her life.
