She shook her head. “Please let me finish, James. I—you cannot marry me.”
He arched a brow. “Do I need to make the speech about being the Duke of Abernathe again, of getting to do whatever I want?”
He was teasing, but she didn’t smile. This was too serious to allow him to make it less. She shook her head slowly. “There are a dozen reasons I am not fit to be your bride, James.”
“A dozen?” he repeated. “I doubt that. Name them.”
She huffed out a breath. “First, I am not anywhere close to your rank. Marrying me will link you to a minor viscountcy, and one that doesn’t even acknowledge me as their family.”
“I have always liked minor viscounts,” James said. “And I like your grandfather, truth be told. Perhaps once we are wed, he can meet you and see that you are worthy of his attention. If he doesn’t, then please refer to the speech I made about being the Duke of Abernathe and far more important than anyone else in the room.”
“James, I have virtually no dowry,” she said.
He looked around and she tracked his gaze. All around her were beautiful, expensive things. He finally looked back at her. “Do I look like I am hurting for funds?”
She shook her head. “Of course not, but—”
“No buts. That is two, Emma, two not very good reasons that I should not uphold what I vowed not only to your parents but to a room of incredibly gossipy ladies and lords.”
She threw up her hand and paced away. “Then let us get into the meat of the problem. You could have anyone, James. Any beautiful woman in that room we just left or any other in the entire kingdom. I know what I am. I know that I am not the kind of woman that a man like you desires.”
He made a soft sound in his throat and she turned to find him stalking across the room toward her. He caught her elbows and drew her up hard against him, then his mouth came down on hers. He kissed her deeply, passionately and thoroughly before he gently set her aside.
“You are a woman I very much desire, Emma Liston,” he whispered, his voice suddenly husky. “So much so that I think I shall not be able to wait until you’re my bride before I make you mine. I desire you completely. And there is no other woman in that room we just left or any other I’ve ever been in who has inspired such focused lust in me. Even when I didn’t want to feel it. Next issue.”
She blinked up at him, equally stunned by his words and by the fact that he seemed to mean them. He wanted her. Truly wanted her, and from her spinning head to her flexing toes and every inch of her tingling body between…she wanted him in return.
“Nothing else?”
“My parents are an embarrassment,” she whispered, blinking back tears. “Marrying me won’t stop my father from acting a fool or my mother from trying to manipulate more and more and more from you.”
“You are not your parents,” James said softly. “And you know that Meg and I both fully understand exactly what it means to have a parent…or two…who make one’s life difficult. I would never judgeyoufor that.”
She bent her head, shocked that he could so easily dismiss every fear in her heart. Save one.
“Finally,” she whispered, “My last objection to this is the most important one. And that is that you have made it abundantly clear to me and to everyone you care most about, that you do not wish to marry anyone. That you have plans for your future that don’t include a bride or children.”
He was quiet a moment, and her heart sank even though she couldn’t read his handsome face to know what was inside of him. Finally he sighed. “My first response to you is that if this is your final objection, it is only your sixth and not the dozen I was promised.”
“I’ll think of more, I’m sure,” she said.
He slid a finger beneath her chin and forced her to look up into his eyes. “Emma Liston, you may think of a hundred more and they will not change a thing about my intentions. You are right that I’ve always thought I would remain a bachelor, that I would avoid the duty my father found most important: to carry on his name and title. But I am not a child anymore. Some things are more important than a fit of pique. Saving you chief amongst them.”
“Save me at your own peril,” she whispered. “And with the knowledge that you will one day come to resent the options I took from you.”
He grasped both her shoulders and squeezed gently. “We have become friends, haven’t we?”
She nodded slowly. “Yes.”
“And you want me?” he asked, his voice growing rough again and his pupils dilating.
She swallowed hard before she forced herself to nod again, this time without speaking a word.
He smiled faintly. “Then that is all I could hope for. To be with a friend who I desire sounds like a fine marriage, Emma. Anything else I am…I’m incapable of. So this will be enough for me.”
She stared at him, feeling her heart break rather than soar. He would marry her. There was clearly no getting around that now—he would not allow her to escape it.
But he would never love her. He was making that perfectly clear. It was funny how disappointing that realization was. After all, she had never believed she would marry for love. At least not for many years.
