He wished they were in London. He would not mind consulting with Stratton and Langford about this. Stratton could be very practical in his advice. Realistic. As for Langford, he rarely was wrong when it came to the way women reacted and thought. He had done a close study of them over the years.
Yet both had seen this eventuality long before he had. The interest. The fascination, as Langford said. Having both married inappropriate women, they no doubt considered it just fine if he did too.
The cool air had done its work, finally. He no longer battled the urge to go back down there, find her and drag her to a bed or even use the carpet there in the library. Of course, just thinking about it had him rumbling again. He took another deep breath.
A crash sounded nearby. Another. He turned, startled. There, just inside his bedchamber, stood Davina, her arm still out from where she had thrown open the door. She raked him from head to toe with a scorching gaze.
“You conceited, self-important, arrogant, spoiled, selfish toad.”
Toad?
“You despicable man.” She advanced toward him. “You coward.”
“I will accept toad and even despicable, but coward is going too far.”
“Give me another word for what just happened. Don’t say noble and gentlemanly or I may scratch your eyes out.”
Both words had been on the tip of his tongue. He swallowed them. “I can understand why you are angry.”
“I can understand why you are angry.” She imitated him rather too well, although he did not look down his nose like that, he was sure. “No, you can’t understand. The first kiss was an accident of the day. The last lovemaking was an impulse. This was deliberate, and it was cruel. Do you hear me? And do not tell me you suffered too. I don’t want to hear it. Men always whine about discomfort more than women, but I am telling you now that to do that to me was among the most thoughtless acts of casual cruelty. And you did it twice.Twice.”
She was right in front of him now, belligerent and damned magnificent, nailing him in place with her gaze. “Do not think to do it again.Ever.Never touch me. Never kiss me. I will die as I am at this moment before I ever allow you to treat me that way again.”
It would be an excellent moment to grab her and kiss her, only she really might kill him then. She looked as if she wanted to, badly. He kept watching for a blow to come.
“See here, Davina—”
“Miss MacCallum, if you don’t mind,Your Grace.”
“Here is the thing: I am deranged by desire for you. You are more than willing. We have a common interest in this property. It seems to me that all these problems can be solved simply by our marrying.”
She did not swoon with joy the way women were supposed to when dukes proposed. Her eyes narrowed. “Now you are mocking me. As if what happened down below was not humiliating enough, you now make a joke of me.”
“I am not mocking or making a joke. I am very serious. If you allow yourself to consider it, you will discover it is a clever idea.”
“Are you mad?”
“At least half so.”
She no longer looked crazed. Her expression softened and her brow furrowed. Her gaze drifted away from him, to nothing in particular.
“You would do this because you want me in bed and are too cowardly—I mean, gentlemanly—to do that otherwise? That is not a good reason.”
“It is a better one than that it is the right year and you are the least-boring girl on the marriage mart.”
“That girl will be appropriate. Remember? That would be her best quality.”
“Who is to say you won’t be appropriate too? If it is found that you are descended from the last baron, you could end up a baroness in your own right.”
She strolled around the edges of the chamber, thinking. “What of my claim here?”
Now they were down to it. “If proof is found, it would still be yours. If not, you would still be of the family that holds it.”
“Only if we are married, you would control it. You would decide how it is used, and everything else. If I have a son, the barony of this estate would be far down in his titles. We would be absorbed.”
He did not agree, even if that was the whole point. “Think of it as a compromise. As half a loaf.” He could not believe he was parroting Haversham and the king. He lit on his own brilliant argument. “And if we marry, everyone will assume that of course you were right and that is why.”
“Iamright.” She gave him one of her direct, piercing looks. “But you still don’t think I am, do you? That is why this is too odd. If I believed you even suspected I am right, that you needed a compromise as much as I do, then there might be one small bit of logic in this proposal. Instead, I am left to conclude that you, the Duke of Brentworth, a man so soundly sane in reputation, are proposing to me because it is the only way to have what you want. Once you do, of course, the marriage will seem a horrible mistake made in a moment of inexplicable madness.”
