“Yes,” she agreed, her throat painfully tight. “He would not have me.”
“And so you married me, because you thought that I would?”
Tessa squeezed her eyes shut, wringing out the last of the tears. She swiped her cheeks with her hands. She looked up. “My affection for you was not an act, Joseph, despite what you may think. I wanted to tell you but I... I could not.”
It was agony to say the words, but she would not play the victim, not now. She would not implore him. She would not beg.
Joseph blew out an exhausted breath and ran a hand through his hair. He swore loudly. “So why tell me now, Tessa?” He spun on her. “Why not simply allow me to take you to bed and pass the baby off as mine? I can only assume that was the original plan.”
“I... I had reached my limit,” she said. “With the deception.” She squeezed her hands into a double fist, one outside of the other. “I couldn’t lie anymore. I could not.” Silently, in her head, she added,I could not love you and lie to you.He was too angry to reveal that love now. She knew he would be angry, but it had been impossible to predict how truly livid. He stalked the room like a different man.
He said, “How lucky that your limit was reached after we said I do.” His voice was so bitter, Tessa took a step back.
We will never reconcile,she thought, watching him pace. Had that been the thing for which she’d held out hope all along? If she had, that hope was now destroyed.
“Will you annul the marriage?” Tessa heard herself ask. Her voice was a whisper. This was all that mattered, really.
Joseph stopped pacing and turned to her, his hands on his hips. His blue eyes pierced her very soul. “And what do you think?”
Chapter Six
Joseph glared at the woman to whom he’d been married for one afternoon. He was behaving like an arse. Tessa—his Tessa—stood before him, terrified, beseeching, openly weeping, and he simply... allowed it. Nay, he was the source of it.
But the lies.
No, not mere lies. She hadn’t simplyliedabout being pregnant with another man’s child, she liedandmanipulated. She had made him fall into some sort of flying infatuation with her. All the while she was merrily, strategically, trapping him.
He should be the one weeping, and he cursed himself for the blind fool he had been.
Meanwhile, the entire life of this young woman hung in the balance—her baby’s too. And yet, it satisfied his deeply wounded pride and extreme hurt to draw out the question. To make her wait. Even better, to make her bloody guess.
Cruel? Yes. Did it solve anything? Not particularly, but what of the cruel lack of solutions for the entire rest of his bloody life? He had gotten married—married, for God’s sake—and the woman to whom he was forever bound hadn’t cared enough for him to be honest about why she’d done it.
“Surely you would not have selected me to ensnare if you believed I was the sort of man who would end the marriage when I learned the truth,” he said.
Tessa blinked, her blue eyes shiny with tears. Ten minutes ago, he would have done anything to prevent even one tear from dropping down the perfect curve of her perfect cheek. Ten minutes ago, he would have...
Joseph cursed the difference ten minutes could make.
How had he not seen her duplicity? Of course, she had laughed at his jokes, but when had he ever struggled to amuse women? She had stared into his eyes, but he knew women found him handsome.
But she had felt special, hadn’t she? Different.More.She was wealthy and proper and well-bred and yet—she wanted him, she couldn’t seem to get enough of him. And not simply his face; she seemed to revel in his very life as a scrappy, half-refined upstart, plucked from servitude and sent to university and success on the high seas.
He’d had dalliances with other society women, of course. Rich women, titled women. Desirability to any woman had never been a challenge for him. But Tessa’s desire had felt deeper, more rooted in her soul than his face. Her regard for him had a breathless sort of “at last” nature to it. She made him feel as if scores of wealthy, proper, well-bred gents had left her wanting, waiting, just for him.
And all the while she shopped for a legitimate papa to solve the result of... of... the loss of some other bloke.
Joseph made a growling noise and spun on his heel, striding to the window and back.
“I know how very much you require the £15,000,” she said, “from my dowry.”
Joseph growled again. “Oh, of course. I’ll commit to any life-changing thing for £15,000. Don’t flatter yourself, sweetheart. We require financing for the expedition, but I’m not destitute. There are other investors to be had. That’s not why I married you, and you know it.”
He glanced up, desperate for some reaction and saw her flinch. He swore and spun away.
“Honor,” he heard himself say. “Honor,Mrs. Chance, is the reason that I would not annul the marriage. Although I would not fault your uncertainty, considering whoever left you in this condi...” He lost heart and repeated, “Considering whoever left you.”
He looked again, another flinch. Truly, she could not appear more vulnerable. Her night rail and peignoir, a profusion of blue-green ruffles and silk, sagged limply, like the feathers of a wounded bird. Even now, the impulse to go to her was great. He clenched his fists and stalked to the other side of the bed.
