Yes! “No,” he ground out. She had only remained true to what she had said from the very beginning. She would not wed him. He was the one who had betrayed her. But he was in no mood to confess that. “Go to sleep, Clara. The morrow will have plenty of problems. Best get what sleep you can now.”
Her eyes narrowed, and he could see that all vestiges of drink—and of passion—had been wiped from her eyes. She focused now on the door where the singing had died down to two voices praising a tavern wench.
“They assume you have ravished me.”
“What do you care what a bunch of Scots think?”
She nodded as if that made sense. “I wouldn’t, as a general rule,” she admitted. Then her gaze returned to him. “But you are angry, and I don’t understand why.”
“Then you are being willfully stupid,” he snapped. “I have been courting you, Lady Clara, from the beginning. And now you are in my bed. What did you think this was about?”
Her gaze dropped to the floor. “You are right, of course,” she said, her voice small. “Though I’ve told you from the very beginning that I would not marry you. I thought you understood. I thought you could show me things and not think it meant more.”
He took rapid steps forward until he towered over her. “I do not bed ladies I will not wed.”
She arched a brow. “That’s obviously not true. What about the woman who taught you…” She gestured weakly at her lower half. “You did not wed her.”
“She wasn’t a lady!” he all but shouted.
She sniffed. “Well, pretend I’m not one either.”
He threw up his hands. This was ridiculous. He should tell her the truth now before she learned it from his father in the morning. But to do so now would be to ruin their remaining hours. Part of him still held hope that he could convince her, that some miracle would have her changing her mind before the sun rose.
Instead, she blew out a breath and lifted her chin. “I am a demi-rep now, not a lady at all.”
“That’s ridiculous, and you know it.”
Except, apparently, she didn’t. “No, no, it’s easier this way. After all, I’m a spinster, long since on the shelf. I have odd friends, dress strangely at times, and go to séances when I can find them. I only tried to keep up appearances because of Aaron’s political career. I was a bad hostess, but I tried. Lilah will do that for him now.” She nodded, clearly accepting her changed circumstances as if it were the easiest thing in the world. “I shall find a private room for myself in London. I don’t require much, and Lilah will help me set it up. That way I can entertain whomever I want and be like a courtesan of old.”
He growled down at her. “You will entertain no one but me.”
“Well as to that,” she said as she scrambled out of his bed. “I should like you to visit me. Often.” She stood there, her glorious hair tumbling down her back as she faced him fully. “We can be the best of friends.” She bit her lip. “Lovers, even, if you should like, though I shall have to make sure there are no children.”
He had no answer for that. What she was envisioning would never come to pass.
“You know how to do that, right?” At his incredulous look, she shook her head. “Never mind. I know about French letters, though…” Her gaze dropped to his still thick erection where it bobbed beneath his shirt. “Well, I know about them, so I can find some.” She chuckled, the sound high and nervous. “You can find anything in London.”
Those words broke him. They flashed red across his vision as he grabbed his tartan from her body. She squeaked in alarm as he pulled it off her. He wrapped it around himself in hard, jerking motions while she dropped to her knees in order to grab her shift. It was torn in half, but she pulled it on backwards such that her front was covered. Her watched as her glistening sex disappeared from view. He stood like a statue as her breasts bobbed from her motions. And he watched as she grabbed a blanket off the bed and wrapped it around her in much the same motions as he had his tartan.
“You’re angry,” she said again. “And I don’t understand why.”
“Yes, you do.”
“Because I refuse to marry you.”
“Yes.”
“But I have refused you every day since we met. Nothing has changed.”
“That’s right,” he lied, defeat washing through him. “Nothing has changed.” And with that, he stomped to the door and hauled it open. “Don’t leave this room,” he ordered. Then he looked to the men grinning at him where they sprawled in the hallway. “She stays inside,” he ordered. “And if any of you touch her, I’ll gut you.”
Then he stomped away while his father’s men hooted drunkenly in his wake.
He shook with the need to punch every single one of them, but they weren’t responsible for the current disaster. No, that crime lay at his father’s feet. He stomped through the castle then walked in a steady pattern through the bailey and out around the castle grounds.
He found the MacCleal drunk beneath a willow tree. He lay half on his mistress while mumbling a song.
“You couldn’t trust me,” Liam growled as his father. “You couldn’t leave it in my hands.”
