The appearance of acceptance.
But someone who cared for Amelia as he did? Loved her, even? Someone who treated her the way their mother would have done, had she lived? He hadn’t even dared to hope for it.
Not until today.
No one but Eleanor Sutherland would do for Amelia, but in a twist worthy of a Shakespearean tragedy, he’d discovered it at the same moment he realized Lady Eleanor deserved better than to be forced into a sham marriage.
If she did deserve better, could he go through with his threats against her?
Cam shook his head. The better question was, could he not?
He wanted her. Not for himself. No, of course not. She wouldn’t spare any of her warmth for him when she discovered what he’d done. The lies he’d told. How he’d used her. She’d never forgive him. But for Amelia—
“This isn’t a game anymore, Mr. West. I have a right to know what you want from me.”
Cam stilled. A right? She hadaright to know?
A deafening roar filled his ears, and in the next breath the familiar rage flooded through him, sweeping his doubts and qualms and regrets before it.
Ah, there she was. Hart Sutherland’s daughter, the grand Lady Eleanor Sutherland, a hard, flashing diamond of the first water. There was the aristocrat never far below the surface, with the same demands and sense of entitlement Cam remembered in her father. So arrogant, the Sutherlands, so certain everyone would accommodate them.
She thought she had a right to know. She hadn’t any rights at all. Not with him. Not now, and not after they married. The sooner she made her peace with that, the better.
He stared down at her with what must have been a fearful look, for she shrank back. “You haven’t any rights at all, my lady. I’ve told you what I want. To marry you. I intend to do just that. You may play all the games you wish until then, but I’ll have you in the end, or your sister will be ruined.”
She raised a hand to her forehead, and Cam saw it shook. Regret and guilt threatened to pull him down again, but he held it back.
“But why?” she whispered. “Whyme? It is because I’ve rejected so many suitors? That simply makes me unlucky with suitors, Mr. West. If you imagine it makes me anyone special—”
He grasped her shoulders, desperate to silence her. To stop himself from thinking. “Youarespecial. You’re aSutherland. That’s all that matters.”
“All that matters,” she repeated, as if she wanted to be sure of his words. “Clever or foolish, warm or cold, rich or poor—none if it matters.Idon’t matter. Is that what you mean, Mr. West?”
Something about the way she asked the question made him hesitate. He looked down at her, at her pale face, the slight tremble of her chin, the pulse leaping in her throat.
If he told her she didn’t matter, he’d never be able to take it back. She’d never forget he’d said it, or forgive him for it. He knew it, the same way he knew he must draw another breath, and another after that. But what difference did it make if she despised him? She’d despise him anyway, as soon as she knew the truth.
“Yes. That’s what I mean, Lady Eleanor.”
She gazed at him for a moment as if she didn’t quite believe he’d said it, then her shoulders hunched toward her chest, as if to protect herself from a blow. “I see. Well, I suppose that’s it, then.”
She didn’t argue with him. He didn’t hear any anger in her reply. She didn’t even raise her voice. But her face just . . . closed.
“Not quite,” he said, determined to get every sordid detail out in the open, even as he had to avert his gaze from her ashen face. “We made an agreement. I gave you two weeks of courtship. You agreed to make yourself available to me during that time, but today when I called on you, I found you’d gone out.”
“I had a prior engagement, Mr. West, as you saw when you arrived.”
Say it. Just say it, and be done with it. “And asyousaw,” he replied, the words bitter in his mouth, “I won’t be trifled with. Be faithful to your part of the agreement, Lady Eleanor, or I may be forced to bring my cousin into company with me every time I see you. I think your sister is fond of him, don’t you? It would be a pity if that fondness led her into another lapse in judgment.”
She went so rigid her body might have cracked under his palms. “Are there any depths to which you won’t sink, Mr. West?”
Cam’s throat worked, but he couldn’t quite swallow down his disgust with himself. “Best not to find out, my lady. Do the honorable thing and keep your word, and you won’t have to.”
“Youdarespeak to me of honor?”
Her voice was filled with such quiet scorn Cam’s cheeks went hot with shame.
I don’t like it. It’s badly done, Cam.
