She didn’t reply, but went on as if he hadn’t spoken. “And despite what my family believes,youknow well enough I jilted you. You should have declined the invitation. Indeed, under the circumstances, I can’t account for your being here at all.”
“I told you. We have something to discuss.” Finn closed the distance between them with two long strides. “I came to tell you I reject your dismissal, Miss Somerset. Iwillmarry you, just as I planned.”
He winced at the note of command in his voice. It wasn’tquitethe charming proposal Derrick had recommended, but at least there could be no doubt as to his intentions.
Her mouth dropped open in shock, but then a flush of angry color bloomed on her cheekbones. “ButIwon’t marryyou, Lord Huntington. Hence the jilting. That’s rather a grave flaw in your plan, wouldn’t you say?”
“Oh, but I think you will marry me. Come, Miss Somerset. If you really intended to jilt me, you’d have told your grandmother about it at once. You didn’t, so some part of you must still want this match. I may not be charming or gallant, but your other prospects are grim enough for you to overlook my more grievous flaws.”
“I—you…” She was so furious she had to take several deep breaths before she could speak. “You’re mad! Do you truly believe I jilted you because you’re notcharming? How dare you sneak into my bedchamber and presume to order me to—”
“Whydidyou jilt me, Miss Somerset?”
“You know why! We don’t—”
“No. Don’t tell me we don’t suit.”
“You asked for the reason, my lord. I jilted you because we don’t—”
“No.” Finn’s hands were shaking with the need to press his palm to her lips to keep her from saying it again. “That’s not a reason. It’s an excuse, a way for you to dismiss me with as little bother as possible. Now, let’s try again, shall we? Why did you jilt me? Have you fallen in love with someone else, and wish to be rid of me?”
Don’t say Lord Wrexley.
Finn waited, but she didn’t say Wrexley’s name—she didn’t say anything, but simply stood there, her eyes enormous in her pale face.
The silence stretched long enough for Finn’s nerves to snap. “Miss Somerset? I asked you a question. Why do you wish to be rid of me?”
“It’s you who wishes to be rid of me, I think,” she muttered under her breath. Then, “Were you aware, my lord, Lady Honora is no longer betrothed to Lord Harley? He’s fled to the Continent in disgrace. Pity, but that’s what comes of wagering, isn’t it?”
Finn frowned. What the devil did Lady Honora have to do with it? “Lady Honora? Why should I—”
“She’d make a lovely marchioness, wouldn’t she? Before you insist upon marrying me, you should consider you now have options that weren’t available to you when you first offered for me.”
“Perhaps I don’t admire Lady Honora.”
She shrugged, but her gaze slid away from his. “Why shouldn’t you admire her? Lady Honora is lovely. You couldn’t choose a sweeter, kinder lady than her.”
An incredulous laugh slipped through Finn’s lips. “Are you so determined to be rid of me, you’ve chosen me another bride?”
Her face went whiter still, and when she spoke her voice was so low Finn had to take a step closer to hear her. “You chose her yourself, Lord Huntington, long before you chose me.”
For the briefest moment he was baffled by this response, but then understanding slammed into him, and shock rendered him speechless.
She knows about the wager.
“And Idowish to be rid of you, my lord, because when I marry, I will be that gentleman’s first choice, not his second.”
That odd conversation on the day she’d jilted him, her preoccupation with hissatisfaction, and the day before, when he’d found her in Lady Fairchild’s garden, and she’d looked so lost and so defiant at once…
She’d overheard him that day, in the garden, arguing with Lady Beaumont.
There was no other explanation, either for her strange behavior the rest of that afternoon, for the jilting the following day, or even for the mutinous gleam in her eyes right now. She’d heard every word of it.
He thought back to the conversation with Lady Beaumont that day, every ugly word like another blow raining down on him, each more punishing than the last.
Blindfolds and silk scarves, his exotic appetites, his insatiability, and…
Jesus.Lady Beaumont on her knees before him, her busy fingers on his falls.
