He paused before answering.
‘Yes,’ he said heavily. ‘I did.’
Charlotte’s mouth fell open. She forced herself to snap it shut.
So she truly had stepped between them.
Poor man. First assassination attempts, then being framed for murder, and now she had apparently ruined his courtship besides.
However calmly he spoke now, however convincing his performance before the others, she could not forget that he had made himself abundantly clear from their very first meeting that he despised marriages made under duress and false pretences.
Under ordinary circumstances, she was quite certain their relationship would never have extended beyond employer and employee.
And now he felt obliged to act honourably for her sake. Only because they had been caught alone together in a dishevelled state.
A sacrifice on his part to preserve her reputation. Nothing more.
The thought unsettled her.
She forced herself to speak. ‘Have you not always objected to being entrapped into marriage?’ she demanded. ‘Yet here you stand remarkably calm.’
He straightened to his full height, his presence seeming to fill the room entirely. Instinctively, she took a step back.
‘I do object,’ he said quietly.
‘Precisely,’ she shot back. Pointing an accusing finger towards him, she added, ‘And yet you find no issue with being forced into matrimony with a penniless, mouse-like governess?’
He tilted his head slightly and closed the distance between them until her finger rested against his chest.
‘You are far from a mouse, Miss Lucas.’
His gaze lingered upon her a moment too long.
‘If anyone behaved recklessly tonight,’ he added quietly, ‘it was I.’
Charlotte stepped back once more, more convinced than ever that he would eventually regret this. Honour, sacrifice, chivalry—it all sounded very noble in fairy tales, but reality was seldom so romantic. Once the chaos subsided and sobriety returned, he would surely see matters differently.
She too recoiled from a marriage born of convenience and duty rather than affection—her parents’ union being proof enough of the misery such arrangements produced.
She would not let him make such a mistake. Nor would she endure a lifetime of growing resentment at being foisted upon him.
Lifting her chin in defiance, she said, ‘You forget, sir, that I have no intention of marrying you.’
The words hung between them.
His mouth curved into a wry smile. ‘Oh, I see. But you are not opposed to matrimony altogether. For instance, it has not deterred you from conversing repeatedly with the Captain.’
A flicker of irritation crossed his expression.
She bristled at once. Why should she be required to justify her friendship with the Captain when he himself had spent the entire house party attached to Miss Pearson?
‘And what of it? He is the only gentleman who sought me out when I was new here and made me feel at ease—which is more than I can say for you.’
‘Oh?’ His brows lifted slightly. ‘I had no idea he was such a favourite of yours and that I was so distasteful,’ he said impatiently—and was that contempt? She could not tell.
Charlotte’s emotions were hanging by a thread, and at those words she snapped.
Why should he care what she thought of him all of a sudden when he had made it abundantly clear, countless times before, that she was nothing but a nuisance to him?
