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This wasn’t funny. Nothing about this situation was humorous.
“I’m hardly wee, nor am I waif. Waifs, by their very definition, are strays, without a home or friends.” Damn, he was right. She felt even worse.
He must’ve sensed her vexation, for he took her hand in his and gave it a gentle squeeze. His large palm completely engulfed hers. “I think the truth is best. Yer coach was swept away durin’ a flash flood, and I saved ye. Ye’re the only survivor.”
“What happens if they question where we’ve been since the flood?” There was no easy way around that obstacle. A single day might’ve been explained away, but several days? No, that proved much more complicated.
“Nae one needs to ken when the flood occurred. Nor does anyone need to ken how long we’ve been alone together.” Raven eyebrows crashing together, and his mouth sliding into a grim ribbon, his countenance grew fierce as he rasped, “Ye should ken, it willna make any difference if anyone does find out. I willna be playin’ the gallant and proposin’, Em.”
Em?
Proposin’?
Why, the arrogant, conceited, puffed-up boor.
His voice as unyielding and cold as steel, he forged onward. “Dinna mistake my aid as somethin’ more than it is or expect anythin’ else from me. Ye’re bonnie as a rose in the mornin’ sun, and yer luscious shape would make the goddess of love jealous. But by God, I never mean to be duped into marriage again. Do ye understand?”
Acerbic contempt laced his words, and he spoke with such vehemence, she recoiled, as if struck. He had delivered a verbal blow. Fierce and below the belt, the overbearing bounder. Taking an involuntary step backward, Emeline glared as her own wrath burst into a wild, unrestrained conflagration.
“I am no’ a simpleton. I understand perfectly, Baron. But ye should ken that I’m no’ so desperate or lackin’ in self-worth that such a despicable thought would’ve ever crossed my mind until ye mentioned it just now.” She looked him up and down, from his impossibly untamed mane to his too-big feet, permitting her upper lip to curl the merest bit as her focus came to rest on his face. “No’ all women are connivin’ vipers, and ye’ve nae right to be insultin’.”
Astonishment, or perhaps bewilderment, flashed across the planes of his guarded features. “Em…? I…” Liam abruptly snapped his mouth shut.
What? No barbed rejoinders now that he’d spelled his intent out in terms a deaf and dumb lackwit could understand?
Reputation shredded or not, there’d be no marriage proposal for her. Which was just as well since no power on earth—or in heaven either, for that matter—would’ve induced her to marry a cantankerous barbarian like him.
They were strangers thrust together by a series of unfortunate events. Nothing more. She expected nothing from him and most assuredly, he should anticipate the same from her.
“My name is Emeline, no’ Em,” she replied, with enough starch and frost Aunt Jeneva would’ve applauded. Brow arched, she touched her chin. “Do ye really think every woman finds ye so irresistibly desirable, they’d welcome such an absurd offer if ye made it? Ye can rest easy on that account. I’d never accept. Never.”
