Antonia’s mouth dropped open in shock. The sheet drifted down from numbed fingers. A buzzing set up in her ears.
You could marry me.
So casually Nicholas offered to transform her life.
Yes trembled on her lips but she forced the word back. She’d invite only heartbreak if she married this debauched, arrogant man.
The buzzing in her ears crescendoed. Her sight grew dim and Nicholas’s face became watery and indistinct.
“Say something,” she heard through the chaos in her head.
A sharp pain in her chest made her realize she’d stopped breathing. She blinked and sucked in a great lungful of air. Still she felt she’d been transported to Cloud Cuckoo Land.
He couldn’t have just asked her to marry him. It was beyond the realms of possibility.
Once shock receded, her reaction was anger, sharp, fresh, invigorating. The bastard mocked her. How dare he?
She straightened against the headboard and clutched the sheet to her like a shield. If dressed, she’d storm from this room without another word, but she couldn’t quite garner courage to parade about naked.
“How gullible you think me,” she said bitterly.
He frowned and lifted his hand from her face. “I don’t understand.”
She tried not to miss his touch. Ruthlessly she reminded herself that after today, his touch would be forever absent. She ignored the pang that pierced her at that reality.
“At seventeen, I was henwitted enough to tumble for this ruse.” Her voice was sour. “I can’t blame you for trying.”
“Antonia, what are you talking about?” He looked devastated. What an actor he was. “Marriage is the obvious solution. You can stay here without scandal and I get you in my bed.”
Her voice developed a sarcastic edge even as she recoiled from the pain his ridiculous offer stirred. “And of course you’ll continue to promise marriage until you tire of me, when suddenly you’ll suffer loss of memory about the proposal. My father has been dead five years and isn’t likely to demand we separate. At least we’re spared that operatic moment.”
He left the bed in one furious surge and bent over her, his hands braced on the headboard to either side of her. “Do you think I mean to trick you? Really? After all that’s happened?”
She quailed at over six feet of outraged male scowling as if he wanted to incinerate her with a single glance. She summoned failing courage. “Rakes promise marriage to smooth their way to seduction.”
“Except I’ve already seduced you.” His silky tone didn’t hide his anger.
She flushed with chagrin. Her lips felt so stiff, it was as if they were carved from stone. “You don’t want to marry me. You don’t even know who I am.”
A muscle flickered in his cheek and his eyes were flinty. “Then tell me.”
It seemed absurd to cling to this one secret, but perhaps because it was the last shred of carefully constructed identity, she refused to reveal her name. “No.”
“No, you won’t tell me who you are?”
She swallowed. “No, I won’t marry you.”
Something crossed his face that might have been regret. Of course it wasn’t. He didn’t feel anything for her beyond lust. London was full of women who could sate his lust. He’d briefly focused on her but his attention would inevitably stray.
She’d fallen for a false romantic dream once and paid a heavy price. She was older now. She knew better than to believe a woman like her could have a happy ending. She definitely knew better than to think a man could change from dissipated rapscallion to faithful husband.
Even if he meant this mad proposal sincerely.
She waited for Nicholas to push the issue, to insist on explanations, dear God, perhaps to seduce her into staying. The tragic truth was she was helpless when he touched her. If he deployed his sexual power to compel consent, he’d succeed.
Instead he turned away with a tight-lipped grimace. “Very well, then.”
She flinched at the clipped coldness. She’d never heard him use that tone. It chilled as cruelly as a winter wind.