“What about Meg?”
“She’s set her heart on marrying you.”
Charles gave a dismissive snort. “Miss Meg is no more interested in marrying me than I am in marrying her. I’d bore her stiff within a week—if I managed to winkle her out of my stables for a conversation, that is.”
Sally’s jaw set with familiar stubbornness. “You can’t know that she doesn’t want to marry you.”
“Yes, I can.” He bared his teeth in a humorless smile. “She told me.”
Astonishment widened Sally’s eyes. “When?”
“The night you sent us off to the long gallery with matchmaking in mind.” Something that had rankled for days found voice. “Why in Hades did you shove me at your niece when you wanted me for yourself?”
He saw her consider denying his statement, but something in his face must have deterred her from another lie. “You two would be perfect together.”
“We’d be a bloody catastrophe.” He sighed and ran his hand through his hair. “Meg knows it. I know it. If you turned your sharp mind to reality instead of whatever damned lunacy is possessing you, you’d know it, too.”
“Meg likes you.”
“I like her, too. But I don’t want to marry her.” His voice turned urgent. He was watching his every hope crumbling to dust in front of him. “I want to marry you. Meg wants me to marry you.”
Anger flared in Sally’s eyes, although he knew her well enough to see that fear fueled much of her temper. “How kind of you both to dispose of my future.”
He ignored the sarcasm and dared a step closer. “I most ardently hope you’ll entrust that future to me, Sally.”
“I know you want to marry Meg,” she said steadily. “I heard you talking to Silas about your proposal.”
He made a frustrated sound. “I was talking about my proposal to you, my sweet henwit. For the tenth time, I don’t want to marry your niece. I want to marry you. Will you marry me, Sally?”
“No.” She stepped away, shaking her head in frantic denial, and this time she couldn’t hide the fright glittering in her eyes. “It’s impossible.”
“Why?” God give him patience. He sucked in a deep breath. “After what just happened, you can’t deny that we’re made for one another.”
He’d known that from the first. Why couldn’t she see that, too?
“My behavior is inexcusable, but what we did hasn’t changed my mind about not marrying again, Sir Charles.” She drew herself up to her full height and responded in a frigid voice. “Your proposal is unwelcome.”
Sir Charles again, was it? He narrowed his eyes, even as his gut cramped in instinctive denial. She couldn’t mean it. He refused to believe her.
This wasn’t the truth. He’d known the truth when she quivered around him in ecstasy, and wrapped him in her arms as if she’d never let him go.
Damn her, she wasn’t going to get away so easily. His tone turned silky. “And what if you bear my child as a result of today’s recklessness?”
* * *
Chapter Twelve
* * *
Could this awful day get any worse? The misery was more excruciating because for that foolish, transfiguring, unforgettable time in his arms, Sally had been happier than she’d ever been in her life.
She bit back a moan when Charles mentioned a baby, even as her hand settled where her crumpled green dress covered her useless womb. He couldn’t know how his questions stabbed at her. He wasn’t a spiteful man, no matter how angry he might be.
With justice.
Her behavior must strike him as capricious to the point of lunacy. She’d tumbled into his arms with no resistance at all, and now, when the harm was well and truly done, she rejected his attempts to restore her honor.
How she regretted succumbing to him. But when he’d kissed her, surprise had caught her defenseless, and all common sense had fled. She’d just wanted and longed. And feared that this might be her only chance to know the touch of the man she loved.