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“No. Whatever relationship we had is most certainly over. I am being generous in allowing you to remain at Grangeville Park until morning after your behavior. I expect you to depart then with no fuss or I shall have you forcibly removed.”
She moaned low in her throat and swooned. Instead of catching her, Tobias’s lips curved in disgust and he closed the door. The lady he had referred to as Arabella stiffened, then stomped her feet. A look of calculation settled on her face. She gripped her nightgown and stormed away, thankfully in the other direction.
A few seconds later Livvie was once again plunged into the dark as the lady took her candle with her. Taking a deep breath, she marched over to Tobias’s door and knocked firmly. “It’s Livvie,” she whispered.
Before she could knock again, the door was flung open and he tugged her inside. “I can see you take pleasure in courting total ruination,” he said, his face inscrutable as he stared down at her.
Despite it being summer, the fire was lit and the room was nicely warm. She moved closer to the roaring fireplace. “I could not sleep…and I have been thinking on your offer.”
“Go on.”
“I would like us to reach a happy agreement before my parents arrive. My stepfather was grievously ill a few weeks past and I do not want to upset him much, and my mother can be over anxious.” At his nod, she continued, “I have terms before…before I will consent to be your wife.”
He smiled with deceptive charm. “Of course. I’d not expected anything else.”
“As you are aware, I objected to marriage, not just to you, but to any man.” She started to pace before the fire. “There are no advantages in marriage for a woman, in my opinion. You will control all aspects of my life, what little I own will no longer be my own…you have the right to beat me for imagined hoydenish ways and then when you are finished, you can cast me aside for any number of mistresses and I will have no recourse,” she said, halting to face him.
He said nothing, and she forced herself to endure his unfathomable gaze for what felt like an eternity. There was no way around it. She took a deep breath and exhaled. “I understand you have a mistress,” she said bluntly, driving to the heart of what had kept her awake and restless. Livvie wondered if the lady he’d just turned away was his mistress. Satisfaction rushed through her that he’d been honorable.
An arrogant b
row arched. “I had not imagined such gossip would have reached your ears.”
“I am quite attentive whenever the coldest earl London has ever seen is mentioned in whispered tones,” she said with an inelegant shrug of her shoulders.
He sat on the edge of a small oak desk by the windows, sprawled his leg outward in the most improper fashion, and folded his arms, considering her. “There is a lady I had some attachment toward.”
“Only the one?”
“Yes.”
Her throat tightened and she folded her arms across her stomach. “I…I expect whatever attachments you have with her to end. My father…my father abandoned me and my mother to fend for ourselves, in a world that made it evident it has no use for women…on account of how desperately he loved his mistress, Lady Prudence Mayberry.”
The earl’s face went impassive. “I have no intention of keeping a mistress once we are married. I would never dishonor you in such a manner.”
She searched his face intently. He seemed sincere, and a modicum of the tension left her body. “Thank you.”
He nodded. “In fact, I ended whatever liaison I had today.”
“Was it the lady I just saw at your door?”
He regarded her with cool challenge in his eyes. Dear Lord, surely he was not thinking she overstepped. She struggled for equanimity.
His gaze searched her face. “Yes.”
“Good.”
“Now—”
“Please, I have more, Tobias.”
His mouth curved faintly, and he positively radiated power and leashed sensuality. “Pray, continue.”
“Whenever we are in the country, when I ride, I will do so astride. When in Town, I will use the required side-saddle.” Her heart drummed as she waited for his firm denial.
“Done.”
“I…I…done?” She had braced herself for his flat refusal.
