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Otilia did not know how she produced a smile that implied she had the most delicious dreams in the night. “Indeed, the mattress snuggled me as if I slept in the arms of—” She paused and waited for his hard glare to fall on her. “Morpheus.” The Roman god of dreams was naturally fictitious, but a god, and a masculine one.
Ruddy colour came to his sculpted cheekbones, together with the fury that arrowed from his dark eyes. “I am glad to hear that,” he uttered with a silkiness bordering on menace.
Good. They were even.
A sip of tea moistened her suddenly dry lips. Her head lifted to see his attention had lowered to them. The gesture launched her heart on a gallop and a wave of sensation lodged in her middle.
“We are invited to a soiree this afternoon,” he started. “Lord and Lady Mandeville are providing a distraction for the Dowager Marchioness.”
Otilia remembered the old lady as she had become fond of her in the times they met. “How thoughtful of them,” she said to his taut chest.
“I have business to attend in the City.” He dismissed the footman after the servant replenished his cup of coffee. “Take the carriage. I will meet you there when I am finished.”
A wash of undiluted relief sluiced over her at the knowledge he would be out for most of the day. His presence induced such intolerable tension her body got wired like the chords of a hundred harps.
That he delivered his orders and expected to be obeyed added to the heaviness of the atmosphere between them. She had thought about not going and would tell him as the subject arose. She was not in the least willing to spend her time and energy with inane social outings. This had been his purpose for her coming, she was aware of it. If the theatre served as a basis, this season would prove to be an utter waste of time. In every possible way, including the fact that Edmund and Otilia must be near each other constantly. The weeks ahead felt daunting and pointless. What cheered her a bit was the prospect of meeting Lady Mandeville. It would be a breath of fresh air in these last few days.
“I will not get to choose the invitations I would like to accept?” Her comment was rhetorical, but the dictatorial man ought to give her an inch of breathing room.
“I am afraid not,” came his dry answer. “Our aim here is to take you to functions more likely for you to meet those looking for a wife.”
As a matter of fact, the invitations must be for the Earl of Thornton, and he was taking her as his guest.
Her lungs inhaled deep air as if stocking patience. “I do not consider marriage the sole purpose of a woman in this world.”
His stare narrowed on her, resenting her defiance. “But society does.” Bunched arms crossed at his chest. “If you want a place in it, you must play by the rules.”
“I will not,” she asserted. “I have told you before. Marriage is not in my plans.”
“It is in mine for you,” he rebutted.
How could he be so cold as to do what he did at the theatre and not let her have a say in her future? Most of her female acquaintances hoped to find a husband one day. But not her, not after what she had experienced, not with her background. She had the clearest idea that marriage to her would be for the money and the connection with the Earl. Or out of pity for her condition. She did not want that. She would not comply to live with this unhappiness.
“Your plans are not mine.” Would the blasted Earl not understand?
“They are if I am supplying your dowry and your wardrobe.” The mention of wardrobes made his inspection travel over her. To observe every detail of the simple bun tying her brown-sugar hair, her unassuming pair of ear-bobs, her blue morning dress, detaining on the swell of her full breasts. A glint entered his expression, arrogant as if she, or her life, belonged to him.
The notion made her insides react in a despicable manner. Every feminine fibre in her rejoiced at the thought as though he was the male to her female. As though they matched in an instinctual level, deeper than consciousness, stronger than social rules, beyond their own individual wills. That possessive streak in him found a response in her she could not control. Worse, one that turned her core to warm honey.
“Which I have not asked for, if memory serves,” she reminded him.
“Which I am giving, anyway.”
She breathed a humourless grin. “How generous.”
“I would grab those with both my hands, were I you.”
“Luckily you are not,” she maintained. The way he found of getting rid of what he perceived as his responsibility to his cousin annoyed her to a bursting point.
His eyes became even harder than it had been so far. “In this country, a woman owes obedience to her nearest kin, me in your case.” The harsher tone conveyed his tolerance would not last.
“You are not my kin,” she retorted with the same harshness.
“Mere semantics.” His granite mouth designed a faint smirk.
“Exactly, because I would be disgusted if I shared a drop of blood with you.” If his patience was short, hers held but by a weak thread.
His implacable frame went still. So still, the whole morning room fell into a graveyard silence. Even the breeze outside stopped, the birds quieted, and the trees did not swish. She had not deigned a direct look at him, but his glare did not leave her since the moment he sat at the table. And now, they were cold and unforgiving.
