His expression told her at once that he did not believe so.
“Our names are tied together now,” he repeated.
Frances went still. All she could hear in his voice was a hard practicality that made everything suddenly feel more dangerous than it had a moment before.
“What are you saying?” she asked.
Andrew held her gaze. “I am saying that the situation requires a solution.”
Something in his voice made her pulse falter. She stared at him, and for the first time since he had entered the house, genuine unease moved through her.
“And there is only one.” He paused. Then, with the same calm certainty he might have used to announce the weather, he continued. “Marriage.”
Chapter Four
Andrew had expected resistance. He had not, however, expected the particular expression with which Miss Norton received his proposal, if proposal it could be called.
It was not merely astonishment. It was affront, incredulity, and a species of insulted pride so vivid that, had circumstances been less grave, he might almost have admired it.
“Marriage?” she repeated.
The word came from her lips as though it were something both absurd and faintly offensive.
He kept his tone even. “It is the only sensible answer.”
Her color, already heightened by the cold air, deepened at once. “No.”
So immediate a refusal ought not to have irritated him. It did.
“No?” he echoed.
“No,” she repeated, with greater emphasis. “Certainly not.”
The wind moved lightly through the bare branches above them, stirring the edges of her bonnet ribbon and carrying with it the clean damp scent of earth and clipped hedges. Somewhere behind them a rook called from the far trees. The house stood at their backs, its tall windows reflecting pale morning light. Though propriety was technically preserved, Andrew had never in his life felt himself engaged in a more private conflict.
“The damage is already done,” he reminded her. “You may refuse to acknowledge it, but that will not alter the fact.”
Her eyes flashed at him. They were clear, bright and quite indignant. “I do not refuse to acknowledge it. I refuse to surrender my life to it.”
“It is not surrender. It is management.”
She laughed then, though without amusement. “How very like a duke. Turn everything into an arrangement and imagine that settles it.”
Andrew felt his patience strain. “Miss Norton, this will not fade merely because you wish it to.”
“It will,” she replied stubbornly. “All gossip fades. Society finds something new to devour every week.”
“Not when it has been fed this well.”
She went still for half a beat, and he knew she had felt the rebuke.
Her chin lifted. “You are determined to make me regret defending you.”
“My dear lady, at present, I am chiefly determined to prevent you from being ruined by it.”
That checked her for a moment. He saw the slight change in her face, the flicker of uncertainty she would have hated him to notice. But it was gone almost at once.
“My reputation,” she spoke through clenched teeth, “does not require a husband to preserve it.”
