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“No, you’re not. The man I knew was a lie. He wouldn’t have taunted a woman the way you did me. And yet—” Her voice broke, and a horrified laugh escaped her lips. “And yet, he did. Didn’t he?”
“For God’s sake, Elizabeth, what the hell did I do that was so evil and base?”
She stared at him in disbelief. “You don’t even know, do you? You disgust me.”
The muscles in his throat twitched with rage, and it took every ounce of his restraint not to grab her shoulders and shake her until she saw sense. His anger and pain were so raw, so close to the surface that he feared one tiny show of emotion would unleash the whole, horrifying flood of fury. Finally, exerting a self-control he could barely believe he possessed, he managed to bite off two clipped words: “Explain yourself.”
She stood utterly still for a moment, and then, with a stamp of her foot, she stalked across the room and yanked out the copy of HOW TO MARRY A MARQUIS that had been resting on the shelf. “Do you remember this?” she yelled, shaking the little red book in the air. “Do you?”
“I believe you asked me not to mention that book in front of the Ravenscrofts.”
“It doesn’t matter. You’ve humiliated me so thoroughly in front of them, anyway. I might as well finish off the job.”
Caroline laid a comforting hand on Elizabeth’s arm. “I think you’re quite brave,” she said softly. “Please don’t think you’ve been shamed in any way.”
“Oh, you don’t think so?” Elizabeth lashed out, choking on every word. “Well, then, look at this!” She thrust the book into Caroline’s hands.
The book was face-down, so Caroline murmured her incomprehension until she turned it over and read the title. A small cry of alarm escaped her lips.
“What is it, dear?” Blake asked.
Silently, she handed him the book. He regarded it, flipping it over in his hands a few times. Then they both looked up at James.
“I’m not certain what happened,” Caroline said carefully, “but my imagination is devising all sorts of disasters.”
“He found me with that,” Elizabeth said. “I know it’s a ridiculous book, but I had to marry and I didn’t have anyone to whom to turn for advice. And then he found me with it, and I was afraid he’d mock me. But he didn’t.” She paused for breath, then hastily wiped away a tear.
“He was so kind. And then he—and then he offered to tutor me. He agreed that I could never hope to marry a marquis—”
“I never said that!” James said hotly. “You said that. Not I.”
“He offered to help me interpret the book so that—”
“I offered to burn the book, if you recall. I told you it was utter nonsense.” He glared at her, and when that didn’t cause her to quake in her shoes, he glared at Blake and Caroline. That also seemed to have no effect, so he turned back to Elizabeth and yelled, “For the love of God, woman, there’s only one rule in that bloody book worth following.”
“And that is?” Elizabeth asked disdainfully.
“That you marry your damned marquis!”
She was silent for a long moment, her blue eyes holding his, and then, in a movement that sliced his gut in two, she turned away.
“He said he would help me learn how to catch a husband,” she said to the Ravenscrofts. “But he never told me who he was. He never told me he was a bloody marquis.”
No one made a response, so Elizabeth just let out a bitter breath and said, “And now you know the entire tale. How he poked fun at me and my unfortunate circumstances.”
James crossed the room in a heartbeat. “I never laughed at you, Elizabeth,” he said, his eyes intent upon her face. “You must believe that. I never intended to hurt you.”
“Well, you did,” she said.
“Then marry me. Let me spend a lifetime making it up to you.”
A fat tear squeezed out of the corner of her eye. “You don’t want to marry me.”
“I have asked you repeatedly,” he said with an impatient exhale. “What more proof do you need?”
“Am I not allowed to have my pride? Or is that an emotion reserved for the elite?”
“Am I such a terrible person?” The question was punctuated by a vaguely bewildered exhale. “So I didn’t tell you who I was. I’m sorry. Excuse me for enjoying—no, reveling—in the fact that you fell in love with me, not my title, not my money, not my anything. Just me.”
