Page 37 of When the Scoundrel Sins

“Then why—”

“Because I don’t have a choice! I have to marry.” She shoved at his shoulder, but the aggravating mountain of a man refused to budge. “And you said no to my proposal, remember?”

“Donotblame me for this,” he countered, his sapphire eyes flashing like lightning at midnight. “You didn’t have to agree to his suit.”

“What other option do I have?” Frustration trembled in her voice.

“To not marry,” he shot back. “And certainly not to consider marrying Bletchley.”

He didn’t understand what Glenarvon meant to her, or he’d never ask this of her. “He might be my only solution.”

He shook his head with bewilderment, as if he simply couldn’t fathom her. “You can make your home anywhere. You shouldn’t have to marry a man like Bletchley simply because you’re too damned stubborn to live anywhere else!”

At the unwitting callousness of his words, something snapped deep inside her, and she felt it shudder through her soul. Her hands drew into fists as anguish and frustration overwhelmed her.

“What do you know abouthome?” she forced out the cutting question, her resentment of his interference surging to the surface and barely controlled. “You—who grew up in the same house, sleeping in the same bed every night, surrounded by family who loved you. Where the worst that happened to you was being denied pudding at dinner because you’d played a prank on one of the footmen or didn’t finish your studies.” His handsome face blurred beneath the furious tears stinging in her eyes, but she couldn’t relent. “Did your father ever lay a hand on you or your brothers and sister? Or your mother?”

Shocked understanding began to darken his face. He whispered hoarsely, “Belle, what you—”

“While you were in your nursery, watched over by your nanny, I was being woken in the middle of the night to flee in the darkness because my father had gambled and drunk away the rent money.Again.I remember nights sleeping in doorways and in abandoned buildings, going without food for days, clothes worn to rags…hearing rats gnawing in the walls, picking out maggots from the flour so we could make bread, feeling the lice—”

She choked as the memories came rushing back so intensely that they strangled the words in her throat, so fiercely that she could once more feel the lice crawling on her skin and itching in her hair. She shuddered and squeezed her eyes closed, as much to shut out the look of shock on his face as the horrible memories of that dark time.

“We never stayed anyplace more than a few months—fleeing creditors and people my father had cheated. When he had a job and was sober, we were fine. And then something would happen to make him drink again, to gamble, to steal. To hit my mother.” She inhaled sharply. “And me.”

She felt fury rise in him, his large body stiffening with it. “Why didn’t your mother leave him?” he whispered. “Take you and go?”

She shook her head, not daring to open her eyes and see his pity. “Go where?” She stifled back a bitter laugh. “We had no relatives or friends who could help us, and what constable would ever arrest a husband for beating his wife?”

With her eyes closed, she couldn’t see him, but she felt him. He stood perfectly still, close but not touching.

“It was always like that,” she whispered. Now that the words were pouring out, she couldn’t stop them. “Always moving, never enough to eat…Except once, when I turned eight. That year for my birthday there was cake. Mama gave me a new coat and shoes, and there was a doll in a frilly pink dress.” She couldn’t help smiling through the tears at the memory. “She was so clean and bright, with ribbons and lace, and real blond hair. I’d never seen anything as pretty as that doll. I sat on the floor of the dirty shed where we were living and did nothing all day but brush her hair, for hours and hours…” She sucked in a jerking breath. “When my father came home, he took all my presents and sold them. Including that doll.”

“Belle.” He cupped her face in his hands. She felt his long fingers trembling against her cheeks.

She opened her eyes and stared up at him. “But that was also the birthday when I met Lord Ainsley for the first time. He’d heard that Mama was living in the area, and since she used to work for him, he stopped by to visit. I had no idea then that meeting him would be my real gift, because two years later, when my father was in prison for theft and my mother died of fever, Lord Ainsley came for me and brought me here, where finally I was safe and warm, where there was always enough food and beds and—” She choked back a sob. Pained pierced her with each secret she revealed, but she couldn’t stop. Not until he understood. “I thought I’d arrived in heaven.”

A tear slid down her cheek. She clenched her teeth, furious at herself for being unable to stop it.

“Sodon’ttalk to me of home and what that means when you’ve always had one. Or how I should simply walk away from mine.” Her hand swiped angrily at her cheek to wipe the tear away. “Because you don’t know what you’re talking about.”

He stared at her silently, his eyes dark and his body tense. After that outburst and brutal chastisement, she expected him to simply turn around and walk away, to leave her to her own mess.

But he didn’t retreat, remaining close enough that she could feel the heat of him down her front, could smell that delicious scent of port and tobacco she’d already come to associate with him. And oh, the strength of him! It seeped from every inch of him, this man who had never backed down from a fight in his life.

She tried to push him away again, but frustratingly, he still wouldn’t move. Instead, the aggravating devil had the spine to step even closer, to wrap his arms around her and pull her against him.

Her chest burned with desolation, and she gave a wretched cry. As she tried to wrench herself away, he held tight, and worse—the more she struggled, the tighter he held her, until she had no choice but to wrap her arms around his waist, no choice but to bury her face against his hard chest as the sobs tore from her.

“Shh, Belle,” he whispered soothingly, his lips brushing against her temple. “You won’t have to leave here, and you won’t have to marry if you don’t want to. We’ll find another way for you to keep Glenarvon. I promise you. I’m not leaving here until we do.”

“How?” she mumbled against his chest, foolishly clinging to the faint pulse of hope he stirred inside her.

“I don’t know, but we will,” he declared resolutely, shifting back only far enough to tilt her face up until she had to look at him. The steely determination in his eyes took her breath away. “Iwillfind a way.”

She nodded, unable to find her voice. She wanted to believe him, wanted to trust that the answer was that simple…Quinton Carlisle wished it, and fate made it happen.

But she knew better. She’d never been friends with fate.