Page 6 of The Matrimonial Advertisement

But she did not strike him.

Instead, she met his insolent gaze and held it, unflinching.

“You’re purposefully offensive, sir. I believe you’re trying to scare me off. I cannot think why.”

Because if you don’t leave of your own accord, very soon I won’t let you leave at all.

And where would he be then?

Stuck at Greyfriar’s Abbey, among the crumbling stone and cracked plaster, with a very unhappy lady. A lady reduced to drudgery in a drafty, damp, understaffed ruin. A lady whom he could never hope to satisfy, not if he lived to be one hundred.

“Perhaps,” he said finally, “because it seems to me that you have no idea what you’re getting yourself into.”

“Nonsense. I know exactly what I’ll get out of this arrangement. I wouldn’t be here otherwise. If you don’t wish to marry me, Mr. Thornhill, you need only say so.”

“I wonder that you wish to marry me.” He folded his arms and leaned back in his chair, surveying the neat little figure hidden beneath her gown. “I hope you’re not in trouble, Miss Reynolds.”

He heard her catch her breath. The sound was unmistakable.

His heart sank. There was no other way to describe it. The disappointment he felt was that exquisitely painful.

And then, just as swiftly, his temper flared.

“I may be acquiring a wife in a somewhat unconventional way, madam,” he informed her in the same frigid accents he’d often employed with disrespectful subordinates in India, “but I have no desire to take on another man’s bastard in the bargain.”

Her mouth fell open. “What?”

“I believe you heard me.” He moved to rise.

“You think I’m carrying a child?”

Something in her voice stopped him where he stood. He searched her face. “Do you deny it?”

“Yes!” She was blushing furiously now. “The suggestion is patently absurd. As well as being utterly impossible.”

Absurd as well as impossible? His conscience twinged. So, she was an innocent after all. Either that or the finest actress he’d ever encountered in his life. “Ah,” he said as he resumed his seat. “I see.”

She raised a hand to brush a loose strand of hair from her face. She was trembling again.

“What kind of trouble is it, then?” he asked.

“I beg your pardon?”

“Something has plainly driven you to answer my advertisement. If not an unwanted child, then what?”

She dropped her gaze. Her long, thick lashes were black as soot against the creamy curve of her cheek. “You are mistaken, sir.”

“And you are trembling, madam.”

She immediately clasped her hands in her lap. “I always tremble when I’m nervous. I can’t help it.”

“Is that all that’s wrong, Miss Reynolds? Nerves?”

Her lashes lifted and she met his eyes. “Does it really matter, Mr. Thornhill?”

He considered. “That depends. Have you broken the law?”

“Of course not. I simply wish to be married. It’s why I answered your matrimonial advertisement. It’s why I’ve come all this way. If you’ve decided I don’t suit you—”