Page 444 of Wicked Highland Heroes

“Would you really sabotage our marriage before it’s even begun?”

She gave a careless laugh. “Lord, you are dramatic.”

“This isn’t a childish jibe like dancing too many times with another man,” he said. “Or flirting shamelessly in front of me. You let Beaumond touch you.”

Josephine repressed a shudder of revulsion. Allowing the marquess to touch her had taken all her powers of determination. She hadn’t even been able to conjure the desire for Nicholas that plagued her in order to arouse herself when Lord Beaumond opened his trousers. But Lord Beaumond it had to be, for Nick would never forgive her for fraternizing with the man who seduced his sister.

“Let the past go, Nicholas. Your sister recovered from her affair with Beaumond. She married well and has two children she dotes on.”

“You didn’t console her in those terrible months after he tossed her aside as if she were an old rag,” he said more to himself than her, and she knew he was remembering eight years ago, when Deanna had fallen prey to Lord Beaumond’s charm at the age of eighteen. The affair carried on for two months before Nicholas discovered a letter from his sister that gave away their liaison. “We feared for her life,” he said in a bitter voice.

But Josephine remembered all too well. When Beaumond appeared at the house party yesterday, Josephine knew God—in His perverse amusement—had answered her prayers. She had accepted guilt as her ever-constant companion, and bowed even now to the reminder that allowing Lord Beaumond to seduce her was a sin not only against God, but her family and the only man she had ever loved.

Josephine waved her hand dismissively. “Young lovers are dramatic. God knows, we were.” The words were out of her mouth before she realized it, and she hurriedly added, “But never mind that. Forget the duel. Lord Beaumond is right, if you got lucky enough to kill him, you would hang.”

Nicholas’ gaze bore into her. “Would you shed a single tear if I was hanged?”

“Of course,” she snapped. “I have known you since I was a girl. I care about you.”

“But you don’t want to marry me.”

Josephine turned, afraid he would see in her eyes how very much she did want to marry him. She sauntered to a table where bronze figurines of a poet and his muse sat on a marble table. “Why should I want to marry anyone?” Jo traced a finger along the poet’s toga-clad body. “Marriage means I go from being owned by my father to being owned by my husband.” Her fingers tightened around the fabric she still pressed against her breasts. Being owned by Nicholas would be heavenly. Something inside her shattered and she found herself forcing back tears.

“Your father never treated you like chattel,” he said. She heard the clink of glass and realized he had gone to the sideboard and was pouring a drink. “He adores you and your sister.”

“You call being bartered off to a rich earl adoring?” she retorted.

A moment of deadly silence drew out between them. “A rich earl who loves you,” he finally said. “Me.”

Josephine’s heart constricted. He did love her...and she loved him. But love was the very thing that could destroy them.

“Papa accepted your offer because it came from the great Earl of Grayson,” she said. “Along with more money than anyone else was willing to offer, of course.”

“Did it occur to you that I made sure he couldn’t refuse my offer?”

She swung to face where he leaned a hip against the sideboard. “Oh, indeed, it did. When I refused your offer, you bought me. I am not at all surprised that you defend my father. You two are much alike.”

Yes,” he said, his voice hard. “We both know how to get what we want. I am not sorry, Jo. I won’t live life without you.”

“And you had the resources to buy me.”

“Don’t you think your father accepted my offer because he knows I love you?” Nicholas said. “That I will care for you…protect you?”

“From myself, you mean,” she retorted.

“Don’t act as if it hasn’t been necessary. Today is a perfect example.”

In a flash, she closed the distance between them. He slammed the glass down onto the sideboard and straightened as she went up on tiptoes in an attempt to get nose-to-nose with him.

She was still forced to tilt her head up, but narrowed her eyes, and said, “I had the situation with Lord Beaumond perfectly well in hand.”

A muscle in his jaw jumped. “So I saw.”

“I lived without you for six years, Nick—and quite well, if you must know. Yet you act as if I cannot take care of myself, or worse, as if no other man has ever loved me.”

“No doubt you left a string of broken hearts from Inverness to Edinburgh. But none of those poor devils knew you. God knows, if they did, they would have put as much distance as possible between themselves and you.”

“How dare you?” she breathed. “I suppose you know me, but still manage to love me?”