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She watched him with cool, assessing eyes. “So you want me to live a lie until then, no matter how long it takes. I’m supposed to marry you and keep secret the fact that you’re the one whose actions hurt my family and nearly ruined me.”
By thunder, but the woman knew how to put things so they drove a stake through his conscience. “It’s better than the alternative.”
“For you, perhaps, but not for me.” She slid off the bed and tugged her chemise back on. “I’ve suffered two years of believing that I’d been entirely wrong about your character—that I’d fallen in love with a scoundrel. I doubted myself, but even worse, my family doubted me, too. The very least you can do is set their minds at ease and prove I wasn’t wrong to believe in you. So when you’re ready to do that, I shall marry you, and not a moment before.”
His stomach sank. He hadn’t realized till this very moment how much he’d counted on her marrying him at once. Blast, she was taking this all wrong. He had to talk sense into her.
He stalked to where she stood with her chemise hanging open. The flash of her lovely breasts momentarily distracted him. Only with an effort did he lift his gaze to her face. “Hear me out, Juliet. I’m not asking you to keep silent out of some perverse desire to make you miserable. I have good reasons for my caution.”
She raised one eyebrow. “Oh? And what might those reasons be?”
“For one thing, I’m in the midst of a sticky negotiation with the Navy Board for my brother’s pardon. I can’t have that jeopardized just now.”
Crossing her arms over her chest, she glared at him. “And how would that be jeopardized by your telling my family the truth, pray tell?”
“That should be obvious. Your brother-in-law already said he’d ruin your kidnapper if he got the chance.”
“First of all, my kidnapper is you, not Morgan, so Morgan won’t be harmed at all. For that matter, neither will you. When Griff hears your story he’s sure to relent in his urge for vengeance. He’s a fair man.”
He laughed harshly. “Have you forgotten how he reacted when he first laid eyes on me and you said I was Morgan?”
“He didn’t know the whole story—”
“He didn’t care, either. He still doesn’t—even I can see that. The day he came to my study, he told me he’d do all in his power to ruin your kidnapper. That would certainly include going after my feckless brother to punish me. And I highly doubt any amount of persuasion will change his mind.”
“Yet you aren’t worried about how he’ll take the news after we marry.”
He shrugged. “By then it won’t matter. Once Morgan is safe, let Griff do as he wishes.”
The instant her face went cold, he knew he’d blundered. “I see. By then it won’t matter because you’ll merely have a wife to worry about. And perhaps a child or two, depending on when Morgan returns.” She shimmied into her drawers. “Apparently, it hasn’t occurred to you that if you wait to tell Griff, he’ll be twice as angry when he realizes you deceived him all that time.”
No, it hadn’t occurred to him. Why the devil should Knighton’s opinion have any effect whatsoever on his life? Juliet had forgiven him; who cared what the rest of them thought? “Let him be angry. I don’t care what he does to me once Morgan is safe.”
“He could bring you to trial!”
“He could do that now.”
“But he won’t. Because he won’t risk dragging me through a scandal as long as there’s some chance I might marry somebody respectable. Once you and I marry, however, that chance is gone. So he’ll weigh the risk of scandal versus the risk of my being ‘enslaved’ to my kidnapper all my life, and he’ll choose to ‘save’ me from you. Daniel and Helena and Rosalind will be right there with him, prodding him on.”
“And this is the man you want me to confess to,” Sebastian said, unable to keep the sarcasm out of his voice.
“It’ll be different after we marry, don’t you see?” Nimbly, she buttoned up her chemise. “They’ll think you deceived me to gain my hand. Or they’ll think you wed me to keep me silent or some nonsense like that. You’ll never convince them that I knew who you were all along.” She set her shoulders stubbornly. “If you don’t squelch it now, they’ll have you carted off in chains, if only to separate us. It’s just the sort of idiotic thing they might do to ‘protect’ me from myself. They still believe me to be the most featherbrained, half-witted—”
“No, they don’t.” It tore at him to see how she considered her family’s admittedly overprotective instincts as a reflection of their opinion of her. “They only want what’s best for you, sweeting,” he murmured, reaching for her again. “As do I.”
She shoved him away. “Do you? You want me to lie to my family about you. You want me to live in fear that I’ll let the truth slip at some inopportune moment. And once your brother returns, you want me to convince them that it’s all right, when they’re sure to think anything but that. You want me to begin our marriage with a lie!”
“I refuse to risk my brother’s future just so you won’t have to lie to your family!” he snapped. “Don’t ask it of me.”
Her tone turned pleading. “Griff won’t harm you or Morgan, I swear. He won’t try to stop your negotiations for Morgan’s return. I won’t allow it.”
“We both know you can’t promise that.”
She stiffened. “My brother-in-law, hot-tempered as he might be, is an honorable man. When faced with the facts and my earnest pleading of your case, he’ll understand. I know Griff hasn’t made a good impression on you, but once he and the rest of my family are as convinced of your fine and noble character as I am—and your remorse for what you did—they’ll close ranks around you. They’ll even try to help.”
“You mean, help save my rapscallion of a brother? Now why in God’s name should they care enough to do that?”
“Because I care. Because it matters to you, and I want to marry you. Because I intend to convince them that it’s important to me. But the longer you deceive them, the less inclined they’ll be to listen. Which is why you simply must tell them everything now. You must trust me to know what my family will do. If you can’t trust me—”
