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“Are you saying I am a tyrant?”
“Just selfish and bossy. You haven’t a clue, have you? You don’t put yourself into my place because you can’t. Suddenly you have a house and you decide you need a wife and nothing else matters to you. You think you can remake the world the way you want it. Well you can’t, Marcus. We had an arrangement and now it’s over. This was the last time, remember? You promised me. And this time I mean to hold you to your word.”
He was on his feet, snatching up his clothing.
Portia climbed into her dress, shimmying it up over her bosom and slipping her arms into the narrow sleeves. By the time she’d finished with the fastenings, he was straightening his jacket and smoothing the cuffs. He ran a hand through his hair. Despite her annoyance with him, she couldn’t help but look. What woman wouldn’t want to wake up every morning to Marcus Worthorne? Sit down to breakfast with him and know he’d be there again tomorrow? And how dare he make such an offer to her in that offhand way when he knew it was impossible for her to accept it?
“You know my life is not my own,” she said quietly. “For once try and understand.”
Marcus bent to pick up her veil from the floor, running it through his fingers. “I do understand, Portia. You’re frightened to have your own life because then you might actually start thinking about what makes you happy instead of pleasing everyone else.”
“You mean like you?” She sat down to draw on her stockings.
“Well, pleasing me would be a big part of it, but I think you’d find some satisfaction in the arrangement.”
“You are impossible, Marcus!”
Portia moved to find her shoes, but he was too quick, kneeling down to slip them onto her feet so very carefully, as if they or she were made of glass. His tenderness was so unexpected that it took her aback. She wanted to rant and rave at him, but when he looked up at her with his knowing smile, she couldn’t. He was doing it on purpose, of course, to disconcert her even more than he had already.
Or to make her cry.
“Would I make a lady’s maid, do you thi
nk? Would you employ me? You could keep me in your boudoir for whenever you needed me.”
“You’re far too dangerous for a lady’s maid,” she retorted, forcing strength into her voice. “Dangerous for the lady’s peace of mind, that is.”
He handed her the veil.
Portia placed it over her head. “There,” she said brightly. “No one will know me now.”
“Wouldn’t want anyone to know you’d been spending your time with a nobody.”
She was shocked by his casual bitterness. Could she have hurt his feelings by refusing him? Did he care that much? But no, it wasn’t possible. It had been a whim on his part, not meant to be taken seriously, and he must have known she’d say no. Besides, Marcus was far too confident in himself to be hurt by anything she said.
He must have read her thoughts in her silence. “I’m not used to women being embarrassed to be seen with me. Most of them quite like it. I wager if I asked any one of Aphrodite’s pretty protégés to marry me, she’d say yes.”
“Then ask them. You say you need a wife. Ask one of them.”
It sounded like a dare.
“Perhaps I will,” he said slowly, watching her as if he could pierce her veil. “I’ll be sure she isn’t famous, though, with a family of leeches battening onto her and the whole of England telling her they love her when they don’t even know her. In short, I want a nobody like myself.”
“You seem to think I don’t understand what it is to go about unrecognized,” she said quietly, “but I was a nobody, too, once.”
Marcus looked at her a moment in silence, and for one breathtaking moment she thought he might remember her from the days at Worthorne Manor. But of course he did not. The vicar’s daughter was long forgotten, replaced by hundreds of other more accommodating women.
“I wish I had met you when you were a nobody,” he said. “I think I would have liked you better then.”
Fury heated her cheeks. How dare he! It was unforgivable. She clenched her hands into fists. He hadn’t given her a second look when she was the vicar’s daughter, stammering her way through a sentence whenever he spoke to her, hiding in the church tower to watch him flirt with someone else. It was the mysterious and famous Lady Ellerslie who had captured his attention; her very unattainableness made him want her.
Her anger made it so much easier for her to leave him.
“I’m glad we had this conversation. I didn’t realize until now just how shallow and vain you were,” she said with stony quiet, rising to her feet. “You don’t care how much I risked coming here tonight, do you? It means nothing to you because the only thing you care about is yourself.”
“Of course! That’s why I was arrested, for thinking of myself.”
His mockery was beyond bearing. Why had he brought that up? She wanted to detest him and he was twisting her words.
