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The humor fell from his face, and he sat forward in his chair. His rugged features softened as his eyes rested intently upon her face. “You are not going back to Hemphill Hall, Cassandra.”
“I do not understand you,” she said slowly. “I have been told that your wealth is great, thus I cannot credit that you wish to hold me for ransom. I ask you again, my lord, what is your purpose?”
“My purpose, Cassandra, is to make you my wife.”
She jerked back at his softly spoken words and stared at him in shock. “I do not believe you, my lord. And I find your jest repellent. Set me ashore, I demand it.”
He was silent for what seemed an eternity to Cassie, and she rushed on in furious speech. “My family will miss me. They will mount a search when I do not return and—” Her words died in her throat, and she felt herself go white.
“And, Cassandra,” he finished for her, “they will find your boat smashed upon the rocks. You know yourself that the tides in this area are vicious, unpredictable.”
“They will believe me drowned, dead.” She raised wide, uncomprehending eyes to his face. “But this makes no sense. Why are you doing this to me? I have always believed you to be my friend, that you liked me.”
“Indeed, I am your friend, only now I will be much more to you.”
Cassie stared into his face, a face that many ladies she knew admired, one that over the past few years even she had come to think harshly beautiful. Now, in his black knee boots and billowing white shirt, his black hair unpowdered and blown into disarray by the sea wind, he looked the swarthy pirate, not the English earl.
She said, still trying to cling to her image of him, “You seem different, changed. I have always thought of you as an indulgent uncle . . .”
He winced, but remained silent.
“A gentleman, a powerful lord, whose esteem gave me confidence. You were someone who never cared if I did something stupid or didn’t behave like a simpering girl. You treated Eliott as a brother after my father’s death, teaching him his responsibilities as baron, helping him. By God, he was even touting your praises at our ball
last week.”
“And I am fond of your brother. Though he will never have your strength of character, he is nonetheless an amiable boy. You will see him again.”
She shook her head at him in disbelief, unable to grasp the enormity of his words. She said in a shaking voice, “Damn you, this is ludicrous, my lord. You cannot do this. I am to be married tomorrow.”
“I suppose that my thirty-four years do seem ancient to one of eighteen. As for Edward Lyndhurst,” he continued with calm detachment, “you were never meant to belong to him. Your turbulent girl’s infatuation for him would not have lasted, you know. Although you have known him all your life, he is cut from a very different cloth than are you.”
“You do not know what you are talking about, my lord. I have loved Edward all my life, and nothing you can do or say will change that.”
“I daresay that I shall say and do many things, Cassandra, that will help you to change.” He shook his head in mock reproof. “It came as quite a surprise to me that a well-bred English girl would correspond surreptitiously with a soldier. It was stupid of me, I suppose, to believe Lyndhurst out of your heart and mind when he left three years ago.”
“He has never been out of either, my lord,” she said coldly. “I would like to know how the devil you found out about our letters.”
He waved an indifferent, dismissing hand. “It’s not particularly important. Suffice it to say that his abrupt return and your immediate announcement to wed with him forced a dramatic shift in my plans.”
“What do you mean—your plans?”
“Simply that I fully intended to court you during your Season in London in proper style and wed you at Hanover Square, with all the pomp due to the Countess and Earl of Clare.”
She regarded him with cold contempt. “You lied to yourself, my lord, for never would I have wed you, nor will I. How very convenient for you that I came out in my boat today. Have you been skulking about long?”
“For the past two weeks, if you would know the truth. I did not expect Lyndhurst to have such control over your actions. Did he plan to burn your sailboat, Cassandra?”
“He will come to understand, I know it.” She saw that he was regarding her with disbelief. “Damn you, it’s none of your affair in any case.”
“I have told you, my dear, that you are now completely my affair. I beg you not to forget that.”
“When I look at the coward who speaks, of course I shall. And what would you have done, sir, had I not come sailing today?”
“Ah, a question that I posed to myself several times. You would have come to my yacht dressed in your nightgown, Cassandra. Certainly a more harrowing solution and one that would have left untidy questions. I thank you for being so obliging.”
She slowly shook her head back and forth, and rising panic filled her voice. “You cannot do this. Please, you must let me go home.”
“You home is with me now, Cassandra. I have watched you grow into a lovely young woman, watched you let your skirts down and cease scraping your knees. I have much time and energy invested in you, my lady, and since your seventeenth birthday, I have been determined to marry you. Though I regret that you will feel grief for your lost viscount, I know that it will pass. Hearts do not break, you know, they merely bruise for a while.”
