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“Why are you here, Crete?” she asked, her voice even. When the Timoney he knew had never seemed to have herself in control. She’d never indicated she wanted to try to keep herself in control. “You made it clear to me that you don’t care about me. Crystal clear. So why should it matter to you who I marry?”
He let out a bark of disbelief. “You cannot marry this man. To begin with, he is ancient.”
“Some would say he must be filled with wisdom, then.” Her smile seemed sharp. “What luck.”
“He cannot possibly satisfy you, Timoney.” Crete studied her. “I could barely keep up with you.”
There was a telltale bloom of color in her cheeks, but all she did was square her shoulders. “That remains to be seen. My previous experience left much to be desired.”
He laughed. “We both know that is a lie.”
“Yes, Crete. We had chemistry. But I can’t say I have much admiration for the way it ended.” She crossed her arms before her, as if she was warding him off. And she frowned at him. Athim. “And here’s what I know about Julian. He will not leave me. He will not cruelly cast me aside if I say the wrong thing. He will honor the promises he makes me tomorrow. Any way I look at it, marrying him seems like a good bargain.”
“You cannot be serious.”
Crete moved closer to her. And he, who prided himself on his iron self-control to match his will of steel, had no idea how his hands rose to grip her slender shoulders. Only that they did, and that holding her made him...feel.
He concentrated on the part he understood. The heat. And the faint scent of her, teasing him on the cold breeze like a memory.
“Let me assure you of something,” she whispered, her chin still high and her arms still crossed. “Unlike some people standing in this garden, I do not take relationships lightly. But I certainly do not take the prospect of marriage lightly, either. You can be certain that whatever else I might be in regard to my wedding tomorrow, I am deadly serious.”
Crete zeroed in on the most egregious part of that little speech. “You think I took our relationship lightly?”
She scowled at him, another first. Then she lifted her hands as if to knock his grip off her shoulders. But instead, her fingers braceleted his wrists, not quite managing to close, and stayed there.
And he had the notion that she could feel the way his blood pumped in his veins. That she could feel it in her, too. That their bodies were still that connected, that attuned.
The song of it seemed to pool in his sex, then beat hard, like a drum.
“The only thing you take seriously is your money,” she threw at him.
And she clearly meant it to wound.
But Crete only laughed and pulled her closer, because he could smell that wildflower honey scent of her everywhere. And he could feel the heat of that in his blood, too, because everything about Timoney was heat and honey, longing and that need so deep, it felt like it was in his bones.
“Yes, I care about my money,” he confessed. He laughed again. “I think you’ll find it comes as a habit to those who remember having none.” He jerked his chin at the sprawling mansion behind her and the extensive grounds. It had been a ten-minute drive in from the lane to find the house. “Not all of us grew up surrounded by such finery.”
“I think you’ll find that the rags-to-riches tale is more relatable after your first fortune,” Timoney retorted. “Not so much your tenth. Or is it your twentieth by now?” Her eyes were bright with a new kind of fire, and it took him long moments to understand that it was temper. Why did he want to drown himself in her—temper and all? “I have all of seventy pounds to my name at present, Crete. Tell me which one of us is privileged?”
“Seventy pounds, a rich fiancé, and a fortune to come.” He shook his head at her. “You’re not exactly the Little Match Girl yourself, are you?”
“What I am or am not is none of your concern,” she threw at him. “You still haven’t told me what you’re doing here. Did you pop round to infuriate me?”
“That is but a happy side effect.”
“I would have thought you’d be thrilled to find that I was getting married.” Her eyes flashed. “No need to worry about scraping me off your boot heel if I’m someone else’s problem, isn’t that right?”
He didn’t think he’d said precisely that to her, though Crete knew that it aligned perhaps too closely with his feelings on the topic. For it was a fact that he had always been delighted when—if—he heard that his former mistresses had moved on. There was far less chance that they would hang about making things tedious that way.
But this was Timoney.
And nothing about her was tedious.
And he washere, wasn’t he? It spoke volumes.
“Very well,” she was saying, in that bristling British way. “I can see that you really did come here just to be difficult.”
“Some would argue that I do this without even trying.”
