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She faced him immediately, her green eyes brilliant with defiance. “Don’t even think of touching me,” she spat.
“I must see that those gashes don’t become infected.”
“I’ve been mauled by a leopard before!” she flung at him. “If I can survive you, I can survive anything.”
“Tony, this morning I told your mother that I loved you; that we were being married today.”
“There will be no wedding! You lying swine. You deceived me all along, playing your seductive games of conquest. Be honest for once. What is between you and my mother?”
“Whatever was between your mother and me happened before we met and quite frankly, Tony, none of your business.” His ice-blue eyes held hers mercilessly. “While we’re speaking of honesty, have you examined your own? You say and do exactly as you bloody well please, simply to get your own way about absolutely everything!”
“That’s not true,” she cried. “The deception I played was necessary.”
“I’m not talking about that one.” He abruptly sat down on the bed and laid his hands on her belly. “I’m talking about this deception. This is my child. How dare you keep it from me? We should have been wed months ago!”
“Child or no child, I won’t marry you,” she vowed furiously.
He got to his feet, looming above her. He put a finger beneath her stubborn chin and raised it until they were glaring into each other’s eyes. “You can change your mind, or I can change it for you. The choice is yours,” he said flatly. He strode from the room more frustrated than he had ever felt before in his life.
Tony was the most maddening, most exasperating creature he’d ever encountered. She knew he loved her with every fiber of his being. What the hellfire did she want from him? The impossible, that’s what she wanted! How could he change the past? He decided he needed help.
Adam found Roz in the breakfast room. She came to him immediately.
“Adam, I am so very grateful. You saved both their lives. I thank you from the bottom of my heart.”
“Roz, you’ve got to talk to her. She’ll have nothing to do with me.”
“Have you settled things with Eve?”
His eyes searched hers. “Of course I have. As if I could marry Antonia without informing Eve of my intention.”
“Adam, Antonia believes you were in love with her mother. Even as a child she had to take second place to her mother’s great beauty.”
“That’s ridiculous! Antonia is twice the woman Eve will ever be. I didn’t love Eve. I simply believed she’d make a good chatelaine for Edenwood, and Eve certainly never loved me.”
“I know that, Adam. I think Eve is only capable of loving herself.”
“I should have told Antonia, but I didn’t want to hurt her. I was a fool to think I could keep it from her.”
“Yes, your vast experience with women should have told you Eve would make sure Antonia knew.” Her eyes were filled with amusement that men really knew so little about what went on in a woman’s mind. “Give her time. I know Antonia loves you desperately. In a few months she’ll come around.”
He ran a distracted hand through his long black hair. “Roz, we don’t have a few months. Tony has conceived. I had no idea until I tended her wounds last night.”
Roz put her hand on his arm. “You must have a hundred things to do. Leave this one to me.”
Savage nodded. “I have a jackal to hunt down.” * * *
* * *
Lady Randolph entered her granddaughter’s bedroom with a female servant carrying water and dressings. “I’ve come to assess the damage.”
“Roz, no. I’ll do it myself,” Antonia said firmly.
“Fiddlesticks! Stop behaving as if you were the first woman ever to have a child. I was the first!”
Antonia said, “Oh, Roz, you always make me laugh. I mustn’t laugh; my world is coming apart.”
“Antonia, in this world if we don’t laugh, we cry. In any case a child is something to celebrate, not mourn. It’s flying in the face of convention, of course, to have a child without marrying. You’ll really set the gossips on their fannies if you produce twins!”
