AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“I don’t want to marry a man who needs to be dragged to the altar. Even in my current state of bruised pride, I think I deserve a bit better than that.”
“Of course you do. You always deserved better than Giles Perry in the first place. But he proposed to you, and you accepted him. And I’ll be damned if he’ll get away with this.”
“Sebastian.”
He relented. “Very well. I won’t drag him back. I’llinvitehim to make good on his word to you.”
“And if he doesn’t accept that invitation?”
Sebastian stopped pacing and turned to her, staring directly into her brilliant blue eyes. “Then I’ll call the bastard out.”
“A duel?” Mary’s heart missed a beat. “Oh, no. You can’t.”
“Oh, yes. I will.”
He gave her the classic Sebastian look, commanding and stubborn in equal measures. She’d watched grown men wither under that glare. It didn’t help that he was built like a Viking warrior, tall and broad-shouldered, with features struck from bronze. There was nothing soft on him, anywhere.
Not on the outside, at least.
“That look doesn’t work on me,” she said. “I know you too well.”
“You don’t know everything, Mary.”
“I know I’ve watched you cradle a sparrow hatchling in your hand and feed it from a tincture dropper.”
He tipped his head back and groaned. “That was ages ago.”
“Mashed worms, three times an hour, fordays.”
“Rescuing the thing was not my idea. It was Henry’s.”
“But you were the one who saw it through. The dear little bird thought you were its mother. Remember?” She hooked two fingers and skipped them up his arm. “Hop, hop, hop…”
“Stop.”
She withdrew her hand. “I’m just saying that if you ever had any hope of intimidating me, it disappeared that summer. So don’t even think about dueling. You’re not a man who’d kill another in cold blood.”
“Your honor must be defended. Perry’s already put off this wedding twice.”
“He put off the wedding once,” she corrected. “The other time I was in mourning. That wasn’t his fault.”
“No, that wasn’t his fault,” Sebastian said in a low, bitter voice. “It was mine.”
Mary silently cursed herself. She never should have mentioned it. “You must stop blaming yourself. It was war; men die. You weren’t responsible for Henry’s decision to enlist.”
“Perhaps not. But when he was killed, I became responsible for you.”
“I’m nearly twenty-eight years old. I should think by now I’m responsible for myself. And I may have been jilted, but I’m not heartbroken. Giles and I held each other in esteem, but it wasn’t a love match. I’ll survive.”
“Yes, but your reputation will not. You know the things people say when a long engagement is broken. They will assume that you’ve… Well, that the two of you…” He churned the air with one hand. “Help me here. What’s a polite way to say it?”
Mary was suddenly curious about the impolite ways to say it. But that wasn’t a conversation for the moment. “They’ll assume we anticipated the wedding vows.”
“Yes,” he said with obvious relief. “That.”
“I can’t help it if people gossip.”
“You’ll be ruined. You don’t have the money or connections to overcome even a hint of scandal. If you don’t marry Perry today, you might never wed anyone at all.”
