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“I know you are not that man, but could you not pretend?”
“Pretend to be someone I’m not?” He jerked his arm away from her. “Unlike you, I do not need everyone to like me. I have some pride.”
“Some of us haven’t the luxury of pride.” Something hard flashed in her eyes. “I need everyone to like me because then they will invite me into society, speak well of me, and overlook the fact that I am married to the rudest man in England. They will be more likely to welcome my sister into society and less likely to object if someone wishes to marry her. And if Lucy does something dreadful, we are more likely to come out of it all right.” She jabbed a finger at him. “And since your behavior reflects on me, the better you behave, the more likely I am to find a solution to Lucy. After which I shall go back to not existing, as you so charmingly put it, and you can go back to being as rude as you like.”
She maintained her facade, but her little speech was edged with anger, tainted with frustration, searing with the hint that some part of her longed to scream the words and pummel his chest and hurl heavy objects at his head. Her sense of injustice, her lack of power, her subtle strength of character—he imagined them wrestling with each other like drunks in a brawl, wreaking havoc inside her, with only her politeness to keep them locked in.
A better man would help her fight her battles, so she could have some peace.
Well, he was not a better man, and he had battles of his own, and no one saw him going around pestering people for help. Start taking on each other’s burdens and they’d never know when to stop.
Besides, he had agreed to a marriage in name only. Name only. Name. Only.
“What do I get in return?” he said. “For behaving properly and pretending to be someone I’m not?”
“Why would you need something in return?”
“When an employee performs well, I offer a reward. Or when a businessman hesitates on a deal, I throw in an inducement to make him agree.”
“Helping your family should be inducement enough.”
“And yet it is not.”
She considered for a moment. “What do you want, then?”
What he wanted was for her to leave him be, to stop disrupting his life, to stop making him question who he was and how he got here and who he wanted to be.
So he did the obvious thing, really.
He stepped right up to her and pressed a hand to her waist to hold her steady, her body firm and warm under his palm. He lowered his head so his mouth was so close to her ear he could have nibbled it. A lock of her hair brushed his cheek. She was tense, and he could feel her breathe. Her warm, floral, womanly fragrance slid under his skin and into his blood.
He ignored it all and murmured in her ear. He explained clearly, descriptively, succinctly, what he wanted her to do to him, as reward and inducement for good behavior.
She responded exactly as he had intended: She gasped and stumbled away from him, hands pressed over her mouth, eyes wide.
“I will never do such a disgusting, depraved thing!” she cried. “That you would even think of it!”
Bull’s-eye! He grinned, ignoring the void beside him where she had been.
“If you refuse to comply, I refuse to behave,” he said.
“Oh, you…” Her lovely full mouth moved, helplessly seeking words to voice her outrage, then she gave up and stormed out, finally, mercifully leaving him alone, with his thoughts in disarray.
Chapter 7
Cassandra’s infuriating, vexing,depravedhusband neither shaved nor removed the infernal earring, and he met Cassandra’s pointed look with raised eyebrows, which reminded her of his suggestion and her natural mortification. She carefully ignored him all the way to the rout at her aunt and uncle’s house, where, fortunately, he went his own way, and she was able to enjoy herself, though she could not forget what he had said.
Routs were silly, really: a crowd speeding through a house, conversing in frantic, frivolous bursts, reveling in the crush even as they complained. But she loved talking to people and thinking up amusing conversation points and admiring other ladies’ gowns.
She spied Arabella on the upper level and climbed the stairs to join her. Arabella made a haughty, cool island of stillness amid the social whirl, but her gentle smile suggested Lord Hardbury was nearby.
“Arabella, I must ask you something.” Cassandra’s hands were clammy in her gloves; she could not believe she was about to ask something so brazen, but she simply had to know. She started to speak but with this racket, she would have to nearly yell to be heard. “I need to whisper. Please stoop.”
“How intriguing,” Arabella said and complied.
“Do you ever…” Cassandra glanced around. No one could hear. “Kiss…your husband’s…organ?”
A strange sound burst out of Arabella and she hastily covered her mouth with her fist. “Did you say what I think you said?”
