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‘You are right. The thought of marriage—’ He swallowed. Before today, he hadn’t really thought about it, not in relation to himself. It just hadn’t entered his mind that one day he would meet anyone like Sarah. But now, well, even though he hadn’t thought beyond the mutual pleasure they could bring each other, it...it made sense.
‘But surely, this changes everything?’
‘This?’
‘The fact that you might be with child. We can’t just condemn a child to being labelled a bastard all it’s life. I have to give it my name.’
A mutinous expression came over her face. ‘No, you don’t. My own name is perfectly adequate.’
‘Not for my child, it isn’t. I don’t want it to think I walked away from the responsibility of bringing it up.’ The way his own father had done.
‘Well, I’ll tell it that it was my fault, then, shall I? That should salve your conscience.’
‘No, it won’t, because—’
‘I should have thought you,’ she interrupted, ‘of all men, would agree that it’s better for a child to have no father at all, than a bad, or a reluctant one.’
She didn’t think he’d be a good father?
He withdrew. You couldn’t have a fight with a woman when you were still inside her, your body still throbbing in the aftermath of release. He had no answer to that clincher. Because he knew it was true. Their own childhoods had been marred by their respective fathers.
She pulled the sheet up to her breasts and scowled at him over the top of it.
To think he’d promised her she’d feel peaceful afterwards. She’d never felt less at peace in her life. And from the looks of it, nor did he.
Marry her just in case there was a baby, indeed! That wasn’t a reason to get married. The only reason to get married was if you felt as if you simply couldn’t live without the other person. If you wanted to be with them more than you wanted your next breath. If they made you feel as if you didn’t care about anyone or anything else but being together.
A little sob caught in her throat. For that was how she felt about Tom. That was why his guilt-ridden proposal had hurt her so much.
A cold fury began to replace the icy stab of hurt. She was almost as bad as Mama—falling for a rake who looked on marriage as the ultimate sacrifice. She’d never understood how Mama could do such a foolish thing, until now, when she’d just had an experienced rake turn her into a puddle of lust and longing.
Except she had managed to retain the strength to turn down that half-hearted proposal.
And at least Tom had proposed. He wasn’t the kind of man to turn his back on a child of his. Not like Papa. Not like Papa at all. Papa had littered the countryside with his own natural children and never cared tuppence what happened to any of them. Or their mothers.
It felt as though someone drew a curtain away, flooding her mind with light. All her life she’d believed marriage was the worst fate that could befall a girl. It had made her reject Tom’s proposal in a kind of sick panic, even before she’d registered the reluctance in his voice. She’d always thought marriage meant becoming some man’s property, being obliged to watch him have affairs, while bearing him son after son until she was worn to a shadow.
But now she could see why her sisters had been so keen to see her follow them down the aisle. It wouldn’t be awful being married to Tom, not if he’d wanted to marry her. Really wanted to. The way Graveney had wanted Harriet. The way Blanchards doted on Gussie.
But he didn’t. He’d only proposed because he felt he’d behaved badly and now wished to make amends.
Guilt made her insides squirm. Because Tom had only done what she’d asked him to do. What she’d begged him to do. Why, he’d even tried to escape her and she’d hunted him down and dragged him back to this room.
‘None of this is your fault,’ she said. ‘Even before we came to bed, you warned me that it was only to show me the pleasure a fallen woman could experience. You reminded me that you aren’t the man to either ask for, or be granted, my hand in marriage.’
‘And you said you would always fight for me,’ he growled back. ‘Was that just words? Do you even know what you meant when you said you loved me just as I am?’ He gave a bitter sort of laugh.
‘I do love you, Tom.’
‘But not enough to marry me.’
‘Oh, but—’
‘No, don’t bother saying any more. You’re young. This is your first love affair. You’re confusing the physical satisfaction for something else.’
Was she? She’d already worked out that it was the physical attraction her mama had for her father that had made her make so many poor judgements. But she wasn’t the same as her mother. And Tom wasn’t like her father.
‘There’s nothing to fight about, is there?’ he said, flinging himself back into the pillows and staring fixedly at the ceiling. ‘We’re in agreement. Neither of us wants to marry. We’ve both been clear about that from the sta
