AllFreeNovel
Share Us
‘The most important people in the land? Oh, dear!’
‘They only think they are,’ he said with contempt. ‘But never mind the conversation you interrupted. I am far more interested in learning what has occurred to induce you to abandon that fierce pride of yours and come to me as a supplicant. Not that I object, you understand.’
‘Sometimes,’ she said, observing the smugness of the smile that curved his lips as he referred to her as a supplicant, ‘I really, really, dislike you.’
He took one step sideways. ‘The key is in the lock. You may turn it and leave, if you so wish.’
‘You aggravating man,’ she seethed. ‘You know very well I’m not going anywhere. Do you have to make it so hard for me?’
‘Make what hard?’ His smile was positively predatory now.
She glowered at him.
‘To tell you that I have changed my mind. That if you would be so kind, I should like to take you up on your offer.’
‘My offer?’ His smile froze.
‘To make me the toast of the ton,’ she snapped. ‘They are all going to gossip about me. I cannot stop it now. And at least if you...I don’t know...do whatever it is you had in mind to make them think I’m...fascinating...then at least my brothers won’t be ashamed to own me.’
A strange look came over his face. ‘You are doing this for your brothers?’
She’d done something very like this before. When Lady Chigwell had been berating her, she’d borne it all with weary indifference. It had only been when the old harridan had cast aspersions on her family that she had flung up her chin and answered back.
Because she loved them.
Love was the key that he’d been searching for. If she believed she was in love with him, he would have it all. Her compliance to his wish she should marry him and, most of all, her loyalty. He didn’t know why he hadn’t seen it before. But now he had, he couldn’t see her marrying anyone unless she fancied herself in love with him.
And once she’d made the commitment, she would remain loyal to the bitter end. No matter what she thought of him once she knew him well enough to realise he was not the kind of person anyone could really love, she would remain loyal. He might have mocked her for that streak of Puritanism she so frequently displayed, but that very morality would spare him many of the distasteful aspects of marriage that had made him avoid it for so long. She would not be the kind of woman to take a lover the moment she’d presented him with an heir. On the contrary, any children she bore would undoubtedly be his.
Just think of that. Having two or even three sons that were indisputably legitimate. It was far more than he’d ever dared to hope for. But with Henrietta as his wife...
He sucked in a deep breath as he imagined married life, with Henrietta Gibson as his countess.
Their marriage would not be in the least bit fashionable. She would be unfashionably loyal, unfashionably faithful and, most likely, with her open, honest nature, probably given to unfashionable displays of affection in public. Which would be a tad irritating, particularly as people would mock her.
Still, he had never imagined marriage would be without problems, and at least having a wife who was a bit gauche in public was far preferable to enduring one who played the whore.
He made a decision. Not only would he not reprimand her, should she be demonstrative towards him in public, he would actually defend her. It would be a shame to crush those traits of honesty and openness that made her unique. Any affection she felt for him initially would wither away and die eventually anyway, but he could at least not do anything to hasten her disillusionment. By the time she realised that love was a fairy tale, that it had no place in the real world, they might have reached a state of understanding which would enable them to at least present a united front to their children. He would do whatever it took to ensure that his own offspring would not become casualties of the kind of bitter war that had raged between his own parents.
All these thoughts flashed through his mind in less time than it took him to breathe in and out a couple of times.
That was all the time it took to decide that he would have Miss Gibson at his side, and on his side, no matter what he had to do to ensure he won her.
