Falling for the Marquess - Julianne MacLean Page 0,63
you don’t need to make me wait to test me against temptation. Let me marry you and prove that I am completely devoted. If I were not, I would be putting it off. I want you and no one else. That is what lies at the heart of this. It’s why I want to skip the elaborate wedding and keep it simple. We could do it the week after next.”
What the bloody hell was he doing? The more uncertain he became, the faster and deeper he dug the hole.
“Seger, you don’t have to say that to make me feel better.”
“I’m not trying to make you feel better.” But he was, and he knew it. “I just don’t want to wait, it’s as simple as that. Besides, you might be carrying my child.”
Worry flooded her eyes.
It was wretched of him to resort to that, but he forged ahead. “Let’s make the leap. You will have my total commitment and I promise, after the wedding day, all these doubts and fears will disappear.” What he really meant was that if he put a ring on her finger and signed the papers, she wouldn’t feel guilty about making love to him, and they wouldn’t need to have this difficult conversation again.
“You will be my wife,” he added, “and we will become a respectable married couple. Who could ever have imagined it?”
That at least got a smile out of her. “I think I’d like to be respectable.”
Seger chuckled. “You would? I’m about to enter a whole new world.”
The tension lifted and she rested her forehead on his chest. “What about the honeymoon? You’ve made arrangements for September.”
“We’ll simply wait and go then. This way, you’ll have time to settle in to your new home.”
She laughed at the absurdity of such a rushed affair. “Go, before someone catches you sneaking out of here.”
“Not without an answer.” She was still resting her forehead on his chest and he wished he could see her face. “An answer, darling. The week after next?”
She gazed up at him in the candlelight, then at last she replied, “All right, but only because I want to share a bed with you again.”
Her answer pleased him greatly. What could he say? He was a man, and bed was the one place he felt confident in knowing his way around.
He turned to leave, but Clara stopped him with a question. “Seger? Was I your first virgin?”
He halted, closed his eyes, and wished she had not asked him that. “What does it matter?” He did not see the point in the question.
“But was I?”
He slowly turned, faced her, and paused. “No.”
“Have there been many?”
“No. Only one.”
She blinked a few times. “Daphne?”
“Yes.”
Hearing a thump in one of the upstairs bedrooms, Seger knew it was time for him to vamoose. He hesitated a moment, however, for he could see the distress in Clara’s eyes and wished he could stay to make it disappear. He wanted her to know that Daphne was in the past. She was forgotten. There was no need for Clara to feel as if she were not the most important woman in the world to him.
Another thump sounded over their heads.
He had to go.
He kissed Clara on the mouth, then backed out of the room. He noted however, that he left without his usual indulgent, flirtatious smile.
When the news of her stepson’s sudden haste to marry the American heiress reached Quintina’s ears the next day, she gazed helplessly across the breakfast table at Gillian. Time seemed to stand still for a few seconds.
An American. Quintina could have spit on her toast.
All was quiet, until Gillian burst into tears and ran out.
Quintina sat in her chair, staring blankly at the wall. She felt numb. Sick. Disgusted. How could this have happened? Marriage terrified Seger. He had never been willing to face the permanence or the commitment. Nor had he been willing to let go of the past, in particular the daughter of an insipid, working-class merchant.
At least she had been English.
Quintina had foolishly believed that she had all the time in the world to make Gillian the next Lady Rawdon. She had thought her niece was the only young woman with even the slightest chance with Seger because she was the only one Seger spent any time with on a regular basis—the only unmarried girl who didn’t apply any pressure, the sort of pressure that always made him rebel into extreme bachelorhood.
Quintina had also believed that she could put an end to his engagement