Reckless - By Anne Stuart Page 0,102

worth more, I deserve better, and I'm not settling for someone like you.”

She started toward the door, the heavy linen trailing behind her, and he was up off the bed, at the door before she made it there. He looked confused, furious, bewildered.

"You're not making sense, Charlotte," he said patiently. "The sex between us isn't like ordinary people's. You won't find this with someone else-it's special. I'm offering you the chance to be a vis-countess, to have your own establishment, perhaps even children..."

"You're willing to make a great sacrifice on your part in order to scratch a curious itch. Find someone else." She put her hands on his bare chest, resisting the urge to stroke him, and shoved him away.

By now he was angry, affronted, and he fell back. "To hell with you then—do you know how many women would give everything to be in your place?"

"Go find one of them and shag yourself silly. You can't have me." And she yanked open the door and strode out into the hallway, feeling majestic, righteous and furious.

It was probably just as well that she got lost. Her defiant mood could only last so long. By the time she'd taken her third wrong turn, her lower lip was trembling, and when she came to the end of a hallway with no staircase in sight, she simply sank onto the worn carpet, the cover draped around her, and began to cry silently.

The linen was useless for blotting her tears. She lay there in a miserable welter of sorrow, sobbing quietly into her arms, when Lina found her.

She put her arms around her, murmuring soft, comforting things, helping her to her feet, repositioning (he cover around her naked body. "Where are your clothes, dearest?"

"I...in...the...nursery," she said between hiccups. "Don't go there. He's in a rage."

"'He doesn't know the meaning of the word rage" Lina said darkly. "Did he hurt you?"

Charlotte shook her head. "No."

Lina knew the halls as well as Adrian had. Within minutes she'd brought Charlotte back to her rooms, Meggie bustling around her, making clucking noises as she helped her bathe. "He certainly marked you, that one," she said. "I hope you did the same to him."

Charlotte closed her eyes, refusing to think about it. Refusing to think about the bite mark on his shoulder, the scratches on his back.

“Don't worry, sweeting," Lina said. "He'll marry you, make no doubt about that. If he thinks he can get away with this without offering for you..."

"He did offer for me. I told him no."

Lina's astonishment mirrored Adrian's, and Charlotte's ire began to rise again. "Why does everyone assume I should be grateful for the tidbits of attention he's tossing me?" she demanded. "I don't want a cold-b1ooded marriage of short-term lust and long term politeness.”

“It doesn't have to be that way," Lina protested.

"Yes, it does. That's what he's offering me. He was quite astounded that I would refuse such a magnanimous offer. He probably thought I would be struck dumb with gratitude. Well, I'm not grateful. I'd rather spend my life a fallen woman. I'd rather marry a ragpicker and live in the stews of London than marry that...that arrogant pig bladder."

Lina was sitting on the bed beside her, a troubled expression on her face. "Charlotte, you have to marry him. I think you might be increasing."

Charlotte looked at her blankly, the words making no sense. And then the meaning was clear. "No,"

she said flatly. She thought about it a moment. "Absolutely no." The strange sense of lassitude and energy, the feeling of fullness and growth. "I can't be."

"Meggie says you haven't had your monthly courses. Just a few drops of blood, and that's often a sign of pregnancy. You've been tired all the time, sick in the morning, the smell of bacon makes you ill when you used to eat it by the pound. We won't know for sure, but you have all the signs. You have to marry him"

"No," she said stubbornly. "That just makes me even more convinced. I'm not going to bring a child into the world and give him a...a...jackass like Adrian for a father."

"You want to bring a bastard into the world?" "We can raise her together. That is, unless you're sending me away for gross immorality."

Lina's laugh sounded suspiciously close to tears. "No, darling, I'm not. And if you don't want Adrian then you don't have to have him. We'll figure something out. Go away to the continent, or out to the country during your confinement.