Seduced by a Scoundrel - By Barbara Dawson Smith Page 0,15
You pretend to humor her, and all the while you’re laughing up your sleeve.”
“I’m not like those who taunt what they don’t understand.”
“And you understand her? Tell me, why would you show true kindness to her? Give me one good reason.”
He shrugged, his face moody. “My mother was an actress,” he said, turning away to prowl the room. “While she was learning her parts, she often played the roles with me. She might be anyone from Hamlet’s Ophelia to Mary, Queen of Scots.” Taking a stance at the ivory marble mantelpiece, he added, “So you see, this pretending that other people find odd seems quite ordinary to me. Now, do you want to mock me and my mother?”
Alicia shook her head, intrigued by the insight into his past. Against her will, she pictured him as a little dark-haired boy, trading lines with his costumed mother. How strange to see the similarity to Mama, who dressed as a flower-seller or Cleopatra or whomever else struck her mad fancy.
Alicia deliberately broke the thread of connection to him. His mother had been sane. She knew she was portraying a character.
“Does she still act in the theater?” Alicia found herself asking.
“She’s dead.” His tone was hard, shutting the door on the past. “But enough about me. I’ve come to talk about us.”
Us. She shuddered inwardly at the way he coupled them together. In a tumble of words, she said, “I’ll have more funds for you soon. My brother is selling Pet.”
“Pet?”
“His mare.” Her voice threatened to choke, but she relentlessly cleared her throat. “So you see, we are making every attempt to repay you.”
Wilder laughed. “Even the finest horse will fetch only a fraction of the money.”
“It will have to do for now.” She swallowed, then took a sustaining breath. “Unless you will reconsider my proposal … to be your mistress.”
Even across the width of the library, his stare was fierce. “You know what I want, my lady. Your hand in marriage.”
Oh, dear God, not that. Anything but that. “You ask the impossible.”
“If it’s Lady Brockway who concerns you, I’m willing to allow her to live with us.” His face took on that calculating intensity. “Don’t forget—we have her blessing.”
She hated him in that moment. She hated him for the flash of hope in her, and for the way he had led her mother down a garden path of lies. She couldn’t trust him; she daren’t trust him. It made her ill to think of giving such a man the rights of a husband. He was a smooth-talking gambler who lured the unwary into a false belief in their own infallibility. Papa had fallen prey to such men, and now Gerald … gullible, gawky Gerald, who might die if he were condemned to a damp prison cell.
But she would fight Wilder on that. He couldn’t take everything. At least they had a home, bought and paid for long ago, a sanctuary for Mama.
“I’ll take out a mortgage on the house,” she said recklessly. “There will be enough to settle the debt.”
“I’m afraid that is out of the question,” Wilder said.
Reaching inside his coat, he withdrew a folded piece of parchment and held it out to her. He clearly expected her to come to him and take it. She considered standing her ground, winning this play of power. But if that paper concerned the debt, she had to know.…
Shoulders squared, Alicia walked slowly toward him. Those watchful eyes took in her every step. He frightened her; she could admit that to herself. But she refused to let him see.
Their fingers brushed as she took the paper. Despite her frisson of awareness, she forced herself to move deliberately, to open the vellum as she headed to a nearby window, where a sliver of light illuminated the scrawling black penmanship. Gerald’s handwriting, affixed to a legal document. As she absorbed the words, horror crept in a stranglehold around her heart.
It was the deed to their house. And it had been signed over to one Drake Wilder.
Chapter Four
“I own this house now.”
That supremely satisfied voice echoed as if through a long tunnel. Alicia was aware of the window frame biting into her upper arm. The dust motes dancing in a knife blade of sunshine. The deed quaking in her cold fingertips.
Mama’s refuge was gone. Gone.
Someone touched her shoulder. “Answer me. Have you nothing to say?”
Drake Wilder loomed beside her. A moment ago, he’d stood halfway across the library, but she was too numb to feel startled. She glimpsed