above. What a pantomime this was. What an absolute farce. She wanted to shake him until he admitted the truth to her.
But she couldn’t force him to do anything.
She didn’t dare try, not when there was the faintest shadow of uncertainty about who he was. And she was uncertain, more now than she’d been before he’d started his tale. How could she not be when he looked as he did and talked as he did? When he had wealth, and a title, and the support of the Earl of Allendale?
“Does it not get tedious living with your grandfather?” she asked. “A man of your age?”
“In Grosvenor Square?” He shrugged. “On occasion. But I’m not bound to stay there.”
“You have another residence?”
For a moment it seemed he would not answer. And then: “I keep a set of rooms at Grillon’s. A place I can go when I want a bit of privacy.” His mouth hitched in an apologetic smile. “It’s not something I generally make known.”
A set of rooms at Grillon’s.
Heat crept into Maggie’s face. She was no green girl. She knew why a gentleman might keep rooms at a hotel. Privacy indeed. “Why did you come back? Do you mean to settle here?”
“I told you,” he said. “I mean to court you.”
She huffed an exasperated breath. “To what end?” She was resolved to be as blunt as he was mysterious. “I can’t marry you.”
St. Clare went still. His eyes searched hers.
“And yes,” she said quickly, to stave off embarrassment, “I know you haven’t proposed, or even mentioned marriage, but the natural goal of any courtship is—”
“Why not?”
“Because I can’t, not even if I wanted to. Don’t you understand? You’re too late.” She stood from her seat, her heart twisting on an unimaginable spasm of anguish. “Whoever you are, you’re a year and a half too late.”
St. Clare caught Maggie gently by the wrist and drew her back down to his side. She came reluctantly, resuming her seat on the bench, closer to him now than she’d been before.
“Talk to me,” he said. “I want to understand.”
She couldn’t look at him. She wouldn’t. The reality of her situation was too fraught with emotion. It was bad enough that she must contemplate marrying Fred, but to lose Nicholas forever? He’d only just come back into her life. How could she let him go? The unfairness of it was enough to drive anyone to tears. And she didn’t wish to cry.
“What else is there to say?” she asked. “I’d have thought it was abundantly plain.”
His fingers slid from her wrist to engulf her bare hand. His own hand was bare as well. He’d left his hat, cane, and gloves inside with the butler. There was nothing untoward about it. The two of them were in a private garden, not a public promenade. But it didn’t feel entirely proper. Quite the opposite. His skin pressed so intimately to hers. It felt dangerous. Illicit. Sensual beyond permission.
He didn’t have the soft hands of a pampered aristocrat. His hands were large and strong, his long fingers almost elegant, with callusing from where he held his reins and whip. The hands of a sportsman. A Corinthian.
They were Nicholas’s hands, she was sure of it.
“Does this have anything to do with Mr. Burton-Smythe?” he asked in a quiet voice. “You said he was something like your guardian.”
She returned the warm clasp of St. Clare’s fingers. She couldn’t help herself. “He has control of all of my money and property.”
“Until when?”
At last she turned to meet his eyes. Her heart clenched. “I must marry before six months have passed. If I don’t, everything will go to Fred absolutely.”
St. Clare straightened. “Well, then. There’s no difficulty—”
“You don’t understand. It must be with his permission. A groom of his choosing.”
“In other words—”
“In other words, Fred himself. He won’t approve of any other.”
A muscle ticked in St. Clare’s jaw. “And if you don’t marry him? If you wed someone without his approval?”
“I shall lose my fortune, and Beasley Park along with it.”
Were St. Clare truly Nicholas Seaton, he would have comprehended the full meaning of her words. Nicholas had known what Beasley Park meant to her. It was as much a part of her as he had been. Love of the land was etched into her very soul.
But St. Clare didn’t seem to register the difficulty Fred’s power over her presented. “I have no need of your fortune,” he said. “I have one of my own.”