would be easy enough for Fred to discover the truth, if he didn’t know it already. “Yes. On both counts.”
His face darkened like a thundercloud. “I forbid it.”
“You have no right—”
“Try me,” he said. “You’d be hard-pressed to stay in London with no funds of your own.”
“Rubbish.” Her gaze locked with his. She refused to be intimidated. “You can withhold my money, but you have no control over my person. I can go where I like and see whom I like. I can marry anyone—”
“Marry him!” Fred launched from his chair. “You wouldn’t—”
“I might.”
“Margaret—”
“And pray don’t loom over me in that overbearing manner. You’ll give me a cramp in my neck.”
He reluctantly dropped back into his seat. “I won’t ask if he’s proposed to you, for I know full well he hasn’t. He’s made no secret that he’s courting Miss Louisa Steele.”
Maggie stared at Fred. For a moment, she wasn’t sure if she’d heard him correctly. St. Clare was courting Miss Steele? That beautiful porcelain doll of a girl Maggie had seen him with at the theater? The young debutante in the first bloom of her youth?
She shook her head. “I don’t believe it.”
“It’s true. He took her driving yesterday and escorted her to Lady Colchester’s ball that same evening. To hear tell of it, the pair of them were inseparable. Waltzing together, dining together.”
Maggie hadn’t attended the Colchesters’ ball. She was saving her strength for Lady Parkhurst’s ball on Saturday. It was to be a grand affair. Maggie’s first and only ball of the season, and one where she had hoped she might attempt a waltz with St. Clare. Then again…
He hadn’t called yesterday. And he hadn’t come today. Not yet. He hadn’t even sent his usual bouquet of flowers.
“Miss Steele is this season’s incomparable,” Fred went on. “Her father is the younger son of the Earl of Lindsey, which makes her more than suitable as a match for a viscount. The ton is already talking about her marriage to St. Clare. If he’s paying attention to you at all, it’s not because he wants to wed you. It’s because you’re—”
“What am I?”
“Come, at your age, you can’t expect—”
“I beg your pardon!”
“You’re six and twenty. If a man like St. Clare is paying attention to you at all, he can have only one thing in mind, and it’s not to make you his wife.”
“How dare you!” Maggie’s temper boiled over at last. “To make such insinuations. You don’t know anything about him.”
“No one does! He’s never been seen before in England. There are reports he’s not even legitimate. Why else would the Earl of Allendale have kept him away so long?”
She looked at Fred in disgust. “Is that the rumor your spreading now? I knew you were spiteful, but this is the absolute limit. To accuse someone of—”
“Not me. It’s in the papers where anyone can read it.” Fred leaned toward her. “And I won’t be called spiteful, not when I’m only endeavoring to protect you.”
“To protect me from St. Clare, you mean.”
“And others of his ilk. So long as you’re in town, you’re fair game to them. A lady past her prime, who makes a show of herself at the theater and in Hyde Park—”
“Past my prime!”
“You’re obviously not angling for a husband. The whole of society knows you’re meant to marry me. It’s what your father wanted.”
“My father never understood the first thing about you.” Maggie moved to rise.
Fred anticipated her, catching her by the arm in a harsh grip. He hauled her up in front of him, far too close for her comfort.
An unaccountable jolt of fear went through her. Despite his bluster, Fred had never resorted to brute force. Not where she was concerned. “Let go of me,” she said.
“You will listen to what I have to say.” His grasp tightened, as if he could force her to obey him by a show of physical strength. “Go home, Margaret. You’ve had a fortnight’s holiday. Let it be enough. Go home,” he said again. “Ready yourself for our wedding.”
“I never said I’d marry you.”
“We both know that you will. You’ll do anything to keep Beasley Park.” A peculiar light shone in his eyes. “Can you not find it in yourself to love me a little? I’m not the ogre you make me out. All I require is that you—”
“I said let go of me.” She wrenched free from his grasp. “Do you think anything in the world could ever induce me to love you after what