hung her head. ‘Oh, that.’
‘Yes, dammit, that. You couldn’t possibly think I wouldn’t know. So I ask you again, what is your game?’
A guilty wince tightened her lips. ‘No game. I didn’t think you would mind.’
‘Not mind?’ He stared at her as if she was mad. ‘Why on earth did you pretend to be a widow? How could you be so bacon-brained?’
Her hackles went up. ‘Lady Keswick stipulated she wanted a widow in her advertisement. I didn’t think it would matter.’
He shook his head wearily. ‘You should have told me. I would never have…’ He gestured at the floor, where they’d lain together.
A trembling started inside her. Fear that she’d gone from one disaster to another. ‘I thought you wanted me.’ The pleading note in her voice made her cringe inside. ‘I thought you would set me up as your mistress.’
His head came up, his mouth flat. ‘Is that what you thought? Really?’
Oh, God help her, what had she done? ‘Was I mistaken?’ Her voice shook.
‘Just what sort of man do you take me for?’
He sounded so scornful, she wanted to hit him. She curled her fingers inside her palms, forcing herself to speak with a coolness she did not feel. ‘A degenerate rake.’
Fury blazed in his eyes. ‘Damn you, Rose Travenor. I am both, but I am not a seducer of innocents.’ He let out a laugh. ‘Or was not until now.’ He raked a hand though his hair. ‘Is that even your name? Clearly there is no Mr Travenor.’ He put his hands on his hips. ‘Out with it. Who are you?’
He looked so furious, she couldn’t look him in the eye, so she gazed at the fireplace instead. ‘I don’t see why my name matters.’
He tipped his head back as if seeking divine intervention. ‘It matters on a marriage certificate.’
‘What!’ Her mouth dropped open. Her heart leapt with a kind of hot joy, more powerful than their lovemaking. Never in her wildest dreams did she imagine he would ask for her hand.
‘How proud you must be,’ he said. ‘You are the first gently bred innocent female who has ever tricked me into bedding her. I suppose this was all a lie, too.’ He waved an arm around. ‘The searching. The sadness when you found nothing. Your way of getting me alone.’
The joy was swept away on a blast of cold reality. Her anger rose up, clamouring in her blood and pounding in her ears, turning her vision crimson. ‘The seducer is seduced, in other words.’ She laughed bitterly. ‘I never asked you to follow me. I didn’t want you to follow me. It was all your own doing.’
He narrowed his eyes. ‘And so I get to live with the consequences. Did I seduce someone in your family and this is some form of revenge? Or has Lady Keswick turned matchmaker?’
None of this was making any sense. ‘I don’t want to marry you, and I won’t marry you. Does that make you feel any better?’
He scrubbed at the back of his neck. ‘Don’t be stupid. I have to marry you. You might be carrying my child.’
The wind of anger went right out of her sails. She sank on to the wooden settle. ‘But…but some people are married for ages before a child comes along. It takes practice.’
He gave a pained laugh. ‘Believe me, I’ve had lots of practice. And it can happen the first time.’
‘Oh.’ She frowned. ‘But mistresses don’t… I mean, somehow they…’
‘They take precautions. But you didn’t, did you?’ He looked hopeful.
‘No. I wasn’t expecting…’
‘Damn.’ He sat beside her. ‘Then the piper must be paid.’
‘Do you want to be married?’
‘Not in the least.’
The finality in his voice was like a surgeon’s scalpel. It sliced a piece out of her heart and left it bleeding.
‘Then don’t. You don’t love me, do you?’ Did she have to ask him that? Did she have to give him another weapon?
His laugh was scornful. It hurt to hear it, the way a stone scratched across slate pained the ears.
‘Love is a fabrication, made up by poets to get silly females falling at their feet. I’ll marry you because I’m damned if any child of mine is born a bastard and that’s all. Don’t think you are going to change me.’ His voice was hard, his face implacable.
She wrapped her arms across her stomach. ‘But there might not be a child.’
‘I won’t take that chance. Come on, let me help you dress, we’ve a busy day ahead of us.’
‘I—’
‘I don’t want to