Viscount Breckenridge to the Rescue (19 page)

Slowly turning his head, he met her gaze, his own steady, his expression impassive. “I’ll sleep on the floor because we don’t need any further complications in our relationship at present.”

When he was serious, as he was now, most people had the sense to give way.

Her lips thinned. Her eyes narrowed on his. “I realize,” she stated, her tone sharper, but still at a whisper, “that you want to be bullheadedly protective, honorable, and all the rest. But in case you haven’t noticed, the temperature is already falling, and will assuredly fall even more dramatically before dawn, and as there’s no fire I’ll freeze, and be too busy shivering to sleep, so if you really wanted to be protective and honorable you’d lie down here”—she jabbed a finger at the bed beside her—“and keep me warm.”

She held up the finger. “Furthermore, if you look down, you’ll see that the space between the bed and the wall is significantly narrower than your shoulders—which is why you’re standing at an angle right now. If you try to sleep there . . . what if you turn over and knock yourself out on the bottom of the bed? Who’s going to protect me from that damned laird if you’re unconscious?”

Hands rising to his hips, he narrowed his eyes back at her. That she was attempting to manipulate him shouldn’t be a surprise. Regardless . . . his ring continued to flash in the light, taunting him. “I—”

Up shot her hand; the ring flashed again. “I haven’t finished yet.”

Heather held his hard gaze, driven by she knew not what to win this argument. The notion that he would rather sleep on the cold floor than in the comfort of the bed beside her offended her, infuriated her, at some level she didn’t truly understand. If they were partners, equals, together facing all this, then they should share the bed; that was all there was to it.

And she knew what particular scruple was, beneath all his excuses, keeping him from complying.

“You don’t need to imagine that by sharing a bed with me you’ll compromise me—or rather that that fact will affect my future life in any degree.”

He blinked; in his usually unreadable face she detected a moment’s confusion.

“Yes,” she went on, “I’m perfectly well aware that after a journey such as this my prospects of ever marrying will effectively be nil. But they already were.”

Because the one man she might possibly have married had never seen her as a marriageable female. He stood before her now, and almost certainly still saw her as a too-young young lady. Witness this argument.

He stood before her refusing even to share a bed, even in these circumstances, arguing as only he would, deeming it an unwise “complication,” no less.

Regardless of anything, they never would, never could, marry now. The only reason he would now offer for her hand was because he felt forced to it by honor, by circumstance—a reason for marriage she would never accept. A reason her mother, her sisters, her aunts, all her female acquaintance would understand that she could never accept.

To have a man forced to marry her would be anathema.

To have
Breckenridge
forced to marry her . . . was unthinkable.

“I know society as well as you do.” She continued more calmly, but no less decisively, “I’m twenty-five. In a few months, I’ll be declared formally on the shelf, and that will be that. I’ve already decided what to do with the rest of my life—this journey and its outcome won’t materially affect my plans.”

He was frowning. After a moment, he asked, “These plans of yours—what are they?”

As if he didn’t believe she truly had any.

She smiled, tight-lipped. “I like children, and I know Catriona has many under her wing, quite aside from her own. I’d already thought to visit the Vale this summer and stay for a time, learning more about what Catriona and her staff do, then go home to Somerset and explore what I might do there. So, you see, I have it all worked out—this journey merely moves my plans forward a few months. Whatever social repercussions flow from my kidnapping and this subsequent flight with you won’t affect me in the least—in large part I won’t even be aware of them, of what the ton might think and say.”

Holding his gaze, yet as usual totally unable to read his expression, she decided that, in this instance, total honesty would serve her best. “And just to make matters crystal clear, while I comprehend that society might well deem a marriage between us the only acceptable outcome, I will not be a party to any socially dictated marriage. I would never marry a man who only sought to marry me to preserve his, and possibly my, honor.” She paused, still holding, or more accurately now trapped by his hard hazel gaze, by eyes that seemed to bore into her with an intensity she couldn’t quite comprehend.

She drew in a tight breath, fractionally tilted her chin. “So I trust that’s now clear. And that now you understand that no part of this journey, including you sleeping beside me in this bed, is going to change my future in any way, you will simply shut up”—she let her eyes blaze, let her chin firm—“and damn well lie down!”

To cap her performance—her clear challenge—she glared, jerked up the covers, slid down in the bed, turned on her other side, away from him, and slumped down in the bed.

Leaving Breckenridge staring at one belligerently hunched shoulder.

And struggling with a riot of emotions.

He felt . . . insulted. Infuriated. He wanted to shake her.

To shake some sense into her stubbornly dismissive mind.

In all her wonderful plans, her careful planning, she’d forgotten one thing.

She’d forgotten him.

Fighting a nearly overpowering urge to stomp about the room, to rake his hands through his hair, clutch at the locks, then continue arguing with her—raging at her if need be—he clenched his jaw and glared . . . while beneath the churning feelings that part of him that had more in common with a warrior-general than any civilized, sophisticated, bound-by-convention gentleman swiftly reassessed.

He’d thought—clearly wrongly—that she hadn’t seen the social implications of her kidnapping and his involvement in her rescue. Instead . . . the element she hadn’t seen was that he might hold a different view from hers.

Hands locked on his hips, he stalked silently to the side of the bed. Staring down at her, he revisited his thoughts and requestioned his conclusions, his adamantly held belief that he and she
had to
marry. That that was the only way he could countenance this adventure ending.

His belief, his certainty, his absolute, unshakable conviction hadn’t altered, hadn’t shifted, hadn’t been undermined by her arguments in the least. So . . . lips setting grimly, hands still on his hips, he narrowed his eyes on her. It appeared he had a significantly greater challenge before him than he’d foreseen.

The simple truth—one she refused to acknowledge—was that in the wake of this adventure, he being him and she being her left
him
with no alternative but to marry her. Not simply because society would otherwise howl and figuratively, if not literally, call for his head, nor because he needed a wife and she was in many ways the ideal candidate, but because, over and above every other consideration, on that plane on which he’d long ago vowed never to venture again but with her found himself walking on anyway, marrying her was now . . . mandatory.

To him their marriage was now a foregone conclusion.

And the warrior within him refused to give that up.

He looked down at her, at the sheen of the candlelight caressing the silken smoothness of her shoulder, at the golden glimmer of her wheat-blond hair. The only reason he had, to this point, fought to keep the sexual barriers between them up and functioning was because he’d foreseen that if he gave in to the increasingly sharp prodding of his instincts and seduced her, using as his excuse the fact that society would dictate they had to marry anyway, she would later view him as having taken advantage of her. Of him using the situation to unfairly tie her to him, of him capitalizing on her relative social naivety to ensure they married, that all played out as he wanted regardless of what she thought or felt.

He’d thought that seducing her would leave her resenting him, resenting him for strengthening his claim on her. It was one thing for her to view society as forcing them to marry, quite another for her to view him as actively forcing marriage on her, too.

Given he’d assumed that she hadn’t seen the social implications, that reasoning had been sound.

But she had seen, had considered, and had instead set her mind on not marrying at all, not him or any other man.

That changed things. Fundamentally altered the landscape.

Staring down at her, he assessed the new terrain.

If once they reached the Vale, she held to her present stance and refused to marry him, refused to bow to the dictates of society . . . seducing her now wouldn’t necessarily give him any useable lever with which to change the outcome.

He knew the Cynsters, all of them, knew that if she put her delicate foot down and refused to marry him, established intimacy notwithstanding, while all the men would be on his side, the women—potentially all of them—might very well side with her. And the Cynster women were a formidable force. If push came to shove, he suspected that they would prevail; when it came to all things family within the Cynster clan, they were the ultimate authority.

So seducing her wouldn’t strengthen his hand, not in that way, but . . . in seducing her, he had one more ace up his sleeve. He wasn’t widely acknowledged as the ton’s foremost rake for no reason.

And she was attracted to him. He had little doubt that attraction arose from the usual fascination most young ladies felt for a man of his lauded experience, but it gave him a place to start.

And looking at the entire scenario objectively, what had he to lose? As matters stood, the only way he could win her hand was to convince her to bestow it on him of her own accord.

He reviewed his options one last time, but nothing varied, nothing changed. No other option reared its head.

Accepting, embracing his new purpose, he considered the space beside her, then shrugged off his coat, unknotted his kerchief, undid the laces at his throat and wrists. He glanced at her, knew she was listening for all she was worth. Stooping, he stripped off his hose, undid the closures at his breeches’ knees, then blew out the candle, stripped off his breeches.

Clad only in his shirt, reaching over the bed’s head, he drew back the curtains covering the window in the rear wall, allowing faint moonlight to flood the small room, then he lifted the blankets. As he’d assumed, she was lying under the soft sheet. He slid into the bed on top of the sheet, leaving that as a last barrier between them.

Not that it would hold back the inevitable.

Laying his head on the pillow, he let himself relax as far as he was able.

Looking up at the ceiling, he waited for nature to take her course.

For fate to raise her head and have at them both.

H
eather didn’t know whether to grin triumphantly or just feel vindicated when she felt the bed dip at her back. Sliding her hand over the edge of the mattress, she clutched to hold herself in place as he settled . . . then realized she’d have to keep clutching if she didn’t want to roll back into him.

Regardless, all but immediately she felt the temperature rise.

Telling herself she could now go to sleep, she closed her eyes.

Waited for her senses to subside.

To calm.

They didn’t. Her lungs remained tight, her breathing too restricted for her to possibly succumb to slumber.

Her skin prickled, acutely aware. Her mind refused to let go of the information that he’d undressed before lying down.

She’d seen naked men before—her younger cousins and their friends swimming when they hadn’t known she and her sisters had been near.

Instinct warned that what she’d seen then would be significantly different to what lay stretched out in the bed behind her.

It didn’t matter. He wasn’t for her.

Determinedly closing her eyes, she lay still and
willed
herself to sleep.

Dreams came even though she remained awake. Haunting, tempting thoughts of what it might be like. With him. To lie with him, to touch and be touched. . . .

As her life now stood, she was never going to lie with any other man. She wasn’t going to marry, was never going to need the virginity she still possessed, was never going to gift it to any man . . . so what use was it now to her?

Was she really going to let the opportunity to be made love to by the ton’s foremost rake slip through her fingers?

Especially when the alternative was to remain a bitter old virgin to the end of her days?

Especially when she knew that he was as attracted to her as she was to him, attracted in a purely sexual way. They’d never really liked each other, so what else could it be but sheer lust?

And she didn’t think him so arrogant and insensitive, so distant, hard, and ungiving now, not after the last days.

The notion of sharing a brief, passionate liaison with him before commencing the rest of her lonely life held serious appeal.

Of course, she’d have to make the first move, and knowing him, he’d make her spell out her wishes, possibly even make her beg. . . .

She inwardly sniffed. She wasn’t that innocent, or at least not that naïve. If he lusted after her . . . perhaps she might make him beg?

That idea held significant appeal.

But how?

It didn’t take many minutes to decide that that was one of those questions that the longer one thought about it, the less easy finding an answer became.

So . . . first step. She released her grip on the mattress.

She turned over and even without trying found herself rolling into him.

He was lying on his back; her hand came to rest on his chest. He was still wearing his shirt and was lying on top of the sheet, not under it, as she was.

He’d been staring upward. Slowly he turned his head, and through the moonlight that poured through the window above them met her gaze. Then he arched one faintly supercilious brow.