To blurt out words he had no intention of saying, to lay before her the assurance, the capitulation, she was searching for—a vow that she would forever and always be the focus, the fulcrum of his life . . . the admission hovered on his suddenly reckless tongue.
He’d had no idea his probing might precipitate such a link, that her answers might deepen his susceptibility even more. He’d been looking for a way to avoid stirring his emotions. Instead . . .
She wanted him to tell her he loved her.
But that meant he’d have to hear the words himself.
Words he’d sworn never again to utter. He’d sworn to never again open himself, his heart, to that much pain. . . .
He knew the pain, still carried the scars.
Never ever again.
Their gazes remained locked. He could almost feel her willing him to open his mouth and speak. . . .
Time suspended, lengthened, and he started to suspect she knew, had seen, at the very least suspected what he himself was pretending to be blind to.
The prospect shook him, helped him keep his lips firmly shut.
When he didn’t speak—when she accepted he wasn’t going to—her lids lowered, then she drew fractionally back, tipping up her chin as she turned to face the river. “Regardless of any arguments you or others might proffer, I will not marry without that particular affection.”
A declaration, a ringing challenge.
He stirred, muscles tensing, then forced himself to relax again. “This ‘affection.’ ”
The terse words were on his lips before he’d thought, placed there by that elemental male who considered her already his. Who heard her intransigence as a clarion call to action, who interpreted her challenge as an affront.
But aggressive insistence wouldn’t trump her stubbornness. Wouldn’t prevail.
He had other weapons at his disposal, ones he’d honed over decades in the ton.
“Yes?” Brows arched, she glanced at him.
“Perhaps . . .” Resuming his rake’s persona, investing every movement with languid grace, he shifted forward, closer. Held her gaze. “You could teach me what it is you need.” He let his gaze drift from her eyes to her lips. “I’ve always been considered a fast learner, and if I’m willing to learn, to devote myself to the study of what you truly want . . .”
Her lips parted slightly. He raised his gaze once more to her eyes, to the stormy blue. Read her interest, knew he had her undivided attention.
Inwardly smiled. “If I swear I’ll do all I can to meet your requirements, shouldn’t you accept the . . . challenge, if you like, to take me as I am and reshape me to your need?”
Holding her gaze, resisting the urge to lower his to her tempting lips, he raised a hand, touched the backs of his fingers to her cheek in a tantalizingly light caress. “You could, if you wished, take on the challenge of taming the ton’s foremost rake, of making me your devoted slave . . . but you’d have to work at it, make the effort and take the time to educate me—arrogantly oblivious male that I am—all of which will be much easier, facilitated as it were, by us marrying. After all, nothing worthwhile is ever attained easily or quickly. If I’m willing to give you free rein to mold me to your liking, shouldn’t you be willing to engage?”
She was thinking, considering; he could see it in her eyes. She was following his arguments, her mind following the path he wanted it to take.
Shifting his fingers to lightly frame her chin, he held her face steady as if for a kiss.
“And just think,” he murmured, his eyes still locked with hers, his lips curving in a practised smile, “of the cachet you’ll be able to claim as the lady who captured me.”
Her focus sharpened. She looked into his eyes, studied them.
Then she rolled her eyes and lifted her chin from his fingers. “You’re really very good, but that’s not going to work.”
He stared at her. He’d had her; she’d been with him, following, coming around. . . .
Facing the river, as if she could hear him she shook her head. “There were an awful lot of ifs and buts in that, and none of them changed anything.” She glanced at him, her eyes narrowing, her gaze sharpening. “You didn’t expect to charm me into marrying you, did you?”
Yes, I did.
Lips pressed tight, he slumped back against the wall, looked up at the sky. Few women were immune to his persuasive charm, but, of course, she had to be one. Inwardly swearing, he rapidly canvassed his options.
Dropped all pretense and sat up. “Listen—we cannot go on as we are with absolutely nothing decided.”
“On the contrary, there’s nothing to decide. You made an offer motivated by honor, and I refused.”
“That’s not the end of it.”
“Yes, it is—and if all you have to say is simply a restatement of what you’ve already said, then I believe we have nothing more to discuss.” Nose in the air, Heather tensed to rise.
Breckenridge’s hand clamped heavily on her arm. “No, you don’t—just sit still and listen.”
His growl, the possessive grip, spurred her temper. She whipped around and glared at him. “Why? So you can browbeat me into agreeing?” She shook off his hand and surged to her feet.
He stood, too, quickly facing her, blocking her way. “Heather—”
“No!” Temper in the ascendant, she poked a finger at his chest. “It’s your turn to listen—and listen well. If you don’t feel the degree of affection for me that I require in my prospective husband, then I will not marry you—and I am not about to agree to a wedding on speculation!”
His face decidedly grim, his expression for once some indication of his temper, he glared at her. “Damn it! There’s only so much I can give—that I can offer you.”
“You can give whatever you want—if you truly wanted to!”
He shifted closer, looming nearer, his eyes agate hard boring into hers. “We need to get married. That’s an inescapable fact. We have to come to some arrangement so our wedding can proceed—which means you have to grow up, set aside any rosy, starry-eyed notions, and deal with the realities of our world. You need to reassess, you need to be reasonable, then you need to tell me what I can give you that will enable you to agree to become my wife.”
She held his gaze. And felt fury burn.
Because she was starting to suspect that Catriona might be right, that behind his smooth, polished façade, Breckenridge might actually feel for her everything she wanted him to feel.
More, that he might know he did, but—witness his charming words, his roundabout arguments—for some impenetrable male reason he was unwilling to declare that truth, not in any way, shape, or form.
So he was going to be difficult. But if there was any chance at all that he, arrogant, infuriating, and irritating though he was, was her fated hero, that he and this was her chance to seize a future as glowing as any she’d ever dreamed, then there was likewise no chance that she would—that she could—give up and walk away.
The love of such a man is worth fighting for.
Catriona’s words rang in her head.
Rising up on her toes, eyes locked with his, she simply said, “Give me one good reason why I should.”
His temper was as close to the surface as hers. She all but saw the hot words leap to his tongue—but he pressed his lips even tighter together, holding the impulsive, sure to be revealing response back. . . .
Eventually, his tone rigidly controlled, he replied, “We need to get married because that is the only acceptable outcome.”
She held his gaze, felt his will, implacable and utterly compelling, beat about her.
Felt her own stubbornness well. Harden.
Felt her temper surge, hot and scalding.
She opened her mouth to give him a piece of her mind—fury clogged her throat.
“Arrrgh!” She f
lung up her hands, swung on her heel, and stormed off through the gardens.
Breckenridge watched her go. Heard the gravel crunch beneath her feet, read the fury in every stride, the anger investing every line of her svelte form.
The words he’d uttered, and those he hadn’t, echoed in his head. We need to get married because that is the only acceptable outcome . . . to me.
If he’d been honest enough, brave enough, to give voice to the last two words . . . would she have let him get away with just that?
He inwardly scoffed. A fool’s hope. When it came to that particular “affection,” she, like her like-minded sisters, would insist on her full due. If he gave her any definite hint that he felt anything of that nature for her, she wouldn’t rest until she had him on his knees swearing undying devotion. And offering her his heart on a platter.
Something he could never do.
The one thing he would never trust any woman enough to do again.
Heather reached the manor’s side door and disappeared inside.
He thought, consulting the morass of ill-used feelings churning inside, then, jaw setting, stalked off along a different path—the one that led to the stables.
Standing a few feet back from the window in the turret room below the bedchamber she and Richard shared, Catriona, arms crossed, watched Breckenridge stride toward the stables. “Well, that looks promising.”
“Indeed.” Beside her, Algaria nodded. “I wasn’t sure before, but now . . .”
“I wasn’t sure either.” Catriona turned to the room. “Not that she was the right one for him, or that he was the one for her, but after that performance, there can be no doubt.”
She used the chamber as a sitting room, and Algaria often brought Lucilla and Marcus there for their less formal lessons. The elder twins were seated cross-legged on the floor, sorting various leaves, learning the plants their mother and the Vale folk used for various ills, both in themselves and their animals.
“Be that as it may”—Algaria turned to watch the twins—“I sensed from the first that he’s . . . very contained.”
Catriona nodded. “That’s why I was most unsure about him—he appears so outwardly open, so charmingly at ease, yet inside there are walls. Thick, impenetrable walls.”
Algaria nodded. “If he’s ever to have her, he’ll need to take those walls down himself.”
“Or at least open a door and let her in.” After a moment, Catriona went on, “All we can do is have faith—and watch to see what happens next.”
Chapter Sixteen
Ten hours later, Heather lay in the four-poster bed in the room she usually occupied at the manor. Fingering the chain about her neck, she stared up at the canopy above.
Most of the manor’s occupants would by now be snoring. If she intended to join Breckenridge, then it would be safe to go to his room now.
Cloaked in comfortable darkness, she didn’t move, just lay staring unseeing upward.
Thinking, reviewing. Planning.
Scheming.
She had, at his request, declared her position—told him what she wanted from any man she would agree to call husband. She’d made the effort, plumbed her deepest feelings and bared her dreams . . . and what had been his response?
Silence. Then he’d tried charming her.
When that hadn’t worked, he’d reverted to heavy-handed, domineering arguments.
She’d given him the opportunity to bare his deepest feelings—even a hint would have sufficed—but instead he’d held firm and told her nothing.
Admitted nothing.
For the rest of the day, through the long evening, he’d held to a rigidly correct distance. If it hadn’t been for the heat in his gaze she might have thought he’d decided to return to treating her as he had over the past years in London, that as far as he was concerned the interlude between London and the Vale had never occurred . . . but those dark, smoldering glances had given the lie to that.
He’d admitted nothing yet remained unswervingly fixed on marrying her.
All of which left her in a complete quandary.
Did his refusal to admit he felt any strong “affection” for her mean that he did but was—in typical male fashion—doing his very best to hide it?
Or instead had he refused to give her any hope because he truly didn’t feel any real affection for her, only lust, something he presumably would know all about, and recognizing that, he was too honorable to pretend to feel the “affection” she required in order to falsely gain her agreement to marry him?
She could hardly fault him if the latter were the case.
And if it was, she wouldn’t be marrying him.
Which very definitely meant she shouldn’t get up, slip through the corridors, and make her way to his bed.
She might actively want more experiences to build her store of memories against the lonely years ahead, but . . . going to him would prolong his belief that if he persevered, he would eventually wear her down—wear her out—and she would agree to marry him without the vow of “affection” she sought.
In that, he wouldn’t succeed, but there was, unfortunately, another pertinent consideration.
What if she fell pregnant?
There’d be no avoiding the altar then. Even more so given he needed an heir.
Introducing a child into their equation was the only twist capable of forcing her to put aside her requirement for “affection” and marry him regardless.
That was something he might guess.
Something he, given his continuing determination to wed her, might seek to use if she continued to refuse him, and then she’d never know which of his potential reasons—true “affection” or mere honor linked with lust—was his real motivation.
So . . . no further indulging.
At least not unless she had better proof that he truly did love her.
She wasn’t afraid of using the word, yet simply thinking it evoked a wellspring of yearning, a hollow need that encompassed her heart, and had grown deeper and broader over recent days.
An emptiness she prayed would one day be filled, by a partner, a lover, a husband who loved her.
She sighed, then sat up, thumped her pillow and slumped down on her side, her cheek pillowed on soft linen.
Not the same as being pillowed on his chest.
Nowhere near as soothing.
But it was safer this way.
Besides . . . it was entirely possible that abstinence would make the heart grow fonder.
Whether it might make his heart any easier to read was another matter altogether.
She wasn’t coming.
Hands beneath his head, Breckenridge lay on his back, stared up at the ceiling, and felt the realization sink to his marrow. He wasn’t sure whether to feel relieved or aggrieved.
In the end, aggrieved won out.
How was he supposed to convince the damn woman to marry him if she avoided him? Especially if she avoided him here, at night, in the arena in which his persuasive powers were strongest?
Perhaps he should go to her?
He debated the option for a full five minutes but reluctantly conceded that if she didn’t come to him, then he couldn’t go to her. Such an act would smack of a need he was trying hard to hide; the suggestion that he would rather not be parted from her for even one night was simply too revealing.
Besides, if she didn’t want to sleep in his arms . . .
The thought shook him but effectively refocused him on the question of why she hadn’t come slipping through his door.
All conceit aside, he knew she’d enjoyed their interludes every bit as much as he had, and even if she wished to hold to her stance of not marrying him, why would she deny herself a pleasure that, if she prevailed, she wouldn’t have available for many days more?
Why put an early end to their
liaison?
To punish him for not admitting to “deep affection”?
Or to prod him into admitting the same?
Or both?
The more he thought of it, the more he was convinced the answer lay somewhere along those lines.
Lips twisting wrily, he turned on his side, pulled the covers over his shoulder, and closed his eyes.
What was sauce for the gander in that regard was also sauce for the goose.
Breakfast the next morning was the usual noisy, warmly inclusive Saturday morning meal Heather recalled from previous visits to the Vale.
Sadly, the effervescent buzz of conversation, punctuated by the clink of cutlery and the chiming of crockery, only made her temples throb more definitely.
She hadn’t slept well. And she knew at whose feet to lay the blame.
Breckenridge sat alongside Richard toward the other end of the table; between sipping tea and nibbling toast, she cast dark glances his way—glances he chose to ignore.
Rising temper did nothing to ease her burgeoning headache.
Finally the meal, shared with the entire household, was at an end.
Seated at the middle of the high table, Catriona rose and looked at Heather. “I need someone to take a basket to one of the farms—some items to help a new mother. Her babe’s only two months old. Can you take it?”
A nice long walk in the fresh spring air was exactly what she needed. She nodded and pushed back her chair. “If you’ll tell me the way, I’ll be happy to.”
Catriona glanced at Lucilla and Marcus, seated to Heather’s right. “Why don’t you two act as guides?”
“Yes, please!” Marcus shot up from his chair.
Catriona smiled. “It’s the Mitchells’ farm.”
“We know the way,” Lucilla assured her. Looking at Heather, Lucilla added, “We won’t let you get lost.”
Heather felt her lips curving for the first time that morning. “Thank you. I’ll put my faith in you.” She arched a brow at Catriona.
“Megan Mitchell, and the babe’s Callum. He’s a healthy boy, but if you sense anything amiss”—Catriona included Lucilla with her eyes—“be sure you tell me when you get back.”
Viscount Breckenridge to the Rescue Page 32