His mouth pulled down. “What truth is that exactly?”
She held out the empty tumbler and gestured for him to refill it. And this time, no small splash, either. He complied and poured a generous two fingers’ worth.
She was conscious of his sapphire eyes training on her as she drank a long sip. When she lowered the glass, he took it from her hand to drink after her.
“I’m in a terrible situation,” she whispered, pressing her fingers to her whisky-wet lips. “And I need help getting out of it.”
He arched a brow. “Doesn’t seem so terrible to me. You’re on the verge of gaining an estate.”
And an unwanted husband. She inhaled deeply. “I’m very grateful to Lord and Lady Ainsley,” she began, a bit haltingly as she tried to stumble her way through her explanation. “They raised me as if I were their own daughter.”
“I know.” He finished the remaining scotch in a single swallow. “Aunt Agatha adores you.”
Belle nodded glumly, her shoulders sagging. “And I love her. Which is the problem.”
He frowned. “How so?”
“She wants the best possible future for me. So did Lord Ainsley.”
“Which was why they put you into the will.”
Another nod, impossibly even glummer than the last. “When Lord Ainsley died and the inheritances were settled, the title and all its entailed properties went to his late brother’s son. Lady Ainsley received her dower, and his three daughters from his first marriage received equal portions of what was left. Except for Glenarvon.” She couldn’t stop her voice from trembling with grief for the late viscount, and with the gratitude she still felt every time she realized that he cared for her enough to include her in his will. “Which was saved for me.”
“Very generous of him,” he commented sincerely. “I’ve never heard of another peer leaving an estate to someone who wasn’t a blood relative.”
Belle knew how special she must have been to the viscount, and certainly he meant the world to her. She blinked back the stinging in her eyes. “He loved me like a true father. Far more than my own father ever did.”
He frowned. “Then why not give you the property outright, rather than risk you losing it?”
She looked down at her hands as she held them in her lap, idly twisting her fingers. “He wanted to protect me.”
The glass lowered slowly from his lips, and he stared at her, his eyes dark with concern. “From what?”
“My father,” she answered quietly. Feeling him tense beside her, she took back the glass of whisky. “If I inherited without that clause, then my male guardian would have the right to control my property, as if it were his.” She stared down into the empty glass. “So if my father were ever to return, if he asserted himself back into my life…”
Her voice trailed off. Speak of the devil. She didn’t dare put her thoughts into words, for fear that the devil would appear.
“Which is why the property is only granted to me upon marriage,” she continued, “when my husband becomes the man legally responsible for me.” She took a deep breath and exhaled slowly, but it emerged far shakier than she intended. “That way, my father could never get his hands on Glenarvon.”
“That was clever of Uncle Charles,” Quinn commented. He knowingly quirked a brow. “Except…”
“Except that now I’m about to turn twenty-five without a husband in sight?” A grim smile pulled at her lips. The irony was biting. “I suspect Lord Ainsley thought twenty-five would be a good age to end the trust. After all, both of his wives hadn’t yet turned twenty when he married them, and all three of his daughters were wedded by the time they reached their majority. He thought I’d do the same when he originally wrote the stipulation into his will, although by the time I’d turned twenty-one and had no serious suitors, he’d begun to rethink it.” A knot of grief choked her throat. “But he died before he could make the change.”
Self-consciously, she darted her hand up to swipe at her eyes.
Quinn silently reached for the bottle to refill her glass, as if he knew how much distress remembering that dark time caused her. But of course he would. He’d recently lost his own father.
With a trembling hand that jiggled the golden liquid in the glass, she raised it to her lips and took a small swallow, more to give herself time to recover than for the taste of the stuff.
“So now I have four weeks to marry, or I lose my home,” she whispered. Four very short weeks. “And not a proper suitor in sight.”
“A beautiful woman whose dowry is an entire estate?” he murmured, shaking his head. “I’m surprised you don’t have men bivouacking in the rear garden for their chance at you.”
She couldn’t help but smile at that ludicrous image. “Actually, only a handful of people know that I’ll inherit Glenarvon.” She protectively drew her knees up to her chest and drew the shawl tighter around her shoulders. “But now, we have no choice but to reveal it.”
He shook his head. “You’re setting yourself up for capture by a fortune hunter.”
“Which is why you’re here.” The relentless frustration of her desperate situation sank over her once more. “To make certain that doesn’t happen.”
He gave a short laugh at the absurdity of that. “By sorting out the rotten apples?”
“Among other things,” she replied carefully, studying him from the corner of her eye.
He took back the glass. “And if you don’t marry?”
“Then the Church gains the estate,” she whispered, so softly she feared for a moment that he might not be able to hear her. But his continued expression of concern told her that he heard every word. “Lady Ainsley and I would move into the dower house in London until she passes away, then most likely I would be placed into a cottage somewhere on one of the Ainsley properties, if the current viscount feels charitable. If not…” When her words started to choke in her throat, she cut herself off with a wave of her hand, but the tears were dangerously close to falling.
His eyes softened with concern. “Have you tried speaking with the solicitor, to find a legal way out of this?”
“Yes, and the stipulation cannot be altered.” She sucked in a painful breath at the grief that clawed at her chest at being forced into a marriage she didn’t want to prevent being torn away from the home she loved. Quinton had become her only salvation. “I have to marry in order to inherit.”
“This Sir Harold whom Aunt Agatha mentioned—he’s offered for you?” A casual question, certainly one he had a right to ask. Yet Belle thought she heard a deeper edge to it. When she nodded, Quinn said, “Then he’s solved your marriage problem.”
Oh, Sir Harold was the farthest thing from a solution! Surely, Quinn thought he was helping, but being reminded of that marriage offer only squeezed her heart tighter with desperation. “I don’t want to marry him.”
He frowned into the glass. “Why not?”
“I don’t love him,” she admitted quietly, fearing that he would think her a sentimental ninny for saying so. “And he doesn’t love me.”
He stared at her for a long moment, as if she were some kind of new creature in the Tower menagerie that he simply couldn’t fathom. “Most husbands and wives don’t love each other.”
Hearing the cold truth from him didn’t ease the dread weighing heavy in her chest. Or the fear that she’d end up trapped like her mother. “I don’t want to be one of those women.”
He gave a faint shake of his head. “You might not have a choice.”
How well she knew that! “At the very least I want a husband who will treat me like an equal partner.” One who would never put her at the mercy of his whims, who would never shout at her or raise a hand to her. Who wouldn’t attempt to take Glenarvon away from her or interfere with how she wanted to run it.
He frowned. “That doesn’t sound like this Sir Harold of yours.”
“He isn’t mine.” And God help her, if she were lucky, he never would be.
“Better set your sigh
ts on another husband, then,” he advised, swirling the scotch in the glass. “And quickly.”
“I have,” she replied soberly.
“Oh?” He raised the glass to his lips. “Who?”
“You.”
* * *
Quinn choked on the scotch.
Coughing to catch his breath, he stared at her incredulously. She seemed like a perfectly normal woman, sitting there calmly, her big honey-hazel eyes watching him guilelessly. And yet…
Wiping at his mouth with the back of his hand, he sputtered, “Are you mad?”
She sighed patiently. “If you would just hear me out—”
“We cannot marry!”
Her calm appearance only worked to send his galloping heart into a furious tattoo, and he resisted the urge to leap to his feet and run. Which was what he usually did whenever any woman discussed marriage in front of him. And this one had the spine to actually propose.
“Not only do we irritate the blazes out of each other, but I’m on my way to America—immediately.” He raised his arm and gestured in what he hoped was a westerly direction, too stunned to be certain. “I have land waiting for me. If I don’t leave, and soon, I’ll lose it.”
“I won’t keep you here longer than absolutely necessary, I promise,” she assured him. She leaned slightly toward him, a fresh intensity glowing in her. “But this can help both of us,” she cajoled, a soft desperation coloring her voice, “giving me the estate under my own control and sending you off with more money at your disposal.”
His mouth fell open. Good God…“You’re serious.”
She gave a sober nod. “Very.”
Unable to sit still any longer, he shot to his feet and stood there awkwardly, running a shaking hand through his hair. Half of him wanted to flee and the other half was shamelessly curious about her scheme. After all, he’d come here in the first place for money. But marriage…Sweet Lord. Just pondering it made his blood run cold with panic and his palms turn clammy.
She uncurled her legs from beneath her and sat forward on the edge of the settee, then paused to bite her bottom lip, as if deciding whether to press on. “Besides,” she ventured cautiously, “I’m only in this situation because of you.”
He gaped at her. “How is this my fault?”
“Because of that fight with Burton Williams,” she answered quietly.
His eyes narrowed sharply as they slid over her. She was skating on thin ice if she thought she could guilt him into marriage. More resourceful women had tried, and it had gotten them nowhere. Just as it would with her…despite the odd pang of unexpected remorse pinching his gut.
Damnation, he had caused problems for her that night. But not enough to wed her because of it. “It was ill-conceived, I’ll admit—”
“Immature,” she corrected.
That stung more than he wanted to admit. “Misguided,” he clarified, crossing his arms over his chest. “But Williams was insulting you.”
The truth was that the bastard had done a helluva lot more to her than that. In the weeks following that ball, Williams had branded her a poplolly. He’d made certain that all his cronies at Boodle’s had a good laugh over finding Quinn with Lady Ainsley’s companion, all ripped and rumpled—along with several other more salacious adjectives as the story passed through the ton.
“I’m an impoverished lady’s companion whose father is a convict,” she said quietly. “Do you think that was the first time I’d ever been insulted by someone like Burton Williams?”
He blew out a hard sigh as the pang of remorse blossomed into full-out guilt. She’d never have been accepted by society, no matter how much his aunt and uncle wanted that for her. But that night certainly hadn’t helped.
“I need your help,” she pressed delicately. “You owe me, Quinton.”
She was wrong about that. He certainly didn’t owe her this. “I am not marrying you, Annabelle. That night was nothing more than an accident, and you bloody well know it.”
“And several kisses, don’t forget,” she whispered.
No, he hadn’t forgotten. How could he? It had been a surprisingly passionate encounter that left him craving more, even as unpracticed and innocent as she’d been. All these years later, and after dozens of other women who did far more with him than simply kiss, that night with Annabelle was still embossed upon his mind. His senses tingled even now at simply remembering it.
But marriage…
“For God’s sake, Belle,” he ground out in exasperation. “What you’re proposing—”
“Yes,” she replied urgently, “exactly that! I am proposing.” She gave him a bright smile, but he could easily see the nervousness behind it, so much nervousness that she trembled. “Marry me, Quinton, and in exchange, I’ll pay you a portion of the annual estate profits. That way, we both win. I get to keep Glenarvon, and you get additional funds for your new life in America.”
A proposal. Good heavens, she truly meant it. “Marriage,” he stammered out. Even though he was certain she’d said it, he couldn’t quite bring himself to believe— “To you?”
“A business arrangement,” she clarified. “As you said, the quality marry for money and land all the time. Why should this be any different? Only on a much smaller scale.”
“I’m not quality,” he protested. When her lips curled in amusement at his self-deprecating slip, he rolled his eyes with a grimace. “You know what I mean.”
“You are, Quinn,” she assured him, although he was certain that bit of flattery was meant to sway him toward marriage. But it would take a helluva lot more than a compliment or two to get him to leg-shackle himself. Especially to someone like Annabelle. She was the kind of woman a man could fall in love with. And if he wasn’t careful, he’d find himself permanently ensconced in some barren sheep pasture in the borderlands. “Why do you think all those women in London throw themselves at you?”
Despite pointedly arching a brow, he wisely kept his silence. This was not the time to explain to her the darker pleasures of society entertainment.
“Will you do it, then?” she pressed. “Will you marry me and help me out of this mess?”
“And right into another.” He shook his head, flabbergasted that he was having this conversation. “You said yourself that you don’t want to marry without love. You and I are most definitely not in love.”
“I no longer have a choice. I have to marry. But if I cannot marry for love, then marriage to you is perfect,” she rationalized, “because emotions will never get in the way, and you’ll let me run Glenarvon as I want.”
“Because I’ll be on the far side of the ocean!” he nearly shouted in exasperation.
A slow smile pulled at her lips, reminding him of the cat that got into the cream. “As I said, perfect.”
He blew out a harsh breath. “Belle, for God’s sake—”
“At the very least I should be able to marry a man I know won’t hurt me,” she interrupted. Her smile faded beneath the brutal honesty of that comment, which sliced straight through his chest like a knife. “And I know you well enough to know that you’d never harm me on purpose.”
His shoulders slumped beneath the weight of fresh guilt, and he sank back down onto the settee. “Good Lord, you are mad.”
“Yet there is a method to it,” she answered, her eyes gleaming as she paraphrased Shakespeare and proved again that she was the same bluestocking he’d always known.
He nearly laughed at the irony. While she loved attending the theatre, he loved getting ladies alone in private theatre boxes.
The two of them were oil and water.
And yet, a dependable allowance from Glenarvon would certainly make life easier for him, he couldn’t deny that. Helping her secure the estate for herself would also more than repay her for that night six years ago.
But marriage…Good God.
“If you agree,” she urged, doing her best to sway him, “we still have time to read the bans and won’t need the special license.”
&
nbsp; He sent her a sideways glance. “We’re less than ten miles from Scotland, Belle,” he reminded her. “We don’t even need that.”
“There!” She gestured emphatically with her hands as if her lunacy made sense. “See how convenient this is? Almost like fate.”
He rolled his eyes. “Or a phony invitation to a scheming plot.”
“That, too.” She reached for the bottle of scotch and refilled the empty glass he still held in his hand, although he’d lost his taste for the stuff. “Once we’re married, we’ll travel to Newcastle. I know a trustworthy banker there who can set up financial arrangements for you to receive an allowance in America.” She put the bottle down and leaned back against the settee. “It won’t be much at first, I’ll admit, but I have plans for the estate which should increase our profits nicely within the next few years.”
He grimaced, not knowing whether to be tempted at her offer or terrified to within an inch of his life. “You’ve got this all figured out, haven’t you?”
“Desperate times,” she answered solemnly, repeating his aunt’s words to him, “desperate measures.”
She slowly removed the glass of scotch from his hand. He watched as she took a sip, noticing the soft undulation of her elegant throat and the glistening of her wet lips after, and he felt that swallow sink all the way through him.
He was in serious trouble.
Of all the woman he’d known in his life, none of them had ever been more dangerous than Annabelle Greene as she sat there in her white cotton night rail with its ribbon bow and dipped her finger into the scotch, then raised it to her lips and sucked off the droplets clinging to her fingertip. With an outward appearance so innocent-looking that he felt the urge even now to pull her into his arms to protect her, while beneath lurked a siren who had him wanting to pull her into his arms to satisfy a far darker urge, she was a trap just waiting to be sprung. Add to that the financial boon which could be his—
Dangerous? Good Lord, the woman was downright deadly.
Unable to resist touching her, he reached out to caress her hair, which cascaded in a riot of caramel-colored curls around her shoulders. “If I agree to this plan of yours—and I’m not saying that I will—” A silky lock curled around his finger. “Do I get to leave as soon as the honeymoon is over?”
When the Scoundrel Sins Page 7