“Do you know why I promised your brother I would wed you?” he asked, banishing his unwanted reaction to her.
He was still not certain he wished to marry this impudent chit. But his reluctant trip to the land of his birth had reminded him he had responsibilities here, and if he did not fulfill them, a man who had disparaged Alessandro’s mother would one day inherit his title. He did not give a damn about the title or the estates, but he did care about thwarting a hateful bastard like Henry Abbott.
“You shot him, Lord Rayne.” She tilted her head. “Did you imagine Montrose would neglect to share such a salient detail with me? Perhaps you thought to shock me, my lord. As you can see, I neither fear you nor wish to continue this audience. Please excuse me.”
She made to sweep past him, but he caught her arm, staying her in a grip that was firm but not punishing. “I shot him in a duel, Lady Catriona. Your brother was drunk, and he almost killed me. I saved myself, making certain to only wound him. So, you see? I am not always cruel. I can be forgiving when I wish.”
“Release me,” she demanded through gritted teeth.
“No.” He smiled, for he was enjoying himself even more now.
The more she fought him, the more he wanted to keep her. He could settle for far worse as his bride. And she was an expedient solution to his problems. More than that, he liked her fire. Even her scorn fascinated him.
“Lord Rayne,” she said, jerking her arm in a useless effort to free herself. “I demand you unhand me.”
“I have not finished speaking with you, Lady Catriona.”
He could not seem to stop staring at her mouth, so pale and pink, the Cupid’s bow taunting him. He had not kissed the lips of another woman since Maria, and it displeased him to realize the first to tempt him was an Englishwoman.
This Englishwoman.
Perhaps he should let her go after all.
“But I have finished with you, my lord,” she snapped.
Sí, he should release her and walk away. Obey the urge which had first overwhelmed him, to inform Montrose he needed to find a new means of satisfying his debt of honor. But he could not.
He needed a wife. He required an heir. More than anything, he had to return to Spain. Lady Catriona Hamilton could enable him to accomplish all three. He told himself that was the only reason he lingered.
“What will become of you if you do not wed me, my lady?” he asked her then. “Shall you return to Scotland? Be dependent upon the munificence of your drunkard brother? Become a companion? A governess?”
“Why should you care?” she asked bitterly.
She could not be more different from Maria. She was ice where Maria had been fire, and that pleased him.
He released her arm, gambling she would remain. “I care because I owe Montrose a debt of honor, and I intend to uphold my obligation. But I am also in need of a wife and heir. You will do after all.”
Her brows arched. But she did not go. “I will do, Lord Rayne?”
“Sí.” Her outrage was almost palpable.
“How generous of you, my lord.” Her voice was acidic. “However, I have no desire to wed.”
He had expected Lady Catriona objected to him because of his Spanish mother and his reputation as the mad earl. But for the first time, it occurred to him that she truly did not want to marry.
“A marriage with me could benefit you greatly, my lady,” he told her, trying a different tactic. “I require a wife and an heir, but I must return to Spain. I will not be living here, which means being my countess will afford you great freedom.”
Her blue eyes narrowed. “You do not intend to live in England?”
Cristo. Never.
“No.”
Her countenance changed, growing curious. “You would require me to…share the marriage bed with you until I…”
“I do not expect it would take long,” he said, taking pity on her. “A few weeks, no more. When I am assured you are with child, I will return to Spain, leaving you with a generous stipend to dispose of as you wish. You will also be free to do as you like after the birth of my heir. I will not expect fidelity from you. Nor should you expect it from me.”
A flush stained her pale cheeks. “What you propose is very cold indeed, sir.”
He shrugged. “It is what I am offering you, and far better than the life you have been leading, hidden away like a shameful secret. But you must decide, Lady Catriona, here and now.”
She was silent for a beat, searching his gaze as if seeking the answer to a great mystery.
“What if I bear you a daughter?” she asked at last.
“I will return.” The prospect aggrieved him mightily, for he would prefer to never have to return to English shores again. “I will be candid. The sole reason I require an heir is to prevent my cousin from inheriting the earldom. When that objective has been reached, you will be free to live your life as you choose.”
“What of your child? Would you not wish to meet him?”
He swallowed down a knot of the grief which refused to leave him. “I do not care for children.”
“Why, Lord Rayne?”
He thought of Francisco, pale and still in his arms. Of Maria, quietly bleeding to death before the fever set in. “I do not care for children,” he repeated. “The child will be your responsibility. One heir, that is all I require.”
Her lips compressed, her expression implacable. For a moment, he became convinced she would deny him. If she did, he would accept her refusal. His pride would allow nothing less.
“Yes,” she said at last. “Very well. I will marry you, Lord Rayne.”
Victory.
But a hollow one, nonetheless. How different his last proposal of marriage had been from this one. It had been a lifetime ago, when he had been younger, more innocent. When he had blindly believed in the hope of a future which had never come.
He bowed. “Excelente, my lady. I will see to the rest with Montrose.”
Chapter Two
“When I heard the news, I almost did not believe it. Tell me, is it true? Have you truly agreed to wed the Earl of Rayne?” the Honorable Miss Hattie Lethbridge demanded, sounding horrified.
They were seated in the drawing room of Hamilton House, enjoying tea as they had on hundreds of other occasions in the past. But this time was different.
Catriona sent her best friend an attempt at a reassuring smile, though she was sure she failed miserably. “It is.”
Thanks to the friendship between their disreputable brothers, Hattie and Catriona had become as close as sisters over the years. She was more grateful than ever to see her friend now, when she was drowning in misery over the fate to which she had consigned herself the day before.
She had scarcely even slept.
Or eaten.
“Oh, dear heavens, Catriona,” Hattie said, her eyes going wide and anxious. “Montrose is not forcing you into it, is he? He is a rogue of the worst order, but surely not even he would do something so dissolute.”
“No,” she said swiftly. “Monty would never force me.”
Her relationship with her brother was…strained in the wake of her ruination. But he would never make her marry anyone. He did not have it in him.
“He did banish you to Scotland,” Hattie pointed out, her lips compressed in a grim, unimpressed twist.
Hattie’s rancor for Monty was no secret. She thought he was a disreputable scoundrel. And, well, Monty was a disreputable scoundrel. There was a reason he was known as the Duke of Debauchery. His reputation was as depraved as it was legendary, and though Catriona loved her brother, she knew he was no angel.
Of course, neither was she.
Far from it, as all fashionable London so painfully was aware.
“You know why he banished me,” she said quietly, though it pained her to speak of the reason.
And most especially of the man who had caused it.
A man she had believed—quite foolishly—loved her.
But as it turned out,
she had been wrong. Indeed, she had been wrong about a great many things. She could only hope agreeing to wed the Earl of Rayne would not prove one of them. Lord knew her history in trusting men spoke for itself.
“Do not remind me of that insufferable reprobate, Shrewsbury.” Hattie’s glower made her opinion of the marquess quite apparent. “Montrose ought to have met him on the field of honor and put a bullet in his black heart. I know Montrose is your brother, Catriona, and you love him, but I find nothing redeeming in him whatsoever. There is a rumor he has three mistresses. Three!”
Knowing Monty, he probably did.
“Hattie, I begged Monty not to do it,” she defended her brother, suppressing a shudder as she recalled the row which had ultimately ended in her being sent away to Scotland. “You know that.”
“And the coward took you at your word, sending you away instead of making Shrewsbury pay for what he had done,” Hattie said, settling her teacup in its saucer with more force than necessary. “How can you forgive him for it, my dear? Your heart is far purer than mine, I will own. When someone betrays me, I cannot rest until the injustice is somehow accounted for.”
Monty was not a coward, Catriona well knew. He had been determined to meet Shrewsbury at Battersea Fields to satisfy Catriona’s honor. But she had fallen upon her knees before her brother, begging him not to challenge the marquess to a duel, for the marquess was a notoriously excellent shot, and Monty was a notoriously in-his-cups ne’er-do-well. Her brother would not have survived, and Catriona could not have borne his blood on her hands.
Far better to live with her own shame.
“He did what I asked him to, Hattie,” she told her friend, grateful for her unending allegiance, but reluctant to relive her own ignominy. “I did not want Shrewsbury to kill him.”
“You saved his life, and in return, he banished you to Scotland.” Hattie harrumphed. “Fine brother he is. Bad enough he forced you to leave Town as if you were responsible for that cad Shrewsbury’s actions. But now, he is making you marry the Earl of Rayne.”
Hattie shuddered for effect.
Inwardly, Catriona was shuddering as well, but it was for different reasons than her beloved friend. It was because the Earl of Rayne affected her in a way no man ever had. In a way not even Shrewsbury had.
And she could not like it, nor trust it, any more than she could like or trust the Earl of Rayne himself.
She took a calming sip of her tea, realizing belatedly she had scarcely touched it and that it was growing cold. “Hattie, dearest, I have already told you, Monty is not forcing me to marry Rayne. I made the decision myself.”
“That is nonsense, and I refuse to believe it. Montrose brought you back to London expressly to see you betrothed to the earl. He told Torrington as much, and Torrington told me. You know how the two of them are when they are drinking together at their club. Worse than a pair of dowagers at a ball.”
Hattie’s brother, Viscount Torrington, was one of Monty’s oldest and closest friends. For all that he was an incorrigible scoundrel and rakehell, Torrington’s love for Hattie was boundless. It was the only redeeming quality he possessed. Monty and Torrington together were nothing but trouble.
All London knew it.
Just as they knew she, Lady Catriona Hamilton, had been caught kissing the Marquess of Shrewsbury at the Mansfield ball.
“You are right that Monty brought me back to London because of the earl,” Catriona said. “But he did not issue a demand. He told me he had found a means of restoring my reputation, and he urged me to accept Rayne’s suit.”
What she did not say was that she had only returned to London because Mama had been adamant that she must. And that she had instead launched her own campaign of avoidance, hoping Rayne would cry off.
Only, he had not.
He had returned on three occasions.
She shivered as she recalled her first sight of him in the library. Because he spent so little time in England, she had never before had occasion to meet him. She had imagined him to be older. And uglier.
But he was near enough in age to her, only in his mid-thirties, she would judge. And he was the furthest one could reasonably get from being unattractive.
He was the most glorious man she had ever beheld.
“They say he is mad,” Hattie said.
It was entirely possible, for only a mad man would have pursued Catriona into the library as he had. Only a mad man would want to marry a woman and then never see her again after she bore him an heir.
“He did not seem mad,” she said rather unconvincingly.
“On how many occasions have you spoken with him?” Hattie asked knowingly.
“One,” she admitted, wetting her lips.
Her friend pursed her lips. “Was he a gentleman?”
“Yes.” And also, somehow, no.
He had held her elbow, keeping her captive during their heated exchange, and his touch—the warmth he exuded, along with the potent allure—had branded her through her dress. Worst of all, and much to her shame, he had released her at some point during their dialogue, leaving her free to go, and she had not noticed. Instead, she had remained tethered to him by some strange connection she could not yet comprehend.
Hattie’s eyes narrowed. “You say that in a most unconvincing fashion.”
“He was a gentleman,” she argued. “Far more of a gentleman than others I have had occasion to be courted by.”
That was not entirely true either, but the bitterness in her voice was meant for one man alone: Shrewsbury.
“If you are telling me the truth, and Montrose did not oblige you to betroth yourself to Rayne, then the earl must have changed your mind,” Hattie observed shrewdly. “You were set against wedding him when you first returned.”
“I know.” Dear, sweet Hattie had called upon her the moment she arrived in London despite the potential damage it would cause to her own reputation. “Rayne was…I cannot explain him adequately.”
Handsome did not do him justice.
Gorgeous could not convey the sizzling magnetism of the man.
He had stolen all the air from her lungs. From the chamber. For a heartbeat, she had not been able to think of a single, coherent sentence when she had first seen him. Not even one word.
“He is fine-looking,” Hattie guessed.
“More than that,” Catriona admitted, flushing. “But that is not the reason why I accepted his proposal.”
And indeed, it was not. Even if he was beautiful, from his dark hair and eyes to his olive skin, to his broad shoulders, lean hips, and long, muscular legs encased in breeches that fit him like a second skin, to his finely sculpted lips and brooding countenance, she had been determined to send him away.
Until he had changed everything.
“What is the reason?” Hattie sighed. “Catriona, do not, I beg you, try to convince me you have somehow developed tender feelings for the mad earl after meeting him on only one occasion. I know you far too well to believe it.”
Catriona smiled, then took another sip of tea.
It was completely cold.
“He promised me freedom, Hattie,” she said, aware, as she revealed it to her friend, just how foolish Rayne’s proposal seemed.
His words returned to her. When I am assured you are with child, I will return to Spain, leaving you with a generous stipend to dispose of as you wish. You will also be free to do as you wish after the birth of my heir.
“Freedom,” Hattie repeated, raising a brow. “What manner of freedom can he possibly offer you if you are forced to become his wife?”
“I am not being forced,” she reminded. “He wants to carry on his line, but he does not wish to live here. I will provide him with an heir, and he will give me leave to live my life as I see fit.”
Hattie frowned. “And what of Rayne? Where shall he be, and what shall he be doing whilst you are living your life as you see fit?”
“He will be living in Spain,” she said simply.
Unbidden, the rest of what he had said returned to her as well. I will not expect fidelity from you. Nor should you expect it from me.
And suddenly, something about his admission he would be taking a lover or lovers in Spain needled her. Perhaps he already had a mistress awaiting him in Spain. Someone he loved. It would make sense given the cold manner in which he intended to leave his wife and child in England, having no part of their lives.
But she told herself this was just the manner of husband she preferred, a man who would wed her and leave her. She would not have to answer to him or be disappointed or betrayed by him.
“You mean to suggest Rayne expects you to bear him an heir, and when you have done so, he will disappear to Spain?” Hattie sounded perplexed. And outraged.
“It is an odd arrangement, I know,” she conceded. “But it is not so very different from many arrangements between husband and wife in our set. Only think of it this way, I will be able to regain my reputation in society over time, having become a countess in my own right. And I will have a child to dote upon. I will be free to live my life as I wish.”
She had always wanted children of her own. It had been one of the most painful realizations she’d had to make in accepting her ruination and banishment, that she may never find a man willing to overlook her transgressions and make her his wife so she could have a family.
“I understand, my dear, and do not think otherwise,” Hattie said. “But I am concerned for you. You have suffered enough heartbreak at the hands of a scoundrel. This marriage Rayne proposes to share with you sounds as if it will only produce more pain for you.”
That was where her friend was wrong. “A man cannot break your heart if it is never his to break.”
Catriona did not love the Earl of Rayne, nor was she in danger of ever developing feelings for him, which meant marrying him would not cost her anything. She had learned her lesson well with Shrewsbury. She would never again allow her heart to be vulnerable to a man. She had trusted and loved with blinding loyalty, and he had repaid her by leading her onto a balcony and ramming his tongue down her throat.
All in the name of winning a bet at White’s.
Earl of Every Sin Page 2