“So? Do you accept my proposal?”
Marcus almost laughed at her audacity. He was tempted to capitulate—she was walking straight into his trap, running even—but if he was to find out the things he wanted to know, he realized that he had to press his advantage first.
“Forgive me,” he said, “but there are certain things I must know before I consider granting you the protection of my name.”
She gave him a dry look. “I misjudged your situation then, sir. Are you in a position to be any more selective than I?”
Infinitely. Marcus did not say the word aloud, but he thought it. Isabella was not to know that, of course. She had assumed, not unnaturally, that he was confined in the Fleet because he was in debt. All indications suggested it, but it was in fact far from the truth. And since she had not asked him outright, Marcus was not about to tell her.
“How much do you owe?” he inquired. He pulled the chair toward him and sat astride it with his arms along the back, training his gaze on her face.
Her chin came up. She looked haughty. He read in her expression that she did not like the situation she was in and the measures she was obliged to take. She put him straight immediately.
“I owe nothing on my own account,” she said. “My late husband ran up debts of twenty thousand pounds in my name. I was abroad and had no notion of it. It was only when I returned to this country that I discovered the extent of my difficulty.” She stopped, biting her lip to quell the anger that was so evidently bubbling inside. Marcus smiled at the snappish tone. So she was furious with Prince Ernest Di Cassilis for landing her in such a predicament. She was proud and she hated her situation. Proud, beautiful and bankrupt. A damnable combination.
“How very annoying for you when Prince Ernest used to be such a rich man,” he said affably. “Such misfortune can overset anyone’s plans.”
Her eyes flashed. She understood all the things that he was implying. That she had jilted him because he was poor. That she had married Ernest for his title and his money. That everything that had come upon her was poetic justice.
“As you say.” Her tone was colorless. “It is most unfortunate.”
He had to admire her coolness. She had shut the door firmly in his face and denied him the pleasure of provoking her.
“If Prince Ernest had a penchant for misusing your name, you might have wished to keep him under closer scrutiny,” he said.
To his surprise, he saw a flicker of amusement in her face.
“I had no wish to be anywhere near Ernest, sir,” she said. “In fact, I ignored him as often as possible. No one liked him very much and I was not the exception to the rule. I even had to bribe the servants to attend his funeral and pay them double to put on a pretense of grief.”
Marcus could feel his interest becoming more acute. He could not seem to help himself. When he had first met Isabella, he had been bowled over by her apparent sweetness. When she jilted him, it had been a profound shock. He had realized then that she was an adventuress. She had used that tempting body and wayward prettiness to entrap a rich and dissolute prince. Now she was using a different form of bribery to lure him into a marriage of convenience. Anger shook him. He wanted to make her admit her culpability. She was defiant and morally corrupt and ready to sell herself for gain. And he was no longer a green youth to be taken in.
He looked at her a little quizzically. “So it was not worth it in the end, then?”
Their eyes met.
It was never worth it.
Isabella did not say the words aloud, but for a disconcerting moment Marcus was sure that he had read them in her eyes.
“I cannot see the purpose of your impertinent questions,” she said sharply. “I do not care to speak of my marriage.”
Marcus raised his brows. “You do not think, then, that you owe me an explanation for what happened twelve years ago?”
She looked disdainful. “What can that matter now?”
He wanted to shake her. Of course it mattered. She had taken all his youthful dreams and hopes and crushed them beneath the heel of her dainty shoe. And she had done it in passing, as though it had been of no importance. She had stolen his illusions. He had been physically experienced when he had met her. He had been the seducer. He accepted that. Yet he had also been emotionally untried, with a youthful innocence and trust that had been entirely at her mercy. It was that which Isabella had ended and for that she owed him.
He thought of India. His wife. She had been Isabella’s cousin. He knew that he had married her for all the wrong reasons, grasping after something that Isabella had promised that had eluded him. India too had suffered at her cousin’s hands. Marcus had discovered how Isabella had set her family against one another in her quest for riches and status. She had been entirely driven by greed.
Now was the time to collect on the debt she owed him, but he had to bide his time. He could feel his anger increasing with every word and sought to control it with cool reason. It was true that cold-blooded revenge was more satisfying than a hasty reprisal. He would accept her proposal and then, although she did not know it, she would be in his power rather than the other way around.
There were still a few things that he needed to know. The more he knew of her plans, the easier it would be to thwart her.
He shrugged. “Perhaps you are right and what has passed between us no longer matters. After all, this is a matter of business. Explain to me how you envisage our agreement working.”
She gave him a suspicious look, as though she could not quite believe that he had let the matter go so easily, but then she capitulated. Evidently she was so anxious to secure her future that she was prepared to make concessions.
“This so-called marriage between us would be a short-term measure to see me over a temporary financial embarrassment,” she said. “Once I have sold my house and realized my inheritance, the debt will be paid off and the marriage annulled.”
Marcus frowned. “In that case, can you not simply wait for your money to come through? It would surely be easier than contracting a marriage you do not want.”
Isabella was shaking her head. “Matters of inheritance take time to resolve and it is time that I do not have. But in a little I shall be unencumbered by both debt and marriage.”
There was a pause. Marcus found that his pride revolted at the thought of being used and discarded, no matter that he was manipulating the situation as much as she.
“I dislike the idea of being married off and then dismissed at a whim,” he said slowly. “It is demeaning.”
Isabella smiled with genuine warmth this time. “Well,” she said sweetly, “you now know how it feels to be a woman.”
Touché. He felt the clash between them like a ripple of memory along the skin. This was how it had always been with Isabella. She would challenge him rather than placate him as most women were wont to do. She had been unpredictable and exciting, and the friction between them had driven his need to take and possess her. He had been besotted with her. He had proposed marriage; she had accepted. That last spring at Salterton, before she had returned to London, they had plighted their troth secretly in the gardens and he had promised to follow her up to Town with all speed and ask her father for permission to pay his addresses to her. Marcus had not been concerned about his lack of prospects. He was a man who took his opportunities and sought out new ones. It never occurred to him that he had nothing to offer.
Lord Standish had agreed to his suit with a remarkable lack of enthusiasm. If Marcus believed that he had prospects, his future father-in-law had not been so easy to convince. Marcus had been undeterred. He had remained undeterred up until the last moment when he had been waiting in the church of St. Mark’s in the Field—the fashionable St. George’s in Hanover Square having already been booked—and had noticed a suspicious lack of guests on the bride’s side of the nave. Time had ticked past and Isabella had failed to arrive. Even at the last, Marcus had been unable to believe that she had jilted him. He had tried
to see her, only to be turned away from her house. He had sworn that he would not believe ill of her until he heard her reject him with her own words. But she had never offered him an explanation either way.
She had never spoken to him again.
Society had been quick to judge. When the absent bride married Prince Ernest Di Cassilis in a private ceremony by special license the very next day, scandal had burst over them in a tidal wave. Ernest carried his new wife off to Cassilis and Marcus had returned precipitately to sea. He had felt a great need to be occupied. And so he had pursued the French instead of women, had gained commendations of his superior officers for his reckless bravery and had never wanted to return to shore. It was only the unexpected inheritance of the earldom from his childless cousin that had obliged him to accept a different type of responsibility. He had taken up his estate reluctantly, gone up to London and met India Southern, Isabella’s cousin, at a ball…
But he would not think about that. Throughout his marriage to India, the ghost of Isabella had dogged their steps. He had never been able to forget her or dismiss the powerful feelings of recognition he had felt for her from the first. He felt the same attraction as before calling to him now, drawing him in. They looked at one another and the air between them was bright with the sparks of that old flame.
Marcus had not meant to stir up old memories. What he had meant to do was discover exactly what Isabella intended with this marriage of convenience. It was also important to know that there were no troublesome lovers hanging about who might jeopardize his plans. The fact that Isabella was here alone and unprotected in the Fleet suggested that she had no current lover, but he had to be certain.
He turned away from her, crushing down the attraction, feigning indifference.
“I do not understand why you needs must make a Fleet marriage,” he said. His voice was a little rough, betraying him. “Surely there are a dozen rich and respectable men queuing up to offer for you, Isabella? Twenty thousand is not so much to a man of means, particularly if he gains a beautiful wife into the bargain.”
Isabella did not appear to take this as a compliment. Marcus was interested since he thought it inevitable she must have been told many times that she was a beauty. People tended to tell princesses that even if it were not true.
“There is no one I wish to marry,” Isabella said, “and more to the point, no one who would wish to marry me.”
Her head was bent and she evaded his gaze. Marcus thought she seemed genuinely ruffled. He watched her, waited.
“I have…that is, my reputation—” She looked up suddenly and the expression in her eyes went straight through Marcus’s defenses like an arrow into the heart.
“You may not have heard it, but my reputation is ruined,” she said with a simplicity that reminded him of the girl she had once been. “No one respectable will offer me marriage now.”
Marcus’s eyes narrowed. He had heard all the stories. He knew her name was soiled beyond repair. Prince Ernest Di Cassilis had been known as the Profligate Prince. His debauches in all areas of his life were legendary. It was inevitable that his wife should be tarred with the same brush.
Once again he allowed his gaze to travel over Isabella, itemizing the evidence as he went. Beneath the shadow of the hood, her gaze met his directly. Her eyes, wide and blue, were very clear. Although she was no debutante now, a youthful innocence had survived in her face. It was impossible—utterly impossible—to see her as a woman with a terminally tarnished reputation.
He felt a moment’s savage pleasure at what had befallen her. Call it revenge or bitterness or even justice, but an ignominious part of him wanted her to be unhappy and to suffer for her betrayal of him. Yet at the back of his mind was the smallest flicker of sympathy for her. He denounced himself as a fool. She was a witch and he cursed his susceptibility.
“Put back your hood,” he said abruptly.
She paused. It was evident that she had grown more accustomed to giving than receiving orders. But then she complied and pushed back the hood of her cloak.
The impression of virtue was reinforced when he could see her properly. She had the sort of face that had been pretty in youth but had matured into beauty as she grew older. Her hair was dark gold, straight and fine, simply confined by a blue ribbon. Thick black lashes shadowed the line of her cheek. There was strength as well as beauty in the bones of her face; he looked again and amended that to resilience. Something—or someone—had made her suffer and she had learned to endure it and be strong. Marcus knew a little about how that felt. For a moment he experienced an odd mix of curiosity, protectiveness and anger at the thought of anyone hurting her. The love he had had for her had run deep and it was difficult to forget.
Damn it. Damn her. He was turning soft at the very moment he had to be ruthless.
Isabella raised one dark brow in ironic query and he realized that he had been staring. Truth to tell, it was difficult not to. He wanted to kiss her. No, he would not stop at mere kissing. He would do a great deal more. He wanted her very much.
“Well?”
It was her turn to snap the question. Marcus reflected ruefully that she might have a mouth lush and made for kissing but her tongue was as sharp as a seamstress’s needle.
He shook his head.
“I cannot believe you would receive no offers,” he said. “Surely you exaggerate—”
“No.” She shut her lips very tightly. It was evident that no further information would be forthcoming on that topic. Their eyes met and held. He could feel the tension in her. She was desperate but she would never beg.
Marcus let out a long, careful breath. He could turn her away, in which case she would be ruined and left to molder in the debtor’s prison herself. He would like to see that happen. It would be a poetic revenge.
On the other hand, he could marry her and exact a different and rather more satisfying form of retribution.
Isabella was not taking the delay well. He was pleased to see that she was barely able to control her impatience. Good. He needed her to be so on edge that she would snap up his offer when he finally made it.
She walked over to the table and picked up the book that he had been reading, holding the spine to the light so that she could see the title. “Theoretical Naval Architecture,” she read aloud. “It would need to be theoretical since I am told that you are likely to spend the rest of your days in here, sir.”
Marcus cocked a brow.
“So?” he said. “What is your point?”
She flicked him a glance. “My point is that according to the jailer you owe a great deal of money. More than you are ever likely to be able to pay. Your family and friends are apparently unwilling to help you. Or perhaps—” she put the book down and looked up to meet his eyes “—as I suggested earlier, they do not even know that you are here? I am guessing that that is why you use the name of John Ellis. It is a sop to your pride and to keep your shame from being known in the Ton. So…you would not wish me to tell anyone your true whereabouts, or make your disgrace known…”
Her blackmail made him smile inwardly. It seemed she would stop at nothing to get what she wanted. But there was a problem. She had stumbled very close to the truth through making all the wrong inferences. It was certainly the case that no one knew he was in the Fleet and that he could not afford for the information to become public. It was not because he was ashamed of his debt, though. He was running a complicated operation and no one could know about it. Isabella could not be permitted to tell the world what she had deduced.
Even so, he would play the game by his rules, not hers.
“So you seek to persuade me to change my mind by offering to keep my presence here a secret if I agree to marry you?” He arched an eyebrow. “It seems an unequal bargain, even with some books and food and wine thrown in to sweeten the pill.”
He saw her fingers clench on her reticule. She could not conceal it—she was shaking. Oddly, the sight unsettled him. He could feel her desperation an
d he did not want it to touch him. He did not want to feel sympathy for her.
He did not care what happened to her. He would not care. He could not.
Isabella was watching him, trying to interpret his expression.
“You are not in a strong position to strike an agreement, are you, sir?” she said steadily.
“Neither are you,” Marcus countered swiftly. “How long would you survive in a hellhole like this, Isabella? For it is surely where you will end if you cannot pay your debt.”
He saw her shudder but she met his eyes with defiance. “My state is not as parlous as yours,” she said. “I can find another candidate for my hand.”
“A candidate for your debts,” Marcus corrected. “Do not dress it up as something it is not.”
His anger was seething again now, whipped to a rage by her blatant determination to buy herself a husband with the last of her money and prostitute herself. He held his fury in check by the merest thread, but she could sense it.
Her eyes sparked with a fury to match his own. “Very well. If you refuse me, I shall buy myself another debtor. Is that plain enough for you?” She whirled around on him.
“And then I shall tell everyone of your disgrace, sir. A peer of the realm incarcerated in the Fleet for debt and so ashamed that he would rather hide his identity than accept the censure of the world! What would the scandalmongers make of that, I wonder? Reputation is so fragile, is it not?”
Marcus caught her wrist and pulled her around to face him. “If anyone knows the answer to that, then it is you! What would the Ton make of a disgraced princess trying to buy a debtor to save her skin?”
There was a silence heavy with challenge. Beneath his fingers Marcus could feel the racing of Isabella’s pulse. Her skin was very soft. She felt warm and sweet. Temptation stirred, slicing through him like a knife. Instinctively his grip tightened, pulling her toward him. In another second she would be in his arms, her mouth crushed beneath his.
This time she was the one who stepped back, freeing herself from his grip. “I do not see why this needs must take much more time,” she said. “I have made a business offer and I am awaiting your final response. If you refuse me I shall simply proceed to the next man in here who will agree.”
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