Tough Prospect

by Laura Strickland

  Chapter Sixteen

  And why, Tessa wondered, did her husband look at her that way, with such an intense yet guarded expression in his eyes? Difficult to say what Mitch Carter thought at any given moment. Impossible, now.

  She cleared her throat, searching through all the inexpressible things she needed to tell him for the most important.

  “I hope you did not get the wrong impression last night.”

  “What impression,” he drawled, “would that be?”

  He wore one of those white shirts—the thin ones—this morning, with the collar open. There, she could see some of the black hair through which she’d plowed her fingers last night. Oh, what had she been thinking? He wasn’t even the type of man to whom she was usually attracted.

  But he watched her the way a wolf might its prey as she shut the door carefully behind her. Like he wanted to eat her alive.

  Darling. The memory of the word whispered through her mind.

  Without answering his question, she said, “I must apologize. I’m afraid I misled you by asking you to stay with me last night. And what happened after…” His mouth at her breast. The heat of his hand sliding up her bare leg, his fingers caressing her most intimate place.

  Oh, how could she have allowed it?

  “I was…I was vulnerable. It should never have happened.”

  “I see.” A muscle jumped in his cheek. The clever hazel eyes burned.

  Tessa stumbled on. “I was in a terrible frame of mind. I despised myself almost—almost as much as—”

  “As you despise me?”

  “I was going to say, as my family does.”

  “So you slept with the lowlife from the gutter, is that it? Punishing yourself, maybe?”

  “It wasn’t like that.” Only it was. He’d hit the truth right on the nose.

  His lips curled in a hurtful smile. “You don’t lie well, Mrs. Carter. I can see everything in your eyes.”

  “I’m sorry. Really, I am. I just wanted to make it clear…it can’t happen again.”

  She turned to leave. Before she could turn the doorknob he was around the desk and had caught her arm. He swung her back to face him.

  “Just a minute. There are a few things to be said.”

  “Are there?”

  His gaze pinioned her, inescapable. “You didn’t seem to hate what we did so much last night.”

  Color flared in Tessa’s face and heat rushed through her. “I—”

  “Don’t try and deny it. You enjoyed what passed between us.”

  “No.”

  “Liar. What happened to the honesty you promised me?”

  She bit her lip in agony.

  “Don’t want to admit it, right? Because I’m not good enough for you.”

  “I didn’t say that. But—things look a lot different this morning.”

  “Not to me.”

  “That’s why I wanted to make sure and speak of this, first thing. I didn’t want you to expect—well, think it would happen every night.”

  “No?”

  “It can never happen again.”

  “So you said. But Tessa, why deny yourself the pleasure? We’re married. If you enjoy it and I enjoy it, if,” he added deliberately, “you need comfort—”

  She yanked her arm from his grasp; his fingers slid over her skin and left a tingle. She lifted her chin. “Do I need to remind you I’m in love with someone else?”

  “Ah, yes, how could I forget? The young man I saw at the funeral service. You must have forgotten him also, last night when you were writhing in my arms and parting your legs for me.”

  “How dare you speak to me that way?”

  “How dare you toss your feelings for another man in my face?”

  Tessa drew herself up. “Please do not come to my room again. You won’t be welcome.”

  “Sure about that, are you?”

  She swept through the door and let it swing shut behind her. With Valerie at her heels, she charged back up the stairs to her room. Haven? Or something else?

  She paced; she raged and wept. She went over all Mitch Carter had just said to her and, once again, over all that had happened in the depths of the night. Touch by touch. Kiss by kiss. Why couldn’t she get it out of her head?

  She should leave the man, put as much physical distance between them as possible. But if she went home, she’d have to face the blame she saw in her family’s eyes. Blaming herself for her father’s death was one thing; living with their blame was something else again.

  What of Richard? She wondered suddenly what would happen if she ran away to him. Would it matter to Richard that she was now, in essence, damaged goods? Would he reject her as another man’s leavings?

  Staying here with Mitch Carter made an equally bad option. He knew she’d more or less used him last night. He’d used her too—taken advantage. Worst of all, he believed she despised him.

  Well, she did. Didn’t she?

  Her increasingly maddening thoughts were interrupted then by a knock on the door. Her pulse leaped alarmingly. “Who is it?”

  “Mrs. Carter?” The mechanical maid. Tessa’s ensuing relief left her dizzy. “Mr. Carter asks you to join him in his office at once.”

  “Please tell him no.”

  “Yes, Mrs. Carter.”

  Ensuring silence fell, during which Tessa fought to master her breathing. What could he want? How could she possibly live like this?

  The next knock sounded mere moments later and with greater authority. “Tessa, please come down. Your brother is here with his lawyer.”

  Tessa went to the door and opened it a crack. Her husband stood there, wearing a look of annoyed stoicism. She felt a twinge of sympathy; he wasn’t having a very good day.

  His gaze swept over her. “You’ve been crying.”

  “I was upset.” She brushed at her cheeks with the heel of her hand; something in his hard gaze softened. The word darling chased its way through Tessa’s head again.

  “What does Gerald want?”

  “You, I expect. But he refuses to discuss anything without you present.”

  “Why? He hates me.”

  “The fact remains you’re his sister. Family relations, so I’m assured, are complicated, though”—another of those hurtful smiles curled his lips—“of course I wouldn’t know from personal experience.”

  “I’ll come down. Just give me a minute to—to repair myself.”

  “All right.” He nodded at Valerie, close at her side. “Bring the dog if it affords you any comfort.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  Tessa recognized the lawyer, one Mr. Bottering, whom her father had also employed. Tall and almost skeletally thin, Mr. Bottering always looked like he’d just caught a whiff of something nasty.

  Not a man in whom Tessa could confide.

  Her brother, as she saw in one glance when she entered Mitch’s office, looked angry. At her or at Mitch Carter?

  Both men focused on the little mechanical dog that trotted at Tessa’s heels.

  “Must you, Tess?” Gerald asked. “A toy? We’re here on serious business.”

  Tessa said nothing. Did Gerald fail to see she walked on a fine wire from which she might, at any moment, tumble and shatter? That the presence of the dog might reassure her?

  “Please sit down, Tessa,” Mitch said. An array of chairs had been set up opposite his big mahogany desk. She lowered herself into one, and Valerie jumped into her lap.

  Gerald and Mr. Bottering exchanged glances. Mr. Bottering said, “Miss Verdun, we’ve come about moving forward with annulling your recent marriage. Your brother wishes to pay back the sum of money your late father accepted from Mr. Carter and take you home with him.”

  “Yes?” Tessa clasped her hands on Valerie’s cool neck and shot a look at Mitch. It did her no good; his face looked shuttered tight.

  “In order for that to happen,” Mr. Bottering went on, “I need your official agreement. Just a formality, as I understand it. You merely need to st
ate that this marriage was, in fact, forced upon you and you wish for it to be dissolved. Is that not so?”

  “Well, yes.” Tessa couldn’t look at Mitch at all now. But the truth was the truth.

  Mr. Bottering went on more delicately, “Just as, I understand, anything of a more intimate nature that occurred following the marriage must also have been forced upon you.”

  “I—uh—” Honesty froze Tessa where she sat, while memory flooded upon her—the memory of opening herself to Mitch Carter there in the dark, the word please on her lips.

  Gerald burst out, “Of course she was forced. Look at her! And look at him. My sister is virtually a child.”

  Mitch said in a voice like iron, “She’s twenty-two years old.”

  “But a child nonetheless, in her heart and her mind, protected all her life, never—until now—subjected to a bully who would use and manipulate her.” Gerald looked as if he wanted to hit Mitch Carter. “I’ll bet it was you who kept her from going to our father that night, you who are in fact responsible for his death.”

  A way out, Tessa thought. She could jump on it, throw Mitch Carter under the tram car and claim that, yes, he’d kept her from going to Father when he needed her. She could return to the bosom of her family, hide there, and pretend Mitch Carter had never existed.

  Of course none of it was true. And she’d promised him honesty. Did a man like Mitch Carter deserve honesty?

  Mitch said in that hard voice, “The payment you’re talking about, to your father, was not a loan. It was not, in fact, a payment. It was a forgiveness and, as such, can’t be repaid.”

  Bottering said, “I am more than aware of the terms of that agreement. I was, as you will recall, Hugo Verdun’s attorney.”

  “How could I forget?”

  “You, in fact, bought up all his debts from his various creditors around the city—with aforethought—paid them off, and then called in Mr. Verdun’s debt, transferred to you, in order to coerce him into an abhorrent action and force his hand.”

  “His daughter’s hand, actually.” The terrible smile twisted Mitch’s lips again. “And it’s all been made completely legal.”

  He opened the center drawer of his desk and extracted a paper, which he pushed toward the two men opposite him. “This has Mr. Verdun’s signature on it, as well as Miss Tessa Nicole Verdun’s.”

  Tessa’s eyes widened. Gerald looked at her accusingly. “Do you remember signing this?”

  She did, in a vague and distant sort of way. That had been the night she first met Mitch Carter, a meeting that had taken place in her father’s parlor, after Father had spent hours alone with her, crying and pleading.

  He will hurt me, Tess, if you don’t agree. Or have me killed. He’s the kind of man who does that. He has a reputation in this city, a dangerous one.

  In the end, frightened and emotionally battered, she hadn’t been able to face the prospect of being responsible for harm befalling her father. Now look what had happened; that was precisely what she’d done.

  Refusing to look at Mitch or at her brother, she stared at the paper. “I signed it.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” Bottering claimed. “We shall tell the court it was signed under duress.”

  Mitch said nothing.

  “Was it, Tess?” Gerald asked. “Signed under duress?”

  “Yes.” The agony of witnessing her father’s fear, her inability to refuse him.

  “What about the money?” Mitch asked.

  Gerald nearly spat. “Yes, that’s what it comes down to for you, isn’t it? It’s all about the price. And yes, you paid a high one for my sister—very high. Don’t worry, you’ll get your money back.”

  Bottering cleared his throat. “I thought we might set up a series of payments.”

  “No,” Mitch said.

  “I beg your pardon?”

  Mitch glared at Gerald. “You come here claiming I bought your sister? Well, then, I’m refusing to sell her back to you.”

  “An annulment—”

  “Ask her. Ask if she was forced to my bed.”

  Everyone looked at Tessa. Bottering’s inspection, cold and analytical, bored into her, beneath the skin. Gerald’s, half horrified, asked a question. Mitch looked guarded as ever, but in the depths of his hazel eyes something burned.

  Honesty, she thought she heard him whisper in her mind.

  She threaded her fingers together, clenched them till they felt ready to break. In her lap, Valerie wiggled while Tessa struggled to think.

  If she went home with her brother, she would have to face his condemnation, yes—even if she blamed Mitch for keeping her from her father that night. But she might have another chance at life, a chance with Richard after all.

  Eventually it might even seem like none of this had ever happened.

  All she had to do was lie.

  “Tess?” Gerald said. “Speak up. You needn’t be afraid of him.”

  And what would Mitch Carter do if she lied? Give her up? She didn’t think so. He’d fight, and he had resources. He might destroy them all.

  Still, she didn’t fear him, not the way she had. How could she, after he’d touched her so carefully, so gently? When he’d called her his darling?

  The Queen of Prospect Avenue. Wife of a child found in the gutter. Was that how she wanted to spend her life?

  ****

  Mitch watched his wife as emotions played across her face and flickered in her green eyes. As he’d told her, he found it all too easy to read her. She struggled now between her honesty and the desire to be free. What did she want more?

  To leave him, of course. For what earthly reason would she want to stay? Surely not for the way it felt when their lips met or when their bodies melted together in a storm of heat. When he entered her and damn near lost himself.

  Choose honesty, he willed her, and her gaze flicked to him almost as if she heard.

  But…but hadn’t she come to this room, this very morning, and told him it could never again happen so, between them? That she didn’t want him?

  Oh, God, oh, Jesus, she was going to walk out of his life on her brother’s arm. He’d never touch her again.

  Tessa parted her lips. She spoke. “Gerald, Mr. Bottering, could I speak with my husband alone?”

  Gerald flared. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

  “Nor do I,” Mr. Bottering agreed.

  “Please.”

  The same word she’d spoken when she asked Mitch to stay with her. All that had followed remained burned into him like a cauterization.

  He jerked to his feet. “Let’s step outside.”

  She followed him, leaving the little mechanical dog in the chair; they exited through the door that led to the yard. Outside it was bright and windy, with a sharp November bite off the river.

  They stood facing one another, less than two feet separating them. Tessa’s gaze fluttered to his and as quickly away.

  “You want me to stay,” she said, not a question.

  He sucked in a breath. “Yes.”

  “Even if…what we did never happens again?”

  Well, there it was, plain and simple. It would hurt him and badly, if he never had her again. But he didn’t quite believe he never would.

  “Yes.”

  “You’ll make a lot of trouble for my family if I leave?”

  “I don’t want to make trouble for you, Tessa, but yes.”

  “Then I want to make a deal.”

  “A deal?”

  “Just between you and me.” She jerked her head at the house. “Nothing to do with them. It’s what you do, isn’t it? Make deals.”

  “Yes.” His heart thundered and his thoughts raced.

  “What will you give me to stay?”

  “Anything,” he said rashly. He’d never bargained so in the past, not once, but didn’t care now. “Anything you want.”

  She smiled tightly, and he went cold.

  “What do you want?”

  “A measure of in
dependence. Autonomy.” She looked thoughtfully at the door behind which her brother sat. “He won’t give it to me.”

  “No, he won’t.”

  “He thinks I’m still a child.”

  “What would this autonomy include?”

  “What can I have?” Her green eyes challenged him. Bargaining, indeed.

  “I’ve just said, anything you want. Jewelry, clothes, a car of your own, a horse, servants.”

  “All that’s fine, but I want something better. The freedom to come and go as I like, answerable to no one.” Her chin came up. “I want leave to see Richard when I choose, to continue my relationship with him.”

  “Richard?” The expression in her eyes revealed exactly who that was. “Relationship?” Over his dead body. “You want me to approve you having an affair with the man?”

  “I didn’t say that. Just that you won’t prevent me seeing him if and when I wish.”

  “And if he’ll agree to see you? Given you’re married to me.”

  “Yes.”

  Mitch thought hard about it. The wind blew sharper, making Tessa shiver. Mitch reached out and caught her shoulders between his hands.

  A devil’s bargain, and no mistake. But if ever there existed a bargainer who might get the better of the devil, he was Mitch Carter. He looked her in the eye. “I agree.”

  “You do?” Her face lit. For Mitch, it felt like a stab to the heart.

  “Yes.”

  “Then let’s go back inside.”

  “Wait. What are you going to tell your brother?”

  “I’m going to tell him the truth.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  “Automatons,” Dinty announced.

  “What?” Mitch jerked his mind from the depths of dark thought and focused on Dinty, who stood in front of him. An almost impossible feat, to focus at all. His wife had ordered the car and gone out alone this morning. He could only wonder where.

  He’d had her followed, but still…Richard. Was she with him now? What did they do together? Would he lose her after all?

  He thought of what she’d said to her brother and the lawyer, Bottering, after they came back inside yesterday. She’d looked Gerald Verdun in the eye and told him her marriage could not be annulled because it had been consummated.