"That's how I saw it too, until my daughter came downstairs, to beg me..." Aidan scowled. Shoving his thumbs into the waistband of his breeches, he began ranging about the chamber like some wild, captive beast. "Miss Linton, there is no easy way to say this, so I'm going to just fling the dice onto the table and see what the devil you say about the roll. In case you failed to notice, my daughter is a damnably stubborn, willful, determined little female. She is also the only family I have. For some strange reason, she's got it into her head that she needs a mother."
Norah closed her eyes for a moment, remembering her own painful longings at Cassandra's age, the need to be so grown up, yet still be able to bury her face in a loving mama's skirts and sob out her heartaches, her fears, her confusion. True, Norah's own mother had only been separated from her by the length of a corridor, but the distance hadn't mattered. Corabeth Linton Farnsworth had still been as unattainable as if she'd been a sky's breadth away in heaven.
"Cassandra's longing is not so strange. She must miss her mother very much. Were she and your wife close?"
"Close?" Kane blasted away Norah's own poignant musings with a bitter snort. "Cassandra's mother was a cold-hearted bitch who did her best to forget she'd ever borne a child."
Norah gasped, stunned by his loathing-filled words. "You sound as if you hated her. Surely you must have—have cared for your wife!"
"Cared about Delia? Oh, I was quite besotted over her in the beginning—the way her breasts filled out the bodice of her gown, her lips all tempting red, and, of course, the fact that half the men in London would have joyfully slit my throat to get her in their bed. Then there was also the entertainment factor: Her dragon of a mama regarded me as if I were the blackest-hearted serpent ever to be spawned of Eden, an Irish demon trying to seduce her precious daughter into sin. The woman hadn't a clue that Delia was one of those women destined to incite men to madness, a woman with insatiable appetites for amours."
He had painted an all too vivid image—the devastatingly handsome rogue, the exquisite beauty and the carnal magic that blazed between them. Norah remembered a time when she had dreamed of being transported by the same fierce passion. She'd almost believed it would be worth the anguish that came after if she could just taste of that intoxicating wonder.
But men—especially men like Aidan Kane—couldn't be moved to madness by someone whose only claim to beauty was her generous fall of curls and eyes that looked far too large and dark and haunted in her pale face.
Norah's fingers clenched the silvery satin tight at her breast, her chin lowered in an attempt to hide the fiery blush he'd raised to her cheeks. "I had no right to ask. I only..." Have only spent the past hours racked with curiosity about her, wondering...
Kane waved one hand in dismissal. "I volunteered the information. That may be my only virtue: I never make the least attempt to gild the ugly truth about myself. You needn't ever fear I'll attempt to dupe you into thinking me some noble hero."
"Whatever you are, it's not my concern."
"It damn well is if you're going to marry me."
"M—Marry you?" Norah took an instinctive step backward, gaping at him as if he'd run quite mad.
"That's what you came here to do, isn't it? Enter into holy matrimony? Exchange all those empty promises? Become my bride? When you and Cassandra stirred up this insane scheme—"
"It wasn't a scheme," Norah insisted. "I thought you wanted a wife. That you were anxious to marry."
Kane raised one sardonic brow, his lip curling. "Marriage is like the plague, Miss Linton. You can hardly blame a man for being reluctant to contract it again once he's survived the malaise from hell. But I've been racking my brain over this mess, and I've decided that there might be a way to end this satisfactorily for all concerned."
"Sir Aidan, I—"
"Just quit your blasted arguing and hear me out. This isn't easy, you know. Proposing marriage to a total stranger. God, I should've had at least three more glasses of Madeira before I came up here, but it's too late now."
"You're drunk?"
"Not drunk enough, by all appearances. But it's a situation I intend to remedy the instant I get this over with." He crossed his arms over his chest and glared at her. "I have a proposition to lay out for you."
"Wh—What kind of proposition?"
"Cass thinks she wants you to stay—not that girls of this age have the least idea what they want from one minute to the next. But I suppose it's possible that the girl really will form an attachment to you. If she does, I'll cast the devil to the winds and marry you, even if it kills me."
Norah gaped at him. "What woman could resist such a pretty proposal?" She groped for the words every girl of marriageable age was schooled in before their entry into society. "I—I am aware of the honor you—you bestow, but I cannot—" Norah stopped abruptly. The man hadn't honored her. He'd insulted her, raged at her, embarrassed her beyond bearing.
Kane hurled out a disgusted oath. "Don't tell me they're still stuffing girls' heads with that ridiculous rubbish! There's nothing pretty about this, nothing romantic, and the sooner you dash away any fool notions you may have in that regard, the better for both of us. I'm offering you a business proposition, plain and simple. One for which you'll receive a generous compensation."
"Business?"
"Yes. But before we enter into it, I want to make certain the terms of any such agreement are clear."
"I... see."
"Any union between us will be in name only. I have no desire to exercise my conjugal rights, nor do I want any more children. I want to go on with my life exactly as it is now—no recriminations, no complications."
"And exactly how is your life now?"
"When I am with Cassandra, I am her father. I protect her, love her, spoil the blazes out of her. When I leave Rathcannon, I am a wholly different man."
"Different?"
"Would you like me to spell it out for you, Miss Linton?" His eyes blazed with defiance, and a fiercer emotion Norah couldn't begin to name. "Last night at this time, I was at a gaming hell, fleecing a seventeen-year-old boy out of his inheritance." He held his fist to the candlelight, an emerald flashing on one finger. "This ring had been in that boy's family since the reign of Henry VIII, and when he wagered it in an effort to regain his fortunes, I took that from him as well."
Norah recoiled, sickened. "I don't—don't need to know—"
"The bruise beneath my eye is from an opera dancer who threw a vase at me in a temper because I would not tarry long enough to warm her bed. I would have been delighted to accommodate her, except for the fact that I had promised Cassandra I would arrive at Rathcannon before the morning of my birthday."
"The way you choose to spend your evenings is none of my affair."
"I beg to differ. If you intend to be my wife—"
"I don't!" Norah flung out. "How can you even think I would—"
"Defile yourself by linking your future to a man like me?" he finished for her. "I can't imagine why any woman would. But you must have had some reason to come all the way to Ireland in search of a husband. You must have been desperate. Or foolish. Or both."
Norah felt as if he had struck her. "I wanted a place for myself. A home."
"And so you shall have one. As my wife, you will be mistress of Rathcannon until Cassandra is grown and gone. Then I will set you up in an establishment of your own, if that pleases you."
"But we would still be married in the eyes of God and the world. Linked forever."
"Countless marriages end in amicable separation. You need never fear that I would bother to end it with the scandal of divorce. I don't give a damn if you carry the dubious honor of the title of my wife to your grave."
Norah paced the chamber, feeling as if the walls were suddenly pressing in on her. "This is insane. I don't even know you."
"A fact that didn't seem to concern you overmuch when you thought me some pathetic beggar desperate for a soulmate. I shall make it simple for you. Put it in
terms I am certain that even one of your innocence can understand. You would be wise to heed anything reprehensible you hear about me. The worse the accusation, the more likely it is true."
"But your daughter... she obviously adores you."
"Don't shore up your opinion of me by using my attachment to the girl. A child's heart is often blind. She regards me as some kind of hero now, but the truth is that I had nothing to do with Cassandra until she was five years old, and neither did her mother. We were both so caught up in gambling and drinking and stirring up scandal that sometimes we forgot she even existed. It's a testament to Cassandra's own strength of spirit that she survived at all."
"But it's obvious you love her."
He shrugged one broad shoulder with a studied negligence. "As much as I'm capable of loving anyone. It's because I love her that I'm considering making this marriage. It seems she's worried about what will happen to her if I die. She's afraid of being left alone."
The words echoed in the secret places in Norah's own heart. "There is nothing more frightening in the world," she allowed softly. "But she'll soon be grown and gone, with a family of her own. With her beauty and wit, the instant she enters society she will be swept away."
"The instant she sets foot on the haute ton's threshold, every door will be slammed in her face," Kane cut in ruthlessly.
Norah started, stunned at the quicksilver emotion that flashed into those cynical eyes. Anguish, devastating in its power. Norah could feel the force of it even after Kane shuttered it away.
"You see, the one legacy Delia and I did manage to bequeath to our daughter during those first years of Cassandra's life was to make certain that no decent family will let her within a mile of their door."
Norah knew she shouldn't probe any further, shouldn't ask Aidan Kane about things that were none of her concern. There was no need to understand him, to touch whatever place in his soul had been illuminated for such a fleetingly raw moment in those bedeviling green eyes. She was stunned to hear her own voice. "It was all a long time ago. Whatever happened was not Cassandra's fault. Perhaps all is forgotten."
"Forgotten? Surely you must have some idea how cruel society can be, Miss Linton. And how unforgiving. The stigma of dishonor can't be sponged away by beauty or wit or a fortune in ill-gotten gains."
"No, I suppose that is true." Norah turned away from him, crossing to the window to stare out into the night. "Society would much rather you starve nobly in the gutter than demean yourself by attempting to make your own way in the world. They prefer to commiserate and sympathize with you, admit you into their gilded halls so they can whisper behind their hands how desperately threadbare General Linton's granddaughter appears."
"General Linton?" A measure of awe and astonishment crept into Kane's voice. "Don't tell me you're one of the Lintons of Stanwycke!"
"We lost Stanwycke years ago." Norah gave a bitter laugh. "Honor is the only thing my family managed to hold on to through the years, though we lost everything else."
"Why the blazes would a Linton of Stanwycke be running off to the wilds of Ireland to marry a stranger? For God's sake, every door in London must be open to..." Kane stopped, those predatory eyes of his suddenly burning with a quiet intensity Norah found more unsettling than any bout of rage. He paced toward her, and one strong hand caught her chin.
The callused warmth seeped into Norah, making her tremble, excruciatingly aware of the way Aidan Kane towered over her, close, so close she could see the tiny scar on his left cheekbone, she could catch the scent of him—wild Irish winds, night mist, and recklessness, all overlaid with the subtle tang of Madeira.
When he spoke his voice was rough, low, as if he were making some effort to gentle it. "What the devil are you doing here, Norah Linton? Halfway to hell, with no one to keep you safe? Your family must be crazed with worry."
Norah knew she should tear away from his touch, tell him her affairs weren't his concern. But he held her, pinned with that probing gaze, a devastating uncertainty clinging about lips far too compelling.
"My family?" she echoed with a broken laugh. "I am quite certain they are relieved to be rid of me."
Kane's dark brows lowered, his eyes suddenly free of their lazy cynicism. He was searching for some clue, some reason for her flight to Ireland. She could see it in features that bespoke a keen intelligence buried beneath the shadows left by decadence. She knew the moment he reached a possible conclusion. "Norah," he said with astonishing gentleness, "are you with child?"
"W—With child?" she choked out, stunned. "I—"
"Before you answer, know that it would make no odds with me. No man knows better than I do the kind of siege unscrupulous bastards can lay against a woman's virtue."
There was contempt beneath those rough-velvet words, a contempt not for the fallen doves society scorned but rather for the men who used them so badly. Norah was astonished, set off balance by this Aidan Kane, the one without the hard cast to his features, the devil-take-the-world attitude in his eyes.
She swallowed hard and drew away from him, shaken to the core. "There is no child. I'm not in disgrace. I'm just—just in the way."
"In the way?"
"An inconvenient reminder of my mother's first marriage. An unwelcome burden in my stepfather's house." She struggled to keep the pain from her voice, to capture a little of Aidan Kane's careless sarcasm and use it for her own. "It would have been much simpler if I had been a hound or a horse left behind by my father. I could have been disposed of most expediently, thrown in a pond with a rock tied round my neck, auctioned off at Tattersalls. But the only way one can dispose of female children is to wash your hands of them in a marriage."
"Your family is responsible for sending you here?" Outrage thrummed beneath Kane's liquor-warmed voice. "Damn the thoughtless bastards to hell! For all they knew, I could've been some kind of monster!" His mouth twisted, grim. "Hell, I am a goddamn monster."
Norah couldn't help but smile a little. "True, you are not exactly what Cassandra's letters led me to believe. But no man who loves his child as you do could possibly be such a beast."
"I—blast, we are discussing how the devil you got abandoned on my doorstep, Norah. I want to know what could possibly have driven a lady the likes of you—a lady of damn fine family—to such rash lengths."
"My stepfather had arranged a marriage for me with a mere youth, the most odious, disgusting..." She shuddered. "If I refused to wed him, my stepfather intended to turn me out into the streets."
"I shall be most anxious to make your stepfather's acquaintance," Kane snarled with velvet menace. "Teach him his duty by you."
"The truth is, I wanted nothing more than to escape his house forever. If anyone else had offered for me, I would have bolted headlong into marriage and my stepfather would have happily palmed me off on another man. But, as you observed earlier, I am not... ripe and rosy enough for most gentlemen's tastes. Add that to my lack of fortune, and you can imagine how I fared upon the marriage mart."
Kane winced, a sweep of crimson appearing on his high cheekbones. "By 'ripe and rosy,' I only meant that you are a different sort of woman than—than my first wife. In truth, that's the highest compliment I could give you," he explained hastily. "God's teeth, it got so I thought I could walk through Delia's bedchamber and see her with a dozen men between the coverlets, and merely caution them not to let the cat slip out the door when they took their leave. You, on the other hand, are obviously a lady of quality...." He stammered to a halt, his jaded face twisted in evident dismay at the words that had tumbled from his mouth.
"Don't distress yourself," Norah said, holding up one hand. "I know exactly what you meant by your comment, Sir Aidan. I became resigned to the fact I'm not a beauty long ago." Then why was it that here, now, with this man staring down at her, she suddenly felt the fierce pangs of regret she'd thought packed away with the slippers and fan from her first disastrous ball? "As you said, even if we—we enter into this arrangement, it would be purel
y a practical one. Not an affair of the heart."
"No. It would not be an affair of the heart. But I would do my best not to cause you pain. I would... But then, there will be time to hash the rest of this out later, if there is, indeed, a wedding. In any case, you are welcome here for as long as you need safe haven."
"Kindness? From you, sir?" She looked up at him, and for a heartbeat she thought she saw a flicker of shame, almost self-loathing in his eyes.
"Don't deceive yourself. I only indulge in the most selfish pursuits, madam. If they benefit someone else, it is purely accidental, I assure you. As for my motive in allowing you to remain at the castle, well, it's possible I only want to give Cassandra time to grow tired of this notion she has of making you her mother. Perhaps I simply don't give enough of a damn about your presence to trouble myself to get rid of you at the moment. Rathcannon is a huge castle, the grounds extensive. I could house a dozen runaway Englishwomen and not even know they were here."
He hesitated for a moment, and a shiver skated beneath Norah's skin as that emerald gaze locked with hers. "It's also possible that I'm such a bastard, I have already figured out a way to use you to my advantage, Miss Linton. I shall see about procuring a special license at once, so that if we do choose to marry no time will be lost scrambling around crying banns and other such nonsense."
"But... but I thought we—that marriage... I still cannot believe you would want to wed—"
Shadows melted across Kane's face, deepening the hollows, darkening his compelling eyes. "Miss Linton, do you know why I have such luck at the gaming tables?"
"I've not had much experience with games of chance," she answered warily.
"I excel because I play fast and dangerous. Once I choose a course, I never look back. If I choose to marry you, the wedding will take place the same way."
He turned and crossed to the door, then paused one lean hand on the brass latch, the emerald ring glittering wickedly on his finger. "There is one other thing I do that you should be made aware of."
"What is that?" Norah asked faintly.
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