by Laura Landon
Well, she’d like nothing better than to hide away after what happened last night but that wouldn’t make what she’d done go away. And hiding in his study wouldn’t make what had happened to his mother go away either. The sooner they both faced their demons the sooner they could get on with their lives.
Maggie opened the door and stepped inside the room.
He didn’t look up from the massive oak desk he was sitting behind until she closed the door. The stunned look on his face would have been amusing if she hadn’t been so nervous, but he quickly recovered his surprise. His demeanor turned more serious. And tentative.
“The servants told me I could find you here.”
He pushed himself from his chair and stood behind his desk.
Maggie told herself that what happened last night was over and she could talk to Gray without thinking of how it felt to be in his arms and in his bed. But the sight of him standing before her caused a strange heat to rush through her body.
She prayed her cheeks weren’t as red as they felt.
“Was there something you needed?”
Maggie walked across the room and stopped in front of him. “Yes, I’d like to see your home.”
She thought his face paled but wasn’t sure. His recovery was instantaneous.
“Of course. Let me get Boswick for you. He can—”
“I’d like you to show me your home.”
“No.”
His answer came so quickly Maggie was at a loss for an answer. She opened her mouth to confront him, then realized that arguing would only make matters worse.
“Very well, I’ll let Boswick give me a tour. But later.” She took a step toward one of the two wing chairs flanking the desk and looked at him. “Would you mind if we had a cup of tea first? There are a few matters I’d like to discuss with you.”
He smiled and her heart flipped in her breast. Oh, why did he have to be so unbelievably handsome?
“I’d like nothing better,” he said with a gleam in his eyes that said he’d expected that she’d want to discuss their recent actions. Well, he was in for a surprise if he thought she intended to let him think last night meant anything to her.
She sat down while he poured them both tea, then he handed her one cup and sat back behind the desk. She looked at the top of the desk and was glad she didn’t see any evidence that he’d been drinking anything stronger than tea this morning.
“About last night—” he started to say, but she stopped him with a lift of her hand.
“I’d prefer not to talk about last night. What happened was significantly unimportant.”
His eyebrows shot up and he set down his cup and saucer. “Are you telling me you consider what happened unimportant?”
“Significantly so.” She took a sip of her tea as if they were talking about the weather instead of the most intimately embarrassing topic she could think of, and set her cup in her lap. “Surely you didn’t think it was?”
“I most surely did, Maggie, my love. I’m not in the habit of taking a young lady’s virginity and forgetting about it.”
“Oh, Gray,” she said with a chuckle she hoped didn’t sound forced. “You didn’t take anything I didn’t choose to give. Besides, we both know there’s far too much importance placed on one’s innocence or lack thereof. Especially at my age.”
He stared at her as if she’d grown two heads. “Let me assure you that your innocence was extremely important to me.”
She tried to look shocked. “After all the conquests you’ve made over the years?”
“This might surprise you, Maggie, my love,” he said, leaning forward to brace his forearms on the top of the desk, “but none of my conquests have been virgins. If any had been, I’d be a married man by now.”
“Surely you aren’t hinting that we marry?”
“No, I’m not hinting any such thing.”
Maggie breathed a sigh of relief before she took a sip of her tea.
“I’m stating a fact. We’ll marry as soon as possible.”
Maggie choked on her tea.
He raced to her side and held her cup and saucer until she caught her breath.
“I’m not certain if your reaction is a good sign or a bad one, but it doesn’t matter. You don’t have a choice in the matter.”
“That’s where you’re wrong.” Maggie rose from her chair. Gray backed up and she was glad. She was angry enough at the moment she would have plowed him down. “It’s obviously escaped your notice, but I’m of an age where I can’t be forced to marry.”
“And if you’re carrying my child?”
“I’m not. That rarely happens the first time one has—” She stuttered, unable to say the word.
“Makes love,” he finished for her. “We didn’t have anything. We made love.”
“Stop it!”
He placed her cup and saucer on the desk and took a step closer toward her. “And we increased the chances of creating a child when we made love the second time. And the—”
“Stop it!”
She spun away from him and paced the floor from one side to the other. “Do you honestly think I don’t know why you want to marry me?” she said, turning on him.
“Hell, woman. Do you still think I want to marry you for your brewery?”
“Of course I do. My father found it to be the perfect arrangement. Mother could stay in the country and work from morning ’til night so he could run off to London and live a life free of responsibility.”
“You act like I’m destitute and need your brewery to survive.”
“I think you do.”
“Even though I’ve told you I already own a—” He stopped. His expression bordered between disappointment and fury.
“You don’t believe me, do you?”
“Let’s just say I doubt you own anything capable of supporting you.”
“What about Mayfair? I own Mayfair!”
“Ha!” She placed her fists on her hips and squared off with him. “You don’t even have the courage to leave this room.”
“Courage?” He took a threatening step toward her. “You think I’m afraid to show you the house?”
“Of course you are. You can’t even call it by what it is.”
“And what is that?”
“Your home. Mayfair is your home but you’re too much of a coward to step through it.”
“Coward?”
“Yes, coward.”
He paused, and clamped his lips together in a show of fury.
“Come on,” he said, eating the distance to the door in three angry strides. “If you’re so eager to see the damn house, I’ll show it to you.”
He threw the door open so hard it bounced against the wall, then waited for her to walk out of the room ahead of him.
Maggie wanted to shout with glee. She wanted to clap her hands and dance around in a little circle because she’d tricked him into leaving this study and venturing into the rest of the house but knew she didn’t dare. She couldn’t, however, hide the gloating smile that lifted the corners of her mouth.
She preferred that last night had never come up. She’d rather not think of it, but somehow the topic had turned on him. Instead of forcing her to consider marrying him, he was being forced into showing her Mayfair Manor.
Her heart soared in her breast and she couldn’t hold herself back from making one small gesture to show him how happy she was. She walked to the door and when she reached him she stopped. She stood on her tiptoes and leaned forward. “Thank you,” she said, kissing him lightly on the cheek.
He was too stunned to do anything but stare at her with his jaw slack and his eyes open wide as she walked away from him.
****
Bloody hell!
Bloody, bloody, damn it all to hell!
How had she managed it!
Somehow she’d tricked him into stepping out of the room he’d set up as his sanctuary. She’d maneuvered him into doing exactly what he’d sworn he wouldn’t do—step foot in
all the rooms he never wanted to see again. She’d turned the tables on him and even though his plan was to convince her that she would have to marry him, she’d somehow managed to force him into facing his worst nightmare.
Well, he’d take her on a tour of the house, show her every room on every floor of every wingexcept the north wing. He’d be damned if he let her trick him into going there.
They walked up the ornately carved staircase, then across the balcony that looked down on the marble-floored foyer. Above them hung the huge crystal chandelier. A shiver raced up and down Gray’s spine. The last time he’d seen a chandelier in this room it hadn’t been hanging from the ceiling but shattered on the foyer floor in a million miniscule pieces.
Gray stopped and shook his head, trying to forget that scene from his youth. When he looked back up, he found her watching him.
“Is this the way your home looked before the fire?”
“Yes,” Gray answered past the lump in his throat. “Father did an excellent job of restoring Mayfair to the way it was when Mother was alive.”
“It’s a beautiful home.”
“Yes, it was.”
Gray opened the door to the long gallery where all his ancestors’ pictures hung. Thankfully, this wing was farthest from the fire and had sustained the least amount of damage.
“It’s still a beautiful home,” she said when she walked past him to enter the gallery.
“It lost its beauty for me fifteen years ago.”
For a while, he thought she was going to allow his comment to go unanswered.
She clasped her hands behind her back and silently studied the first portrait, then moved to the next. She moved on to the third, then slowly turned her head to look at him.
“What happened that night?”
He should have known better.
He pointed to the portrait in front of him. “That was my mother’s great-great-grandmother.”
“You aren’t going to answer me, are you?”
“I agreed to give you a tour of the manor, but now you’ll play by my rules.” Gray gave her a seductive grin, then draped his arm over her shoulders.
He meant the movement to throw her off balance. Unfortunately, the warmth seeping through his veins unsettled him more than it seemed to affect her.
She slowly shifted her gaze to his hand. “Is this your tactic to distract me?”
“Is it working?”
“No.”
Gray smiled. But he didn’t remove his arm. He knew her words were a lie. Her rosy red cheeks told him so.
He looked back toward the portrait. “Rumor has it Mother’s great-great-grandmother tried to run away to a convent rather than stay married to her husband.”
“Was he that impossible to tolerate?”
“That’s him at the end of the hall. What do you think?”
She stepped out of his arm and walked away from him. When she reached the portrait, she cocked her head in an evaluative pose, then placed her forefinger against her puckered lips and diligently studied the painting.
“Well?” he asked, smiling at the frown on her face.
“He doesn’t look that ferocious to me.”
“He doesn’t?”
“No.” She walked back to his great-great-grandmother’s portrait. “I think she was at fault. In fact, I’m sure of it.”
Gray couldn’t help but laugh. “That’s what Mother and I decided too. Mother said this portrait reminded her of the picture of a witch she’d seen in a storybook and thought her ancestor must have been a horror to live with. That’s why Mother hung Great-great-grandfather at the other end of the hall. She said the poor man may not have been able to escape his wife while he was alive, but he deserved to get as far away from her as he could after he was dead.”
Maggie chuckled and Gray’s heart soared. She was the most endearing female he’d ever met. The realization hit him like a bolt of lightning. If there’d ever been any doubt of how much he cared for her, it was no longer there.
Somewhere between the time when he’d first kissed her and last night when she’d given him her body, he knew how impossible it would be to live his life without her.
He suddenly realized he had to convince her to marry him before she discovered he held the deed to her brewery. Once she discovered her father had lost it, she’d be convinced he wanted to marry her for the same reason her father had married her mother.
And if by chance he’d gotten her pregnant, she’d feel forced into marrying him. She’d never believe it was love that made him ask her to be his wife. Or that he wanted to marry her because he couldn’t imagine living his life without her.
An icy shiver slid down his spine. If she thought she’d been deceived like that he was certain she’d go someplace where he’d never find her.
A fear unlike any he’d ever experienced hit him like a blow to the gut. He couldn’t let anything like that happen. What purpose would there be in running the brewery if she weren’t at his side?
He wanted her. He wanted to marry her before she found out he owned Bradford Brewery. Before she knew if she was pregnant.
He had to convince her that the brewery had nothing to do with the reason he wanted her. But more than anything, he had to convince her that he was not like her father. That he had no intention of going to London to squander the money they made.
Gray nearly laughed out loud. When had he come to that realization? He’d never imagined a life away from London. He’d never thought he could be content living anyplace except in London. But all of a sudden he knew he could.
He would be more than content living in the country.
As long as it wasn’t anywhere near Mayfair.
And as long as Maggie was with him.
He walked up close behind her. If he wanted to convince her he loved her, he had to start now. He placed his hands on her shoulders and made slow, lazy circles with his thumbs.
“Who’s that?” she said pointing at another portrait.
The movement was intended to shrug off his touch. He didn’t let it. “I don’t know.”
She breathed a sigh of exasperation. “You might if you looked where I’m pointing.”
“I can’t.
“Why?”
“Because I don’t want to look at anyone but you.”
“Don’t, Gray,” she whispered when he leaned down and kissed the side of her neck. She turned in his arms and took a step away from him.
“I want you, Maggie.”
She shook her head and stepped back until the wall stopped her from going any farther. “That won’t happen again.”
“That’s not what I meant.” He dropped his head back and laughed. He was making a terrible mess of this. “Well, it is, but I didn’t mean right now. I meant I want you with me. Always. I—”
“Stop,” she said, not soft enough to be called a whisper yet not loud enough to be called a command. Her word came out more like a plea, an entreaty.
“Marry me, Maggie.”
Her mouth opened and she tried to speak but no words came out. She tried again. “Why?” This wasn’t the reply he expected. Or wanted.
“Because I want you.”
“For how long?”
“Forever.”
She stepped far enough away from him that he couldn’t take her in his arms, then held up her hand to stop him from trying. “I’m not foolish enough to believe you mean that, Gray. I heard my father make that same promise to my mother more times than I care to remember.”
“Your father was unfaithful to your mother?”
“Of course my father was unfaithful,” she said on a laugh. “Except he wasn’t unfaithful to Mother with another woman. He left her for another life. A life filled with laughter and parties and drinking and gambling. A carefree life that included no cares or responsibilities. A life he could walk into or out of whenever he wanted, depending on his luck at cards or his fortune with a toss of the dice.”
“I am not your father,” Gray sa
id through clenched teeth. “Why is it so impossible for you to see me for who I really am?”
“I do see you. I wish more than anything that I didn’t. It’s you who is blind to who you really are. It’s you!”
Gray was angrier than he’d ever been in his life. But it wasn’t an anger borne from rage, but from desperation. A desperation that stemmed from his inability to prove himself to her.
Why was it so impossible for her to see that he wasn’t like her father? Why couldn’t she see that he would never abandon her like her father had? That he’d changed and wasn’t the rogue he’d been before he met her?
He didn’t want to be so angry with her but he couldn’t help it.
“I’d like to return to Father’s study. I noticed several bottles of excellent brandy going to waste. As you’ve already pointed out, a man with my lack of character can’t be expected to fight the temptation they present.”
He’d hurt her. He could tell he had by the fixed mask she put firmly in place. Gray recognized the stubborn lift of her chin and the inflexible rise of her shoulders. Her back was ramrod straight and she faced him with the same willful determination he was used to seeing from her.
“You haven’t finished showing me your house.”
“I don’t intend to.”
He turned his back on her and walked a few steps away from her before he stopped. “I trust you can find your way back to your room,” he said with a stiff bow. “If you get lost just call out for one of the guardians my father employs to make sure Mayfair remains a shrine in memory of his wife.”
“This is your house, Gray. The servants are here to take care of your home.”
He shook his head. “It will never be my home. Never!”
And he walked away from her without a backwards glance.
Chapter Seventeen
The snow had stopped sometime during the night and when she awoke Jena arrived with a breakfast tray. She informed her that Master Delaney said to tell her that they would be leaving within the hour.
Maggie drank the hot chocolate while Jena laid out her clothes, then readied herself for the long, uncomfortable trip home.
She dreaded being confined with Gray in a small carriage with nothing to do except stare across the seat at him the entire time. She knew even if she were brave enough to look in his direction she’d only find the glare of his piercing blue eyes trying to avoid her.