Did the sacred union mean so little to him, she wondered, or were his actions simply derived from an overinflated sense of honor and responsibility? Either way, he couldn’t seriously believe she would accept.
But you could, a small voice slyly whispered in her ear. If you married him, all of your problems would go away. Your sisters would want for nothing. You would become a lady and have a great fortune at your disposal. You would have everything you ever wanted…
Except love.
Nathaniel didn’t love her. How could he? They’d only just met. He knew nothing about her and she knew nothing about him. But what was love when compared to financial security, not only for herself but for Temperance and Delilah? If she refused his offer, was she being practical…or selfish?
The odds of her receiving another proposal were slim at best. Off hand, she couldn’t think of a single eligible bachelor who had ever shown any interest in her aside from Adam Blackbourne. Truth be told, she couldn’t think of a single eligible bachelor who even knew her name.
Maybe Nathaniel was her best chance at providing for Temperance and Delilah.
Maybe he was her only chance.
And yet…and yet she still couldn’t help but yearn for more.
When she was a young girl, Lynette had often dreamed of a handsome knight in shining armor who would sweep her off her feet and carry her away to a distant castle in the clouds where they would live happily-ever-after. As she grew into a young woman she’d adjusted her expectations accordingly, but her dream of finding true love never went away. After the scandal and her parents death, the idea that her knight was still out there somewhere waiting for her was one of the few things that had kept her going when all else seemed lost.
Often he was the last thing she thought of when she fell asleep and the first thing she imagined when she awoke. Her knight didn’t have a face or a name, but the mere idea of him – the idea of loving someone and being loved unconditionally in return – had sustained her when nothing else could. And in all those times she’d thought of him and dreamed of what he might say when they finally met, he’d never proposed marriage over biscuits and ham.
Pressure began to the build inside of her chest. Shifting her weight from side to side, she anxiously drew her bottom lip between her teeth as she weighed what she wanted against what she needed. As though he could sense her inner conflict, Nathaniel lowered his chair and braced his forearms on the edge of the table. His gaze was direct and unblinking. It gave her nowhere to hide. Nowhere to go. Staring into his vivid green eyes she was reminded of their kiss, and her cheeks heated as she recalled what it had felt like to have his hands on her body.
The heat between them had been undeniable.
But was it enough?
“Tell me what you are thinking,” he demanded, his low, gravelly voice sliding across her flesh like a whispered caress.
She shivered from the sheer force of its power as goose pimples lifted the tiny hairs on her arms. Releasing her lip, she leaned away from the table until her spine was pressed flush against her chair. “I am thinking of what I would be giving up if we were to marry,” she replied candidly, her own voice hardly above a whisper. “Marriage is not something to be taken lightly.”
He lifted an eyebrow. “What makes you believe I am taking any of this lightly?”
“I do not know.” For an instant her gaze sought solace on her empty plate before it reluctantly returned to his face. “I do not know how to read you, Lord Townsend. You are like a closed book I can see but cannot open, and I fear what will happen if I judge you on your cover alone.” Since their moment of indiscretion in the parlor, Nathaniel had kept any and all sentiment carefully contained behind a wall of aloofness that was as frustrating to Lynette as it was worrisome. She wanted to break through the wall, but without the tools to do so she was forced instead to peer through the tiny cracks and slivers of which there were noticeably few for unlike his brother, Nathaniel was not a man who wore his heart on his sleeve. He kept it hidden far out of sight in a place she couldn’t see or touch. For all she knew, it was a place that didn’t even exist.
“I have never struck a woman,” he said, a line creasing his forehead as he frowned at her. “Nor have I ever raised my voice to one. I will not mistreat you, if that is what you are fearing.”
“That is not what I am afraid of. I…”
“Yes?” he prompted when she hesitated.
I am afraid of never being loved, she said silently. I am afraid of being trapped in a marriage I will come to regret with a man who will show more affection to his mistresses than he ever will his own wife.
Of course Nathaniel hadn’t mentioned a single thing about mistresses, but Lynette wasn’t a fool. She knew how these arranged marriages worked. Once she had what she wanted – financial security for herself and her sisters – and Nathaniel had what he wanted – presumably an heir, although he hadn’t come right out and said as much – she would become an afterthought. A pretty bauble set aside high on a shelf to be brought down and paraded about only when he had need of her.
“Miss Swan?” His frown deepened and grew until it stretched across the full length of his mouth. “Tell me whatever reservations you might have so I can put them to rest. I realize this is a not a traditional means of courtship, but surely you must see the benefits of such a union.”
“Benefits,” she repeated under her breath. “You make it sound more like a business arrangement than a marriage.”
“Yes,” he said. “Precisely.”
Beneath the table her hands knotted. “And if that is not something I want?”
“Then you are free to walk away.” A flicker of emotion passed over his face, but it was there and gone again before Lynette could decipher what it meant. “Although I highly suggest you consider what you would be walking away from. Truth be told, I do not want to marry.” His head canted to the side as his hands flattened on the table, knuckles slightly raised. “I never have. But we all have obligations we must meet in our lives, Miss Swan, whether we want to or not.”
“If we marry,” she began, choosing her words with care and deliberation, “there will be gossip, and I fear it will not be of the kind variety.”
“Is gossip ever kind?”
“Rarely, but in this instance-“
“For all Society knows we could have fallen in love three years ago when we first met,” he interrupted, “and have only recently reconciled feelings long thought abandoned. Unbeknownst to anyone else, we have been courting these past few months and I asked for your in hand in marriage as an early birthday present. When is your birthday, by the by?”
“March,” said Lynette with a wry twist of her lips.
“A very early birthday present,” Nathaniel rectified.
“Lord Townsend that all sounds well and good, but you and I both know you were not the one I met three years ago.”
“Nathaniel.” Without warning he stood up, and Lynette turned warily in her chair to watch him as he walked around the long end of the table. He stopped short of her chair, shoes sinking soundlessly into the thick carpet as he regarded her with a lifted brow. “I think it is past time we dropped the formality of titles, don’t you?”
“I – what are you doing?” she gasped as he leaned down and his breath, smelling ever-so-faintly of the dark coffee he’d drank with his breakfast, warmed the side of her neck.
“Changing tactics,” he murmured in her ear. “I am afraid you do not know me very well, Miss Swan, which means you do not know how persistent I can be when I’ve made my mind up about something.” His hands settled on either side of her shoulders as he shifted even closer, and she sucked in a startled breath when his knees parted her thighs and he stepped between her skirts, pushing them taut against her sensitive flesh.
As the fire she’d succeeded in dampening in the parlor sprang to life anew, Lynette clung to the edges of her seat as though her chair were a life preserver and Nathaniel was the dark, seething ocean she
was trying to escape from.
When he came this close to her she couldn’t think. She couldn’t concentrate. She couldn’t focus on anything except for him. The scent of his clothes. The heat of his body. The proximity of his mouth to her own. If he but turned his head one inch to the left… Gaze retreating beneath a thick fringe of ebony lashes, she looked intently at the floor as she said, “If I decide to marry you, Lord Townsend, it will not be because I was coerced. Please take a step back, if you would.”
“Are you sure that is what you want me to do?” The husky tone of his voice sent delicious shivers racing down her spine.
No, she thought heedlessly. What I really want you to do is take your hand and…
“Yes. Yes, it is. I – I cannot breathe when you are crowding me.”
“I want an answer,” he said before he took a deliberate step back and folded his arms across his chest.
Rearranging her skirts with fingers that trembled, she forced herself to lift her chin and meet his long, fixed stare. “And I need more time before I make a decision that will change the course of my life.”
“One day.”
“One week,” she countered.
“Three days.”
“Five.”
“Very well.” Amusement gleamed in his eyes. “Five days, Miss Swan, and I will have my answer.”
She stood up and squared her shoulders. “If my answer is yes, when would we marry?”
“Within the month. Does that surprise you?” he asked when her eyes widened.
“But – but the month is nearly over. You will need to petition for a license and then there is the reading of the banns and-”
“I will obtain a special license from the Archbishop,” he said matter-of-factly, “and we will begin the Season as husband and wife.”
As Lynette considered the type of wealth it would take to procure such a license, her eyes widened even further. Seeing her reaction, Nathaniel’s mouth curved in a humorless smile.
“You can give me your answer here and now if you wish. As I said, this…arrangement…will be beneficial for us both. I need a wife who will let me live my life as I see fit, and you are in need of a husband who will not be stingy when it comes to filling your purse. Marry me, and you will never want for anything. Marry me,” he whispered silkily, “and you will have whatever you desire.”
When he said it like that, she felt as though she were on the brink of signing a deal with the devil himself. A devil with piercing emerald eyes and sensuous charm.
“I shall need to talk to my sisters. This decision will affect them as well, and I will not make it without hearing their opinion. I would also have your assurance that until such time they find husbands of their own, they shall be safe in your care.” On this point Lynette refused to waver. Delilah and Temperance meant more to her than anything else in the world and were the only reason she was even considering marrying a man she knew absolutely nothing about.
“If we marry, I will provide for them as if they were my own blood.”
“Do you mean that?” she asked, studying his closely.
“I am not my brother.”
No, he wasn’t. They may have shared the same face, but that was where the similarities ended. Adam had been insincere from the first moment they met and if Lynette had been older, wiser, and more experienced she would have seen him for the deceitful cad that he was. Nathaniel, on the other hand, may have been many things - arrogant, demanding, and annoyingly presumptuous, to name a few - but he wasn’t deceitful. She trusted that, for better or for worse, he meant exactly what he said.
He hadn’t offered her promises of love and endless adoration. He hadn’t even given her a single compliment. But he had vowed to look after her sisters, something she herself would be incapable of doing for much longer unless she happened to inherit a great fortune from some unforeseen relative she’d never heard about. Since the odds of that happening were slim to none, she needed to seriously consider what marriage to Nathaniel could mean for not only her, but for Temperance and Delilah as well.
They could both have a Season they deserved, with new dresses that actually fit and personal maids to attend to their hair. They would never have to follow her out into the rain again to search fruitlessly for work. They would never know what it felt like to be unable to sleep for fear of where their next meal would come from. For the rest of their lives, they would live in comfort. For the rest of their lives, whether they married or not, they would be taken care of. What more could she ask for than that?
“All right,” she said impulsively. “I will do it. I will marry you.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
If Nathaniel was caught off guard or even a little bit surprised by her sudden acquiescence, it did not show on his face. “What about the five days you wanted?”
Five days spent going endlessly back and forth in her head about what she should do? What had seemed like such a good idea mere moments ago now made Lynette shudder with distress. If she was going to do this, best to do so with both feet in at once. There was nothing to be gained from wavering back and forth. “I - I just want to get it over with.”
“Very well.” Though Nathaniel’s countenance remained impassive, Lynette noted his right hand had begun to tap out an absent rhythm on the table, fingertips bouncing soundlessly off the glossy wood surface. It made her wonder if he wasn’t quite as aloof and stoic as he would have liked her to believe.
“It will take a few days to procure a special license,” he informed her. “Go home. Pack whatever belongings you wish to bring with you. Once we are married, you and your sisters will move in with me.”
“Here?” Lynette asked with an apprehensive sweep of the dining room. Nathaniel’s townhouse was easily twice the size of her own and she couldn’t see a single thing that needed to be repaired, but it was clearly better suited to the needs of a bachelor than three loud - and often disruptive - women. Delilah and Temperance were absolute dears...when they wanted to be. But when they didn’t, they were unruly, rambunctious, and argumentative, Temperance in particular. Delilah had a sweeter disposition than her sister, but even she had her moments. Moments that a man accustomed to living alone would find quite irksome.
Nathaniel frowned as he followed her gaze from the chandelier hanging from the vaulted ceiling to the antique hutch filled top to bottom with varying crystal decanters and bottles of wine and whiskey. “What the devil is wrong with here?”
Be tactful, Lynette cautioned herself. Now that she’d made up her mind to marry Nathaniel, the last thing she wanted to do was offend him or create any unnecessary tension between them. If he intended to treat their union as a...as a business arrangement then she would do the same, albeit with a bit more tact and grace. And maybe with time - lots and lots of time, given the way he was staring at her now - they would even come to regard one another with affection. “It is a lovely house but, well, I do not know how well it would befit two young ladies as a home.” When Nathaniel’s frown deepened into a scowl, she hastily added, “My sisters can be quite loud and boisterous. I wouldn’t want them to annoy you. I only wish to be practical.”
And now I simply sound bossy, she thought with a wince. After looking after her sisters and making decisions for all three of them these past few months, it would be difficult for her to give up the control she’d grown so accustomed to. And yet if she wanted to be the sort of wife Nathaniel wanted - biddable, agreeable, and polite - that was precisely what she would have to do. Considering what she would be gaining from their marriage, it was a small price to pay.
“Somewhere in the country where the girls will have a bit of room to roam might be best to start. I am afraid to admit they can be rather unruly, particularly Temperance, although Delilah certainly has her moments. But if we are all to live together I should like to do so as a family.” As her mind began to whirl with all the things that needed to be considered and planned out, she began to unconsciously talk faster and faster. “Naturally our engagemen
t will come as a shock to them, but I am certain they will quickly come around. In truth, they may even benefit from a stronger hand than I have been able to provide. I do not mean for you to strike them,” she amended hastily lest he get the wrong impression. “Our parents were merely too lenient, you see, and I fear I have carried on the tradition. In that same vein, perhaps we should discuss the matter of children. I know you will need an heir, but if it would be at all possible to abstain from a relationship of a more, er, physical nature until we get to know each other a little I think that would be - what are you doing?” she asked in alarm as he stepped towards her. “And why are you looking at me like that?”
The gleam in his eye - a gleam she was quickly coming to recognize - brightened into something feral. “Looking at you like what?” he asked huskily before he took yet another step, crowding her back against the table and using his body to pin her between a hard place and... well, a hard place.
“As though - as though you want to kiss me.” Swallowing nervously, she brought one hand to her throat.
“Because I do,” he said matter-of-factly.
“Again?” she said, bewildered. “But why?”
His head canted to the right. “Is there a limit to the number of kisses a person can give and receive in a day?”
“Well no, but I thought-”
“You think too much,” he murmured. “Has anyone ever told you that?”
“I...what?” she asked dazedly, distracted by the way intent way he was gazing at her, as though he were a man half-starved and her lips were a lavish feast just waiting to be devoured.
“That’s better.” Easily spanning her tiny waist with his hands, he jerked her against him and she gasped when their bodies collided, hard muscle and sinew pressing against soft, sensitive flesh. “You were saying?” he asked with a sardonic twist of his mouth when she tentatively leaned against his chest, finding herself as drawn to him as a moth was to flame.
For the Love of Lynette Page 8