Impulse

He shrugged. “We are negotiating, are we not? If you want something, say so.”

Angela started to remind him that she was not negotiating terms with him, that she had no intention of accepting his offer, but it seemed too much effort at the moment.

“Come, come, Angela, surely there is something you want from me.”

“All I want is my freedom.”

“You shall have plenty of freedom—more freedom than you have now, in fact, since you will be a married woman, and one with money. Money creates a great deal of freedom. I have proven that.”

“No wife is free,” Angela replied flatly. “She is always subject to her husband’s whims.”

“I am a man of few whims.” The faint smile on his face goaded her.

“I do not wish to share your bed,” she told him bluntly.

Her words seemed to hang in the air. Angela flushed. Suddenly she was very aware of the fact that she wore only a nightgown and robe and that Cam was very casually dressed, his coat and tie off, his sleeves rolled up to his elbows and the top two buttons of his shirt undone, exposing a vee of browned chest, lightly dotted with black hairs. Angela swallowed and looked away. There was a strange sensation in her stomach, the flicker of some long-ago feeling. She remembered how it had been when she and Cam were in love, the way they had rushed together at every opportunity. They would ride out behind the ruins of an old shepherd’s hut, to a copse of trees there, and she would dismount, sliding down into Cam’s arms.

Angela knew that she would never forget the look in his eyes, so dark they were almost black, yet leaping with a flame, or the way his mouth widened sensually as he smiled up at her. He would let her slide slowly down through his strong hands, and then he would pull her to him and kiss her. Angela shifted and cleared her throat. Her stomach was jumping wildly around.

“Indeed?” Cam said coolly. “An odd request, coming from you.”

Angela stiffened at the implied insult and whirled to stalk out of the room. Cam was up and after her in an instant. His hand lashed out and curled around her wrist, pulling her to a stop.

“Why?” he growled. “Just tell me that! Why did you sleep with those others, yet you would rather let your brother sink into ruin than sleep with me? Is it because of who I am? Because the blood in my veins isn’t pure enough? Is my skin too dirty to touch yours?”

Angela started to deny his words hotly, but reason stopped her. Let him think what he would, as long as it gave him a disgust of her. Then he would no longer desire to marry her. She raised her chin a little and stared straight back into his face, forcing herself to hold her gaze steady.

“I am a Stanhope,” she told him proudly. “Perhaps when I was young I was foolish enough to think birth did not matter, but I know better now. Money will never make you a gentleman. I cannot lie with a man who is anything else.”

Ostentatiously Cam dropped her wrist and walked away. Angela braced herself, prepared for a loud and angry condemnation of her shallowness. She was surprised when, after a moment, he turned and said in a clipped voice, “Are those your terms? Not to sleep in my bed? If I agree to that, you are willing to marry me?”

Angela stared at him, flabbergasted. “What? You still want to marry me? Knowing how I feel about you?”

His face was as impassive as stone. “I told you, I expect no love match. ‘Tis more a … a business arrangement on both sides. I did not ask to marry you in order to get between your sheets. If you think that I could live with a cold wife and not keep a warm and willing mistress stashed away for comfort, then you are very much mistaken.”

Angela’s lip curled. “Of course. You would have to have a mistress.”

“What do you think? That I should live a celibate because you are too fine a lady to let a common man into your bed?”

“No. I think only that you should leave me in peace.”

“However, if I agreed to such terms, it would eliminate the possibility of heirs, now, wouldn’t it? I had wanted to have children with the Stanhope blood, the Stanhope place in Society. I had wanted to see my children acknowledged by families such as yours.”

“You think that our children would have any place in Society?” Angela retorted sarcastically. “The offspring of a servant and a divorcée? There isn’t a chance in hell. You would do better if you married a genteel maiden, even if her parentage were lower. Better yet, go back to the United States. It is where you belong.”

“No.” His voice was quiet. “I have found that I do not belong anywhere.” He paused, then went on, “Again I ask, what if I agree to your terms? If I agreed that sharing a bed would not be part of our arrangement, would you marry me then?”

She gazed at him stormily, hating the roil of emotions inside her, hating his unflappable calm. Jeremy desperately needed her help, and she owed him for the way he had helped her during and after her divorce. She felt very guilty about refusing to do what was necessary to save him; it seemed horribly selfish. If Cam remained true to his word, perhaps it would not be so bad. Cam had never been mean or violent with her when they were young, and he seemed not to have enough emotions about her now to get enraged enough to hit her. If he kept to his promise not to make her sleep with him.

“I don’t know,” she said honestly. “I would have no way of being sure that the terms would be fulfilled. ‘Twould be easy to say that you would not take me, but after we were married, my body would be yours, not mine.”

Cam’s eyes darkened at her words, and his mouth softened subtly. “A curious way to put it,” he murmured.

“A truthful way.”

“If I gave you my word, you must realize that I would not break it. Surely you know me well enough to know that.”

“I don’t know you at all anymore.” Angela took a step back, glancing around her uncertainly. “I don’t know what to do.” She turned and ran from the room.

Angela sat on the bench in the arbor, sketching a stand of irises that had just come into bloom. She had spent most of the past three days, ever since her confrontation with Cam, out on the moors, so that she could avoid having to talk to him. Her plan had worked well so far, but she was getting tired of having to escape from her own home, and when she saw the purplish irises, she had given in to an urge to draw them.

Her usual companions were sprawled around her. The sun was pleasantly warm on her face, and she felt lazy and contented. It was almost the way it was normally, the way it had been before Cam and Mr. Pettigrew came. The way it would be again, if only they would leave. She let out a little groan at the fact that she had allowed him to intrude upon her thoughts.

She closed her eyes and turned sideways on the bench, leaning back against the arched trellis that formed the arbor, and tried to recapture the feeling of content she had had earlier. She told herself that everything would be better later—except that Jeremy was going to be ruined financially, as well as socially. Firmly she pushed that thought from her mind. But she could not make it stay away. Angela knew that she could not let Jeremy be destroyed on her account. It was entirely within her power to save him. She hated that fact. She hated Cam for having put her in such a position. She wondered what marriage to Cam might be like, whether he would keep his promise not to seek her bed.

Years ago, she would have trusted him with her life, she knew. He had been her god, her idol; she had loved him with a child’s worshiping heart long before they fell in love as adults. Her father had died when she was young, and her mother had usually been sick, which had left her in the company of her grandparents, who were too old and not of the disposition, anyway, to enjoy talking to or playing with a child. She had been left primarily in the charge of her governess after she got old enough to leave Nurse’s care, and that prim woman had provided little affection or attention to a girl hungry for it. But Cam had had time for her. He had listened to her, talked to her, been her friend.

Hot tears welled in Angela’s eyes, surprising her, and seeped out beneath her lids.

“Crying at the prospect of your wedding, my dear?” a familiar voice drawled, not three feet away from her. “Can’t say that I blame you.”

Angela gasped, her eyes flying open, her entire body suddenly chilled to the marrow. Lord Dunstan was standing on the narrow dirt pathway that led to the arbor.

CHAPTER FOUR

SHE HAD NOT seen him in four years. She had thought—hoped and prayed—never to see him again. It was such a shock to have him there in front of her, without warning, that for a moment she felt as if she could not breathe. She simply stared at him, unable to move or to speak, her insides turned to ice.

“Ah, I can tell that you are surprised to see me,” he continued coolly. He looked much the same. Dissipation had yet to mar his well-proportioned face. He looked cold and perfect, as if he had been carved out of marble, and his clothes were in the height of fashion and of the best material. Lord Dunstan allowed nothing but the finest around him.

Angela forced herself to stand up and face him. She could not let him see that she still feared him; nothing would please him more. “What are you doing here?”

She was pleased that her voice did not tremble. She clenched her fists at her side. Her entire body was rigid. Would anyone hear her inside the house if she screamed? The walls of Bridbury Castle had been built to withstand sieges. Beside her, Wellington lumbered to his feet, eyeing their visitor distrustfully.

“I came because I was concerned about you,” Dunstan told her, his voice mockingly sympathetic. “I could not believe the rumors I heard. I had to see for myself.”

“I can’t see why. Nothing about me is any longer of your concern.”

“But you are my wife! Of course what you do is my concern.”

“Was,” Angela pointed out firmly. “I was your wife.”

“Perhaps I am old-fashioned, but, though the legal bonds between us may be broken, I still feel that you belong to me.” His pale green eyes swept down her body knowingly. Angela shivered; it was as if a snake had slithered across her path. “You see, I am very familiar with every inch of you.”

“Go away, Dunstan. You have no right to be here.”

“I cannot leave until I learn what I came here for. I heard that your brother, not the most discriminating of men, as we both know—” again there was a knowing leer in his eyes, and Angela was certain that he, too, knew about Jeremy’s sexual habits “—that Jeremy was entertaining your former stable boy in his home. Odd, I thought. It couldn’t be true, but I heard it so frequently, I decided I must drop by and see if it was true.”

“Cameron Monroe is visiting here, if that is what you mean.” Angela tried for a haughty tone, but the icy amusement in Dunstan’s eyes told her that he saw right through her pose.