“No.”
His sigh was strong enough to dry the tears from her cheeks. Lyon cupped the sides of her face, his thumbs rubbing the soft skin below her chin. “I’m not going to move until you tell me what’s bothering you, Christina. Your aunt will find us in just this position when she comes home next week.”
She knew he meant what he said. He had a stubborn look on his face. The muscle in the side of his jaw flexed. “I’ve never felt the way you make me feel, Lyon. It frightened me,” she admitted.
She started crying again. Dear God, how could she ever leave him? The full truth was unbearable. Shameful. Lyon probably loved her. No, she admitted, shaking her head. He loved a princess.
“Christina, you were a virgin. Of course you were frightened,” he said. “Next time it won’t be so terrifying for you. I promise you, my sweet.”
“But there can’t be a next time,” Christina wailed. She pushed against Lyon’s shoulders. He immediately shifted his weight, then rolled to his side.
“Of course there’s going to be another time,” he said. “We’ll be married first, just as soon as possible. Now what have I said?”
He had to shout his question. Christina was making so much noise he knew she wouldn’t have been able to hear him if he’d spoken in a normal tone of voice.
“You said you wouldn’t marry me.”
Ah, so that was the reason. “I’ve changed my mind,” Lyon announced. He smiled, for he understood her real anxiety now. He was also very pleased with himself. Lord, he’d just said the word marriage without blanching. Even more amazing was the fact that he really wanted to marry her.
The turnabout stunned him.
Christina struggled to sit up. She threw her hair over her shoulder when she turned to look at Lyon. She stared at him a long while and tried to form an explanation that wouldn’t sound confusing. Christina finally decided to say as little as possible. “I’ve changed my mind, too. I can’t marry you.”
She jumped off the bed before Lyon could stop her, then hurried over to her chest to get her robe. “At first I thought I could, because I knew you’d be able to make my stay in England so much more bearable, but that was when I thought I’d be able to leave you.”
“Damn it, Christina, if this is some kind of game you’re playing, I would advise you to stop.”
“It isn’t a game,” Christina protested. She tied the belt around her waist, pausing to wipe the fresh tears away from her face, then walked back over to stand at the foot of the bed. Her head was bowed. “You want to marry Princess Christina,” she said. “Not me.”
“You’re not making any sense,” Lyon muttered. He got out of bed and walked over to stand behind her.
He hadn’t the faintest idea what was going through her mind, and he told himself it didn’t matter.
“You can tell me all the lies you want to, but the way you just gave yourself to me was honest enough. You want me as much as I want you.”
He was about to pull her up against him when her next comment gave him pause. “It doesn’t matter.”
The sadness in her voice tore at him. “This isn’t a game, is it? You really think you aren’t going to marry me.”
“I can’t.”
Her simple answer made him livid. “The hell you can’t. We’re getting married, Christina, just as soon as I can make the arrangements. God’s truth, if you shake your head at me one more time I’m going to beat you.”
“You needn’t shout at me,” Christina said. “It’s almost dawn, Lyon. We are both too tired for this discussion.”
“Why did you ask me to marry you,” he asked, “and then change your mind?”
“I thought I’d be able to marry you for just a little while and then—”
“Marriage is forever, Christina.”
“According to your laws, not mine,” she answered. She took a step away from him. “I’m too upset to speak of this tonight, and I’m afraid you’ll never understand anyway—”
Lyon reached out to pull her up against his chest. His hands circled her waist. “Did you know before we made love that you weren’t going to marry me?”
Christina closed her eyes against the anger in his voice. “You had already declined my proposal,” she said. “And yes, I knew I wouldn’t marry you.”
“Then why did you give yourself to me?” he asked, sounding incredulous.
“You fought for my honor. You protected me,” she answered.
He was infuriated over her perplexed tone of voice. She acted as though he should have understood. “Then it’s damned fortunate someone else didn’t—”
“No, I wouldn’t have slept with any other Englishman. Our destiny is—”
“Your destiny is to become my wife, understand, Christina?” he shouted.
Christina pulled away from him, somewhat surprised he’d let her go. “I hate England, do you understand me?” she shouted back at him. “I couldn’t survive here. The people are so strange. They run from one tiny little box to another. And there are so many of them, a person has no room to breathe. I couldn’t—”
“What little boxes?” Lyon asked.
“The houses, Lyon. No one ever stays outside. They scurry like mice from one place to another. I couldn’t live like that. I couldn’t breathe. And I don’t like the English people, either. What say you to that full truth, Lyon? Do you think me daft? Perhaps I’m as crazy as everyone here believes my mother was.”
“Why don’t you like the people?” he asked. His voice had turned soft, soothing. Christina thought he really might be thinking she’d just lost her mind.
“I don’t like the way they act,” she announced. “The women take lovers after they’ve pledged themselves to a mate. They treat their old like discarded garbage. That is their most appalling flaw,” Christina said. “The old should be honored, not ignored. And their children, Lyon. I hear about the little ones, but I’ve yet to see one. The mothers lock their children away in their schoolrooms. Don’t they understand the children are the heartbeat of the family? No, Lyon, I could not survive here.”
She paused to take a deep breath, then suddenly realized Lyon didn’t look very upset about her comments. “Why aren’t you angry?” she asked.
He grabbed her when she tried to step away from him again, wrapped his arms around her, and held her close to him. “First of all, I agree with most of what you’ve just said. Second, all during your irate protest you kept saying ‘they,’ not ‘you.’ You didn’t include me with the others, and as long as it’s the other English you dislike, that’s quite all right with me. You told me once you thought I was different. It’s why you’ve been drawn to me, isn’t it? It doesn’t really matter,” he added with a sigh. “You and I are both English. You can’t change that fact, Christina, just as you can’t change the fact that you belong to me now.”
“I’m not English where it matters most, Lyon.”
“And where might that be?” Lyon asked.
“In my heart.”
He smiled. She sounded like a small child in need of comfort. She happened to pull away from him just at that moment, saw his smile, and was infuriated. “How dare you laugh at me when I tell you what is in my heart?” she shouted.
“I dare, all right,” Lyon shouted back. “I dare because this is the first time you’ve ever been completely honest with me. I dare because I’m trying to understand you, Christina,” he added, taking a menacing step toward her. “I dare because I happen to care about you. God only knows why, but I do care.”
Christina turned her back on him. “I’ll not continue this discussion,” she announced. She picked up his pants and threw them at him. “Get dressed and go home. I’m afraid you’ll just have to walk, because I don’t have a servant available to fetch your carriage for you.”
She glanced back at him, took in his startled expression. A sudden thought made her gasp. “Your carriage isn’t waiting out front, is it?”
“Oh, hell,” he muttered. He had his pants on in quic
k time, then strode out of the bedroom, barechested and barefooted, still muttering under his breath.
Christina ran after him. “If anyone sees your carriage … well, I can certainly count on someone telling my aunt, can’t I?”
“You don’t care what the English think, remember?” Lyon shouted back. He threw the front door open, then turned to give her a good glare. “You would have to live on the main street,” he said, sounding as if her choice of townhouses had been a deliberate provocation somehow.
Lyon turned to yell instructions to his driver after making that accusation. “Go and wake up the servants, man. Bring half the number over here. They’ll stay with Princess Christina until her aunt returns from the country.”
He’d been forced by circumstances to bellow his orders. His driver wouldn’t have heard him otherwise. No, the parade of carriages coming down the street was making too much of a clatter.
He knew he should have felt a shred of shame for what he was deliberately doing. When he spotted the first carriage rounding the corner, the very least he could have done was wave his driver away and shut the door.
“Thompson’s party must have just let out,” he remarked in a casual voice to the horrified woman hovering behind his back.
Lyon actually smiled when he heard her gasp, pleased she understood the ramifications well enough. Then he leaned against the door frame and waved at the startled occupants of the first carriage.
“Good eve, Hudson, Lady Margaret,” he shouted, totally unconcerned that his pants were only partially buttoned.
Over his shoulder he told Christina, “Lady Margaret looks like she’s about to fall out of the carriage, love. She’s hanging halfway out the window.”
“Lyon, how could you?” Christina asked, clearly appalled by his conduct.
“Destiny, my dear.”
“What?”
He waved to three more carriages before he finally closed the door. “That ought to do it,” he remarked, more to himself than to the outraged woman looking ready to kill him. “Now, what were you saying about not marrying me, my sweet?”
“You are a man without shame,” she shouted when she could find her voice.
“No, Christina. I’ve just sealed your fate, so to speak. You still do believe in destiny, don’t you?”
“I’m not going to marry you, no matter what scandal you weave.”
If she hadn’t been so infuriated, she might have tried to explain again. But Lyon was grinning at her with such a victorious, arrogant look on his face, she decided to keep the full truth to herself.
He drained the anger right out of her. Lyon suddenly pulled her into his arms and kissed her soundly. When he finally let go of her, she was too weak to protest.
“You will marry me.”
He started back up the stairs in search of his shoes.
Christina held on to the bannister, watching him. “Do you think ruining my reputation will matter, Lyon?”
“It’s a nice start,” Lyon called back. “Remember, what will be is going to be. Your words, Christina, not mine.”
“I’ll tell you what’s going to be,” she shouted. “I won’t be in England long enough to care about my reputation. Don’t you understand, Lyon? I have to go home.”
She knew he’d heard her. She’d shouted loud enough to rattle the walls. Lyon disappeared around the corner, but Christina patiently waited for him to come back downstairs. She wasn’t about to go chasing after him again. No, she knew she’d end up back in bed with him if she went up the stairs. God help her, she’d probably be the one to suggest it. Lyon was simply too appealing, and she was too weak-hearted to fight him.
Besides, she told herself, she hated him. The man had the morals of a rattlesnake.
He was dressed when he came downstairs. He was ignoring her, too. Lyon didn’t speak another word until his carriage had returned with two big men and one heavyset maid. Then he spoke to his staff, giving them his orders.
Christina was infuriated with his high-handed manner. When he instructed the men to see to her protection, to let no one enter her home without his permission, she decided to protest.
The look he gave her made her reconsider. She was seeing a different side of Lyon’s character now. He was very like Black Wolf when he was addressing his warriors. Lyon was just as cold, as rigid, as commanding. Christina instinctively knew it would be better not to argue with him now.
She decided to ignore him just as thoroughly as he was ignoring her. That decision was short-lived, however. Christina was staring into the fireplace, trying to pretend the man didn’t even exist, when she heard a rather descriptive curse. She turned just in time to see Lyon jump up from the settee. He’d sat on her knife.
“Serves you justice,” she muttered when he held the blade up and glared at it.
She tried to snatch her weapon away from him, but Lyon wouldn’t let her have it. “It belongs to me,” she announced.
“And you belong to me, you little warrior,” Lyon snapped out. “Admit it, Christina, now, or I swear to the Great Spirit I’ll show you how a real warrior uses a knife.”
Their gazes held a long, ponderous moment. “You really don’t know what you’re trying to catch, do you? Very well, Lyon. For now—until you change your mind, that is—I will belong to you. Does that satisfy you?”
Lyon dropped the knife and pulled Christina into his arms. He then proceeded to show her just how immensely satisfied he really was.
Chapter Nine
Edward had left to put down a resistance in the West. When the captain of my ship came for me, I made him wait outside my husband’s office while I went inside to steal the jewels. I briefly considered leaving a note for Edward, then decided against it.
We set sail immediately, but I didn’t begin to feel safe until we were two days out to sea. I stayed below in my cabin most of the time, for I was terribly ill. I couldn’t hold any food in my stomach, and I believed it was the weather that was the cause.
It wasn’t until a week had passed that the truth settled in my mind. I was carrying Edward’s child.
God forgive me, Christina, but I prayed for your death.
Journal entry
September 7, 1795
Monday was a trial of endurance for Christina. Although she protested vehemently, Lyon’s servants had her possessions packed up and transferred to his mother’s townhouse by noon.
Christina kept insisting that she wasn’t going anywhere, that the Countess would be home Monday next, and that she would take care of herself until that time. No one paid her the least attention. They followed the instructions from their employer, of course, and though they were friendly enough, one and all suggested she mention her distress to the Marquess of Lyonwood.
Although Christina had not seen Lyon since Friday evening, his presence was certainly felt. He hadn’t allowed her to attend Creston’s ball, or to go anywhere else, for that matter. Christina thought he kept her closeted inside her townhouse so she wouldn’t be able to run away.
There was also the possibility that he was trying to protect her feelings, Christina realized. He might not want her to hear any of the whispers circling the ton about her liaison with Lyon. It was a scandal, to be sure, but a scandal Lyon had personally caused.
Perhaps Lyon thought she’d be upset about the slurs against her character. She was unmarried, Lyon had been undressed, and half the ton had witnessed the scene. Oh, there was a scandal floating about; Christina had heard Colette, the lady’s maid Lyon had thrust upon her, tell one of the other servants a juicy bit of gossip she’d overheard when she’d gone to do the marketing with the cook.
Christina had a splitting headache by midafternoon. It came upon her all at once when she happened to notice the wedding announcement in the newspapers. Lyon had had the gall to post his intention to marry Princess Christina the following Saturday.
Colette caught her tearing up the paper. “Oh, my lady, isn’t it romantic the way the Marquess flaunts tradition? Why
, he’s doing everything to his liking and doesn’t care what others will say.”
Christina didn’t think it was romantic at all. She felt like screaming. She went upstairs to her bedroom, thinking to find a few minutes’ peace, but she’d barely closed the door behind her when she was once again interrupted.
A visitor was waiting for her in the drawing room. Since Lyon had ordered that no one was to be allowed entrance, Christina naturally assumed he was the one waiting for her.
She was fighting mad when she stormed into the salon. “If you think you can …”
Her shout tapered off as soon as she saw the elderly woman sitting in the gold wing-back chair. “If I think what, my dear?” the woman asked, looking perplexed.
Christina was embarrassed by her outburst. The woman smiled at her then. Some of the awkwardness left her. Christina could tell the stranger was kind. There were laugh wrinkles around her eyes and her mouth. The top of her gray-haired bun was level with the top of the chair, indicating she was an extremely tall woman. She wasn’t very attractive. Her hooked nose took up a good portion of her face, and she had a slight yet noticeable line of hair above her thin upper lip. She was a heavy-bosomed woman with wide shoulders.
She seemed to be about the Countess’s age. “I do apologize for shouting at you, madam, but I believed you were Lyon,” Christina explained after making a low curtsy.
“How very bold of you, child.”
“Bold? I don’t understand,” Christina said.
“To raise your voice to my nephew. Proves you’ve got spirit,” the woman announced with a brisk nod. She motioned for Christina to sit down. “I’ve known Lyon since he was a little boy, and I’ve never had the courage to shout at him. Now, allow me to introduce myself,” she continued. “I’m Lyon’s aunt. Aunt Harriett, to be correct. I’m his father’s younger sister, you see, and since you’ll soon be the new Marchionness of Lyonwood, you might as well call me Aunt Harriett from the beginning. Are you ready to come home with me now, Christina, or do you need a little more time to prepare? I shall be happy to wait in here, if you could order me a spot of tea. My, it has gone warm again today, hasn’t it?” she asked.
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