What Price Love?

by Stephanie Laurens

  Before she could ask where he was taking her, he snapped, “The parlor, remember?”

  She swallowed, trying to ease her heart down into its proper place. Desperately she tried to marshal her wits, but…she’d never expected this. She’d all but forgotten he knew her as Miss Priscilla Dalling—that although he knew her in every sense that counted, she hadn’t corrected that long-ago lie.

  Hauling her down a distant corridor, taking her far from the ballroom, he threw open a door, stormed in, whisked her through, then, releasing her, slammed the door shut.

  Pris swung to face him. This was definitely not how she’d intended to say good-bye.

  But what she saw in his eyes, intent and fixed on her, erased every thought from her head.

  “Lady Priscilla Dalloway—have I finally got that right?”

  He took a step—a distinctly menacing step—toward her; she promptly took a step back. She nodded.

  “An earl’s daughter.”

  “Yes.” It hadn’t been a question, but, lifting her chin, she answered anyway; hearing her own voice rather than just his roaring, growling one helped.

  He continued to advance as she retreated. The word that leapt to her mind was panther—or was it a jaguar she meant? Whichever was more lethal, that’s the one she meant.

  That was what he reminded her of as he stalked her across the room, his dark eyes burning with an unholy fury—a temper she fully understood, but had absolutely no clue how to assuage.

  “I…” She bit her lip; the words that came to her tongue were so pitiful.

  “Forgot who you were?”

  His tone pricked her on the raw. She halted, tipped her chin higher as he drew nearer, and narrowed her eyes at him. “Yes, as it happens. In a manner of speaking, I did.”

  Her temper swelled; she welcomed it, let it fill her. Let it give her the strength to meet him eye to eye. “When we first met, there was no reason you needed to know my real name, and Dalling—it’s a name Rus and I use when there’s reason to keep the family name apart from whatever’s going on. Naturally, I used it when we first met. Afterward…”

  His smile held no humor. “Do let’s get to afterward.”

  Leaning forward, she returned that smile with interest. “Afterward, it didn’t matter. Yes, I forgot about it—because my name is not who I am. It’s just a name, and me by any name is the same person! So yes, I forgot—and so forgot to correct what you knew. So I apologize for the shock you just had to endure, but as for anything else…”

  Her voice had risen, gaining in strength. Flinging out her arms, she held his gaze, her own now scorching. “This is me. Pris. Whether it’s Dalling or Dalloway, whether there’s a lady in front of it, what the devil difference does it make?

  “Why on earth should my being an earl’s daughter make any difference to us? To what happened, or where we are now? It certainly doesn’t change what’s to come.”

  Dillon looked into her face, all blazing eyes and unwavering certainty—and realized she’d just told him all he wanted to know. Her name, her title, didn’t matter; she would marry him anyway. Good. Because he was definitely marrying her, and the sooner the better.

  There was no reason he couldn’t offer for an earl’s daughter. His family was one of the oldest in the haut ton, connected to several of the principal families. His estate might be described as tidy, but his private fortune was immense, and his status as one of the select few elected to govern the sport of kings, a status their recent triumph had only elevated, ensured that Lord Kentland would have no reason to refuse his suit.

  “Marry me.”

  She blinked. Then, lips parting, she stared at him, her emerald eyes growing wide, then even wider. “Wh-what? What did you say?”

  His jaw clenched; he spoke through gritted teeth. “I said: marry me. You heard me perfectly well.”

  She drew back. Looked at him as if he were the strangest specimen of manhood she’d yet encountered, but then, as he watched, suspicion, then wariness, flooded her eyes. She drew a breath; her voice wobbled as she asked, “Why?”

  “Why?” A host of answers flooded his incredulous brain. Because if she didn’t, soon, he’d go insane? Because he needed her in his life and she needed him? Because it was obvious? Because they’d been intimate and she might be carrying his child…the thought made him weak-kneed.

  Very definitely weak-brained. “Because I want you to.”

  Before she could demand “why?” to that, too, he leaned closer, bringing his face level with hers. “And you want to, too.”

  He was one hundred percent sure of that.

  To his astonishment, she paled. Her lips set, as did her expression. “No, I don’t.” She bit the words off.

  It was his turn to stare. Equally disbelieving. Equally astounded.

  Before he could say anything—before he could argue and press—Pris held up a restraining hand. Temper and sorrow, hurt and anger were a powerful mix, roiling and boiling and rising inside her. “Let’s see if I have this right.”

  From the sudden hardening of his expression, she knew her eyes had flashed, that soaring emotion had again set them alight. She pointed toward the ballroom. “Ten minutes ago, a pleasant evening—our last evening together—was drawing to a civilized close. We were about to part amicably and, with fond farewells and Godspeeds, go our separate ways.” She folded her arms; chin high, she kept her eyes on his. “But then you learned I’m an earl’s daughter—that the young lady you’ve been dallying intimately with is a nobleman’s daughter—and you suddenly perceive that we need to marry.”

  She gave him only an instant to absorb that summation before stating unequivocally, “No. I don’t agree! I will never agree to marry because society deems it necessary.”

  There was so much anger surging beneath her words they wavered, but it was the sorrow swirling through her that shook her to her core. She dragged in a breath and went on, clinging to her temper, drawing on its strength. “I knew what I was doing from the first—I never imagined marriage was any part of our arrangement, because it wasn’t, as you and I both know. What we had was an affair, a succession of mutually agreed interludes. There was a reason for the first. And the second, if you recall. The rest came about because we both wished them to.”

  His face had turned stony, a set of hard angles and unforgiving planes in which his eyes burned. “Do you seriously imagine—”

  “What I know is that you didn’t seduce me—I seduced you.” She gave him back glare for glare. “Do you seriously imagine I did that so that now you would feel obliged to marry me? That I did what I did—dallied intimately with you—in order to trap you into offering for my hand?”

  Hurt fury laced her voice as she gave her temper free rein. Better that than any of the other emotions coursing through her.

  Confused exasperation disrupted the intensity of his dark gaze. “I never said…” He frowned, scowled. “That wasn’t how it was.”

  “Yes, it was!” Her voice had grown shrill; she was close to crying with the frustration and futility of it all—the sad irony of fate. Until he’d said the words, raised the specter, she’d been able to ignore it, pretend it didn’t exist—convince herself that she didn’t want to marry him, that dalliance and experience were all she’d ever wanted. That they were enough.

  But now he’d said the fateful words—for all the wrong reasons. For the worst of wrong reasons. And in doing so he’d raised the prospect and she could no longer hide from the truth. Marrying him, being his wife, was the dream she hadn’t allowed herself to acknowledge, the one she’d pretended she hadn’t had.

  There was no way to turn back the clock, to start again as if they were simply gentleman and lady, to ignore the reality of what had passed between them over recent weeks.

  No way for them to marry without knowing that it was not love but social dictates that had brought them to it.

  And that was something she would never accept.

  Especially not with him. Better than
anyone, she knew it was impossible to trap a wild soul without harming it.

  She held his gaze, clung to her composure, tilted her chin. “Regardless, I have absolutely no interest in forcing you to marry me. Indeed, I’m no longer sure I have any interest in marrying at all.”

  He stared at her, still scowling, then exhaled through his teeth. Lifting one hand, he raked it through his hair.

  She seized the moment; she couldn’t bear to stand there and argue, not when it felt like every word, every phrase, was another stone hitting her heart. “I wish you every success in your future endeavors.” Ducking around him, she rushed to the door. “And I hope—” Pausing with her hand on the knob, she looked back.

  He’d spun around and now stared at her, an absolutely stunned, totally incredulous look on his face.

  She stared back for an instant, drinking in her last sight of his dramatic male beauty, then hauled in a quick breath. “I hope you have a fulfilling life.”

  Without me.

  His expression changed; she didn’t wait to see to what. Opening the door, she rushed out; shutting it behind her, she picked up her skirts and ran toward the ballroom.

  Behind her, she heard a bellow, then he opened the door—called “Pris! Damn it—come back!”—but then she turned a corner, and heard no more.

  In the doorway to the parlor, Dillon stared down the corridor, but she didn’t reappear. For a long moment, he just stood there. It was the—what? third time?—she’d left him feeling like she’d taken a plank to his head.

  Turning back into the room, he shut the door. Frowning, he crossed to the well-padded sofa and slumped down on it. And tried to sort out his feelings.

  That she didn’t want him feeling forced to marry her was all well and good, but that she’d never at any time thought of marrying him…

  He wasn’t sure what to do with that—couldn’t see how it fitted with what he’d thought was going on, with what he’d thought had grown between them. Until she’d said that, he would have sworn that she was…as emotionally enmeshed with him as he was with her.

  Yet when he’d tried to correct her view that marriage hadn’t been any part of their arrangement, she’d been adamant. Clearly, it hadn’t been in her mind, even if it had, from the first, been in his. And she’d just as clearly been planning to bid him a fond farewell—affectionate, perhaps, but she’d made it clear her heart wasn’t involved. Hadn’t been touched.

  Unlike his.

  He was suddenly very aware of that organ constricting. Leaning his head against the sofa back, he looked up at the ceiling, and swore.

  And heard a rustle behind him, and a familiar little “Humph!”

  Swinging around, up on one knee, he peered over the back of the sofa. And goggled. “Prue!”

  She looked up at him; not one whit discomposed, she wrinkled her nose, and got to her feet.

  “What the devil are you doing there?”

  Calmly smoothing down her robe, she cinched it tight. “My bedchamber is above the ballroom. Mama and Papa said if it got too loud, I could come down here and read or sleep.”

  Sinking back onto the sofa, Dillon realized all the lamps had been lit.

  “I was reading.” A book in her hand, Prue climbed into one of the armchairs by the fire. “Then I heard someone coming, so I hid.”

  Rapidly reviewing all she must have heard, Dillon narrowed his eyes at her. “You hid so you could eavesdrop.”

  She looked superior. “I thought it might be instructive.” Her blue eyes—bluer than her father’s, sharper than her mother’s—fixed on his face. “It was. That will probably be the poorest attempt at a proposal I’ll ever hear.” She frowned. “At least, I hope it will be.”

  He spoke through his teeth in his most menacing voice, “You will forget everything you heard.”

  She sniffed. “All that gammon about you offering for her hand because you’d found out she was an earl’s daughter. I can’t see what else you expected. She was quite restrained, I thought, at least for her. She has a fabulous temper, hasn’t she?”

  Dillon ground his teeth. He remembered the emotions lighting Pris’s eyes—temper, yes, but also something else, something that had bothered him, distracted him, and slowed him down. “That wasn’t why I proposed.”

  The words had slipped out, a statement of fact, more to himself than anyone else. Realizing he’d spoken aloud, he glanced up and found Prue watching him, a pitying light in her eyes.

  “It’s what she thinks that matters, and she thinks you offered because you feel obliged to. She asked why, and you let her think that, more fool you.”

  “It wasn’t only that.”

  “No, indeed. One minute you’re roaring at her—you did realize you were roaring, didn’t you? Then you don’t ask, but tell her—order her—to marry you. Huh! In her shoes, I would have sent you to the right about, too.”

  Dillon stared at Prue, at her direct, scathingly unimpressed expression, for a full minute, then, jaw setting, he hauled himself to his feet and headed for the door.

  “Where are you going?”

  Hand on the door knob, he looked back to see Prue opening her book. She looked at him inquiringly. He met her gaze, and smiled dangerously. “I’m going to find her, drag her off somewhere where there will be no one listening, and explain the truth to her in simple language impossible to misconstrue.”

  Hauling open the door, he went out and shut it with a definite click.

  18

  The following afternoon, a mix of frustration, exasperation, and uncertainty riding him, Dillon turned his blacks into the Carisbrook house drive, not at all sure what he would face when he finally ran Pris to earth, or what he would do when he did.

  Last night he’d returned to the ballroom only to discover her nowhere in sight. He’d eventually found Humphries, Demon’s butler, and learned that Lord Kentland’s party had left some ten minutes before, Lady Priscilla having been taken unwell.

  In his mind he’d heard one of Prue’s unimpressed snorts, but Pris running away had left him uneasy. If she’d been defiantly angry, she would have stayed and flirted with every gentleman willing to fall victim to her charms; there’d been enough of those present to have made her point.

  Instead…if she’d pleaded illness and run, she must have been upset.

  That was what had distracted him in the parlor—the hurt he’d glimpsed in her eyes. She distracted him in any case, but her being hurt in any way what ever was the ultimate in distraction. His mind seemed instantly to realign, to focus on finding what had upset her and eradicating it. Even if it was him.

  According to Prue, Pris believed he’d offered for her only from a sense of moral obligation. Tooling his curricle on, he frowned. Regardless of her view of things, moral obligation did play a part—or would have if he hadn’t already intended to marry her.

  He was what he was; honor was a part of his character, not something he could deny, could pretend didn’t matter. He might also be reckless and wild, but that didn’t preclude him behaving honorably. Nevertheless, in this instance, honor and moral obligation were entirely by the by; they weren’t why he wanted to marry her.

  A long night of thinking—easy enough when tossing and turning alone in his bed—had forced him to concede that he’d made a mistake, a major one, in even for an instant allowing Pris to think that moral obligation had played any role what ever in prompting his proposal. In even for a heartbeat contemplating using that to hide his real reason.

  He’d been a fool for all of ten seconds—far less than a minute—and look where it had landed him.

  Prue, he was certain, would, with withering scorn, point out the implication.

  Which was why he was looking for Pris, prepared and determined to make a clean breast of it regardless of his sensibilities. He’d tried to think of words, to rehearse useful phases; horrified by what his mind had suggested, he’d stopped, and given up.

  Sufficient unto the moment the evil thereof, the words he might be
forced to utter. Dwelling on them ahead of time wasn’t helpful.

  Especially as, lurking around his heart, was a cold and murky cloud of uncertainty. What if he’d been wrong? What if, regardless of all he’d thought they’d shared, she truly viewed him as nothing more than her first fling? As her first lover only, not her last?

  The cold cloud intensified; he pushed the thought away. The house neared; he checked his team, then guided them into the stable yard.

  Patrick came out of the stable. He nodded and walked to where Dillon halted the curricle. “Morning, sir. If you’re looking for Lady Pris, I’m afraid you’re too late. They left after an early lunch.”

  He managed to keep his expression impassive, to not let any of the shock he felt show. “I see.” After a blank moment, he had no choice but to ask, “Left for where?” Ireland?

  “Why, up to London.” Moving to the restive horses’ heads, Patrick glanced at him. “I thought Mrs. Cynster would have told you.”

  Dillon blinked. What did Flick have to do with this? “I…haven’t caught up with my cousin after the ball.”

  But he would. She’d kissed his cheek and sent him off last night—and had said not a word about Pris and her family fleeing to the capital.

  “Aye, well, they were going to stay at Grillons, but Mrs. Cynster said she was just itching for an excuse to go up to town.” Patrick was admiring the horses, stroking their long noses. “She invited the whole party—Lord Kentland, Lady Fowles, Miss Adelaide, Lady Priscilla, and Lord Russell—to stay at her house in town. In Half Moon Street, it is.”

  Dillon nodded. He usually stayed there when he went to London.

  Patrick nodded at the house. “I’m just seeing things packed up here, then I’ll be following. Lady Pris was keen to get off as soon as they could.”

  Dillon met Patrick’s eyes, wondered how much he’d guessed. “I see.”

  “Seemed a trifle under the weather, she did, but hell-bent on getting on the road and away.”

  Dillon inwardly frowned. She was running, still. A question he hadn’t asked himself before swam into his mind. If she was running, she was upset. But why was she upset?