by Gaelen Foley
She quickly discarded the hope of rushing past him, knowing he would catch her in his arms. She warded off a memory of what a pleasant place that was to be. She glanced around, but it appeared her only escape route was the ladder up to the hayloft. She dashed over to it, stepped onto the first rung, and began climbing.
“Daphne, what are you doing?” he asked in a long-suffering tone. “Come down from there.”
“Let go of me!” she shouted as he grasped her by the waist a second later.
He started to pluck her off the ladder, but she clung to the rails with a scowl, shoving him off with a firm, controlled donkey kick to his middle—not enough to hurt him—after all, she knew firsthand that his beautiful abdomen was carved from stone. Just enough to make him lose his grip.
The second he let go, she scrambled up the ladder, escaping into the loft.
At once, she knocked the ladder down so he could not follow. The nearest horses let out angry whinnies, spooked in their stalls as the ladder clattered onto the stable floor. Max cursed, jumping out of the way as it fell.
Ha.
Daphne immediately glanced around for another way down. If she could make it back down to the ground and run across the courtyard into the hotel, then the landlord and his wife would surely help her keep the handsome fiend at bay.
At the very least, she could lock herself in her room until he gave up and went home. With a twinge of guilt, she decided to make sure she hadn’t brained him with the falling ladder.
Heart pounding, she peered over the edge of the hayloft, then gasped to see he was alive and well, running to reach the next ladder down the aisle before she could use it to get down.
“Blast!” She bolted forward to try to beat him to it, but he was faster and won their race.
She stopped in her tracks as he vaulted up off the ladder into the hayloft with her, several feet ahead.
With a gleam in his eyes, Max knocked the other ladder down just as she had.
Her jaw dropped.
Now neither of them had any means of escape!
“Oh, brilliant, Rotherstone! Now how are we going to get down?” she exclaimed.
“We’re not,” he replied. “Not until we’ve settled this.”
“Would you two stop throwing ladders down?” one of the stable boys shouted. “You’re scaring the horses!”
“Give us a minute, lads!” His Lordship called back. “There’s a guinea in it for each of you if you leave those ladders down until I ask for them. My lady friend and I have got a small disagreement to work out.”
“There you go, throwing your gold around again,” she taunted, for a guinea was probably equal to at least a fortnight’s pay for them.
But she clenched her jaw and glared at Max when she heard the grooms’ low-toned conclusions as they murmured among themselves. “Knew she was some rich man’s ladybird.”
Max raised an eyebrow. “That will be all, gentlemen. Leave us alone for a while, will you?”
“Yes, sir!” they called back eagerly.
“Have at it,” one of them jested in a lower tone, rousing crude laughter out of his mates.
Daphne shook her head at Max, while below, the grooms scattered to allow them privacy.
It seemed pointless to protest this or to demand that one of the boys prop the ladder back up so she could get down, for the brooding look on Max’s chiseled face told her he would hunt her to the ends of the earth until he was satisfied.
It seemed her only option was to face her demon now.
He stalked toward her, tall, formidably muscular, all dressed in black, the strewn hay crackling under his leather boots. He stared at her intensely, the hard lines of his jaw and cheekbones softened slightly by the golden haze of dusty sunlight that angled into the loft from the rectangular opening cut into the front of the barn, where hay could be thrown down to the courtyard below.
“All I ask, Miss Starling, is that you take one moment and listen to me.”
“I’m rather sure I heard enough last night,” she replied as she folded her arms across her chest. “And don’t even try to sweet-talk me out of how I feel! I have a right to be angry. If you staked your oversized ego on conquering me, whose fault is that? Certainly not mine. Now you’re embarrassed in front of the ton? It’s all your own doing. You behaved last night like a wild beast, you know.”
“I know,” he conceded through gritted teeth. “That is why I’m here. To tell you that I am sorry.”
His apology took her off guard; she raised an eyebrow.
He heaved a sigh and halted his advance, holding her briefly in a tortured stare. “I hate myself for hurting you.”
She eyed him warily. “You’re sorry.”
“Yes.”
“Why should I believe you?” she countered, remaining on her guard, resisting mightily her weakness for him. “You’d say anything to get your way. You’ve already proved that. How do I know this isn’t just your latest strategy?”
“It’s the truth!” he ground out, then dropped his stare. “I am sorry. More than you will ever know. Do you think I don’t know what I’ve done, what I’ve ruined for both of us?”
Her heart quaked and her soul was beginning to hurt at the forlorn air around him, but she strove not to get drawn in again. “Very well.” She swallowed hard, lifted her chin. “I will accept your apology if that’s what it takes to make you go away.”
“Thank you,” he replied, lifting his head again. “But I’m afraid I am not leaving here without you.”
“What?”
“I promised your father I’d find you and bring you home safely.”
“Oh, did you, indeed?” she cried, a flush of renewed anger heating her cheeks. “The two of you, what a pair! Well, you can both go to the devil, because I’m not going anywhere with you, Lord Rotherstone. I’m not marrying you, and you will never have the right to tell me what to do!”
“Oh, Lord,” he muttered under his breath. He gave her a look of mingled pain and dry, defeated humor, and went and sat down wearily on a hay bale.
She stood trembling in high dudgeon, her nostrils flared.
“If you would listen, I’m trying to tell you there is no further need for you to run away, Miss Starling. You can quit this misadventure, and we can all go home.”
“Why is that?”
He looked at her sharply. “I’m done chasing you.” Then he lowered his head. “You win, Daphne. I have withdrawn my suit. I spoke to your father. We are going to work out his monetary problems—I’m sure it can easily be remedied—but the point is, you’re not involved anymore. I came personally to tell you so. Rest assured I am not here to capture you or win your hand. I’m only here out of concern for you, and because I promised your family I would find you and bring you home safely. After all,” he muttered, “it was my fault that you fled.”
It took her a long moment to absorb this revelation.
“So,” she said slowly, “you don’t want to marry me anymore?”
Though this was exactly what she had wanted last night when she had broken off their arranged betrothal, now that he had finally agreed to it, she felt a startling sense of disequilibrium.
“It’s not a matter of what I want,” he said with a world-weary sigh.
“Oh, right,” she answered skeptically, “I almost forgot. What you wanted in all this was never me in the first place, was it? I was merely the tool of your petty revenge on Albert.”
“You can believe that if you want to.”
“I see now why you couldn’t tell me the real reason you were pursuing me. All those pretty lies about why you had chosen me, out of all the girls in London, to be your marchioness.” She shook her head and fought the lump that rose in her throat. “I feel so stupid, Max, because, you know, I almost believed you.”
“And so you should!” He rose, anger flashing across his countenance. “Every reason I gave for my admiration of you was true.”
“Mm.”
“You’re going to b
elieve Albert’s words instead?” he demanded. “A man who’s been going around telling lies about you? You think he even knows what he’s talking about when it comes to how I feel?”
“You did not deny it.” Tears rushed into her eyes. “When he said there was a contest between you two regarding me, all you said in answer was ‘I can explain.’ That’s as good as a confirmation! Well, it makes sense to me!” she pursued at his look of frustration. “Your proposal came out of the blue from the start. Your main reasons for choosing me were cold and utilitarian and all about your own needs and desires, how I could be of use to you, and then when I saw how you shut me out the same way you did your sister—”
“What do you even care at this point?” he interrupted angrily. He ran his fingers through his dark hair as though striving for patience. “You were already in the middle of throwing me out of your life when Carew interrupted last night. I still don’t understand why. I thought everything was going fine between us!”
“Oh, you cannot truly believe that what you did to me in the parlor really settled anything!” she whispered with a blush at the recollection of his mouth all over her body.
He just looked at her, at a loss, and dropped his hands back down to his sides.
She shook her head, then pressed her fingertips to her brow, striving for patience. “Max—honestly. You would have fared much better with me from the start if you had tried being open, rather than all these tactics, all these games that you like playing with my mind!”
“I don’t play games—”
“Oh, yes, you do!” she thundered. “From the first time I saw you in Bucket Lane, you were working a ruse over those ruffians, pretending to be drunk—”
“To save your arse, my love!”
“Everything has to have an air of mystery. I can’t take it anymore!” she cried. “I have no idea how or what you feel for me, aside from lust! Why can’t you just be straightforward with me so I can be certain of where I stand with you? Max.” She reached out and cupped his face in her palm with frustrated affection in spite of herself. “I have always been inclined to like you.” That was putting it mildly. “But I never dared let my feelings run away with me, because I never fully felt that I could trust you.”
“You can trust me,” he whispered, laying his hand over hers where it still cradled his cheek. “I would do anything for you, Daphne.”
“Except risk exposing your heart,” she replied. “Now I know why. Because your motives for pursuing me in the first place had more to do with Albert than with me.”
“God, give me patience!” He pulled away from her and turned around, keeping his back to her for a moment.
Daphne stared at him, noting the angry set of his wide shoulders.
“Very well,” he growled after a moment. “You want the truth? I admit it.” He turned around slowly and met her stare in bristling wariness. “It’s true that my need for heirs started my search for a bride, and my family’s bad reputation forced me to seek some well-favored, highbred, Society debutante—creatures, who, as a rule, frankly, bore me to tears. When I first found out there was a suitable girl named Daphne Starling who had jilted my boyhood foe, I admit, I thought it might be…amusing to needle him a bit by indulging in, perhaps, a small flirtation with her. But, God, Daphne,” he whispered. “Then I saw you.”
She quivered at the intensity in his passionate gaze, and warned herself against the first signs of her weakening. When he looked at her like that, her knees went a bit wobbly.
He shook his head. “Everything changed from the first moment I laid eyes on you. It changed—in me. The more I learned about you…you shook me to the core.”
“Do not say that,” she warned him barely audibly, clinging by a thread to her resolve to despise him. “It’s too late. I don’t believe you. I know the lies you tell.”
“I swear to you by St. Michael, I’m telling the truth.”
She was frightened of getting drawn in again by his magnetic charm, and yet the whole loft resonated with the urgent sincerity of his words.
“I’m not just referring to your beauty,” he added with a pointed look. “I’ve known beautiful women before, but they were not like you. Nobody is. None of them could ever make me trust them.”
“You trust me?”
“I told you so the first day I came to your house.”
“Then why is it so hard for you to be more open with me?”
“I don’t know,” he said softly, shaking his head. “It’s just the way I’ve always been. All I know is you came and found me at the Edgecombe ball and you were the only person who cared if I left or stayed. You spoke to me and I found you…enchanting.” He stared at her, then lowered his gaze. “I had to leave that night, it’s true, but from that moment forward, I knew you were the woman for me. And every time we’ve been together since, my certainty of that has only grown stronger.” He paused. “I am not in the habit, Daphne, of wearing my heart on my sleeve, if you’ll pardon me. If the reasons I have given for wanting you have not rung true, as you say, that’s probably because what I feel for you scares the hell out of me.”
She did her best to absorb his words in wonder. “You, scared?” she murmured, still in doubt. He never seemed afraid of anything.
He nodded slowly. “I’ve been trying to give myself sane, logical reasons for this…obsession you’ve cast over me. Trying to tell myself it’s just a simple, practical match, for the sake of producing heirs. Nothing to be alarmed about. But that’s not the truth of how I feel.”
“How do you feel, Max?” she prompted in a soft tone.
For a long moment, he considered, as though peering gingerly into himself. “Lost. Daphne…this is not an easy feeling for a man who always knows exactly where he’s going.”
She felt tears beginning to sting the backs of her eyelids. She wanted to take him into her arms. He was such an expert at so many things, and so hopeless when it came to affairs of the heart. Clearly, he needed her.
“I’ve never experienced anything like this, and I’ve experienced a lot of things, believe me. But never this. Never…anything like you. You’re the first thing on my mind when I wake up in the morning and the last thought in my head before I fall asleep. Don’t misunderstand me, the lost feeling isn’t all misery,” he amended. “There is also, when I’m with you, a wonderful joy. If I fought for you too hard, Daphne, it’s only because I didn’t want to lose this, or lose you. I’ve never had this before, you see. You’ve opened up new doors in me that…Oh, God, I sound absolutely ridiculous.” He shut his eyes and turned away. “Would you just shoot me now and be done with it, please?”
“I don’t want to shoot you.” The tears she had been fighting now rose to blur her vision. “And I don’t think you sound ridiculous at all.” She sat down weakly on a nearby hay bale since her legs felt too shaky to hold her up much longer.
“Well.” Max opened his eyes and stood with his hands propped on his waist, his head down. “For some reason,” he said in a low and heavy tone, “I thought you were feeling the same way. But then last night, you told me we were through. I did not understand. I still don’t.” His shoulders lifted in a weary shrug. “I don’t know what else to do or say to win you. I’ve tried everything I know, and obviously, nothing’s worked. Last night, when I saw I was really losing you, I guess I lost control.”
“Well, Max, yes, but I saw how Albert kept trying to provoke you,” she offered cautiously. “We both know you could have done a great deal worse to all three of the Carew brothers, if you had wanted to.”
He shrugged, avoiding her gaze. “I promised you once that I’d never permit any man to insult you in my presence, which he did. All the same, I should have dealt with him later, not in front of you. Eh, enough of all this,” he declared, as though waving off the dangerous emotions that filled the air between them. “I am not making excuses. You were right to be rid of me, and that’s the end of it. I just wanted to say, mainly, that I am sorry for all the different way
s I’ve tried…to pressure you into doing what I want. What matters is what you want.” He took a deep breath and forged on bravely. “Whatever you decide for me, I will accept. If you just want a friend, that is what I’ll be. If you never want to speak to me again, I’ll stay away. If all you want is an attack dog to deal with any fool who might ever bother you, just let me know. I will respect your wishes no matter what you choose. Your happiness, Miss Starling, is my only remaining concern.”
Daphne could feel herself losing the battle not to cry. Her lips were quivering, and the tears now crowded into her eyes. It was time for one last, excruciating admission. She was frightened to say it, but let the chips fall where they may.
“Max, all I ever really wanted was to marry somebody who loves me for me. Is that so much to ask?”
“Not at all!” He was right in front of her in the next heartbeat, dropping to his knees before the hay bale where she sat. He took both her hands and stared earnestly into her eyes. “You still can.”
“Max.” She lowered her head. A pair of her tears fell on their joined hands.
He rested his forehead against hers and was silent for a moment, as though gathering his courage, in turn. “Daphne?”
“Yes?” She held her breath as she waited for him to speak.
“If I loved you for you,” he whispered, “would you love me for me? Not for my title, not for my gold. Knowing full well that I sometimes act like an evil bastard. Could you love someone like that?”
“Oh, Max,” she choked out, “I already do.”
He pulled back a small space to stare into her eyes with a stunned look. “You do?”
She nodded emphatically, stifling a sob. “That’s why I tried to end our match last night.”
He furrowed his brow. “I’m sorry, you tried to end our match because you love me?”
