“I won’t disturb my uncle when he is in his library unless the matter is dire.”
“I know you’re used to taking charge, Ainsley, but I must speak with him directly.”
The informal use of her name stunned her for a moment, the sound of it foreign to her own ears. He always called her Miss Bourne or, more recently, highness—both spoken with a degree of smugness. Using her given name was a breach of etiquette that suggested a mutual intimacy that was nearly as bold as . . . well . . . kissing her had been.
Heat flooded her cheeks. She fully intended to correct him, but he began toward the stairs without delay.
“Mr. Sterling, where do you think you’re going?”
“The library, of course.” He took the stairs two at a time, leaving her to storm after him in high dudgeon.
“Come back down here at once.”
He did not stop but continued in long, floor-eating strides.
Apparently having heard the commotion, Uncle Ernest came out of the library, a book in his grasp with his finger tucked inside to mark the page.
At the sight of his visitor, his brows lifted then quickly furrowed. “Mr. Sterling, what is the meaning of this? It is too late of an hour to pay a call.”
“Of that, your niece has so kindly informed me. However, the matter is of great importance and cannot be put off till morning.”
Ainsley expected that propriety would win out over this oddly dramatic exhibition. But instead her uncle scrutinized Reed’s countenance then summarily offered a nod.
“Very well,” he said, returning to the room and crossing to the sideboard. “May I pour you a glass of port? I have a sense that I am going to require one. Ainsley, I have no water to add, but would you care for a glass?”
She crossed her arms, maintaining her skepticism. “Thank you, no. For a matter of such great importance, I should prefer to remain sober.”
“As would I.” Reed declined with a brief halting gesture of his hand before he pressed it against his black coat, seeming to wipe dampness from his palms.
It was only then that Ainsley noticed the agitation in his movements, the shifting from one foot to the other, the extending of his neck as if his snow-white cravat were choking him.
Wait a moment . . . was he actually wearing a cravat?
She’d seen him thusly attired before, but it was only during the first months of their acquaintance. Since then, she’d only seen him without. Yet with this part of him concealed, she couldn’t seem to stop thinking about how accustomed she’d become to seeing the corded sinew of his throat, the bold jut of his Adam’s apple, the dark hair rising from the open neck of his shirt and how it felt beneath her fingertips . . .
All terrible thoughts to have, standing in a room with her uncle present.
Suddenly, her palms were damp and she had to wipe them against her skirts. “Mr. Sterling, please, don’t keep us in suspense. I’m sure the sooner we can be rid of each other the better.”
“Oh, Miss Bourne,” he said with a low, rueful laugh. “You are about to be thoroughly disappointed.”
Uncle Ernest settled carefully down onto the tufted chair by the fire, his hand curled around his port glass as if the spindled stem were a lifeline. “At your earliest convenience, sir.”
“Right. Straight to it.” Reed stiffened, shoulders back. “I have come here to take your niece as my wife.”
Ainsley gasped, the shock of his words taking ten years off her life. She must not have heard him correctly. Perhaps there was something in her ear like . . . like an elephant.
“Your—what?” And just in case she wasn’t clear in her confusion, she continued inanely. “What?”
She wasn’t certain how her uncle reacted because the room started to spin, growing dark and fuzzy. Listing slightly to one side she felt a familiar, solid wall of support beside her and a large hand molding to the inner dip of her lower back.
“Was that too abrupt, then?” Reed asked, his voice a teasing drawl in her ear. “Hmm, it seems so. Here, highness. You should sit down.”
“I don’t want to sit down.”
But as she said the words, she felt herself sinking into a chair, likely the empty one opposite her uncle. Then before she was fully oriented, the firm smoothness of a glass against her lips.
“Take a sip,” Reed urged gently. As she complied, his hand drifted to her nape, applying light pressure to the tautly wound sinew. “That’s better. It will fortify you for what is yet to come.”
There was more? Surely there could be nothing more outrageous than what he’d already said.
Drawing in a deep breath, she blinked. The darkness receded from the corners of her vision and the room slowed itself down, gradually wobbling to a halt like a spinning top left untended.
She watched Reed cross the room toward the escritoire to refill the glass. Then returning to her side, he paused to set the port on the wine table beside her uncle, who was studying him with a blank look.
Surely neither of them had heard correctly.
“Would you mind repeating yourself, Mr. Sterling?” she asked.
Reed cleared his throat, the flesh drawing taut with tension as one reacted when forced to swallow bitter medicine. “There was an incident which prompted my untimely visit. You see . . . Mr. Mitchum stole into Sterling’s this evening and created a spectacle.”
At once, her stomach dropped with dread. “What k-kind of spectacle?”
“A damning one,” he answered, not looking at her. “He made a comment about my presence here the other day, remarking on our betrothal. Without thinking, I confirmed it.”
Ainsley frowned. Something was missing from his story. She didn’t imagine Reed ever said or did things without thinking.
Uncle Ernest sat forward, abruptly alert, but with confusion still corrugating his brow. “What’s this about? Mr. Sterling has proposed before, and you agreed? You mentioned nothing of this.”
“Because it was merely a falsehood meant to discourage Mr. Mitchum from calling upon me again. I had no intention—then or now—of it ever coming true. Mr. Sterling will need to claim it was all a farce.”
She stared pointedly at Reed’s hard profile but he didn’t face her. He merely expelled a slow, patient breath as a tutor might to a child who did not understand her sums, keeping his focus on her uncle.
“The union would benefit us both, my lord. I could provide assistance to the agency and your family connections would elevate my position in society.”
“The agency doesn’t need your assistance,” Ainsley answered, fuming. “And since when do you care about your position in society? You don’t even like the aristocracy.”
Irritation gave support to her legs. She stood, crowding him until he finally looked at her, his jaw clenched.
“True enough, but I thought it’d be the proper thing to say, since you are forever harping on propriety.”
“I prefer that you keep to the truth.”
“I am.”
She scrutinized the set of his features coolly. Then a sudden swell of clarity swept through her and she realized what was happening.
She issued a huff of incredulity. “I see what this is about! Here you are, swaggering into our home, armed with the most ridiculous proposal, and it is only part of our ongoing war. Oh, you have retaliated most soundly, to be sure.”
“War?” Uncle Ernest asked.
Ainsley nodded stiffly. “Yes, indeed. All of this is a jest, Uncle. You see, I declared war on Mr. Sterling because . . . well . . . I had to do something to stop his business from keeping our clients away. So I’ve been trying to ruin him, or at least force him to put his palace of sin somewhere else in the city. In turn, he has been quite cunning in his own reprisal. Do you know what he did after my initial strike? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. He is positively diabolical!”
Oh, she couldn’t wait until he received his comeuppance with the servants’ dinner.
Her uncle’s brow furrowed in confusion. “You attacked
his business and his response was to do nothing, and you’ve concluded that it was a means of subterfuge?”
“Indeed, because by not doing anything, he made me believe he was going to do something. He even confessed as much, the other day when we were alone in my—”
Ainsley stopped, feeling a rush of heat fill her cheeks. Reed crossed his arms over his chest and arched a smug brow at her.
Having a point to make, she hastened on, smoothing her hands down her pale skirts in quick, restless motions. “Well, that’s not important. All that matters is that he will be leaving, now that I have discovered his true intent.”
“Is my niece correct, Mr. Sterling?”
He inclined his head and she nearly expelled a breath of relief.
But then he spoke. “Every part, except the reason for this visit. What I said when I arrived is what transpired moments ago.”
Ainsley frowned. He was playing a terrible trick. He had to be.
Uncle Ernest didn’t seem to share her skepticism. Nodding contemplatively, he asked Reed, “And how do you feel about marriage?”
Ah-ha, she thought. This was the moment Reed Sterling—a man who vocally abhorred the notion of a sanctified union—would have to own up to his joke.
“I’m not averse to it,” he said easily.
Ainsley sputtered. “That is a blatant falsehood! You are forever mocking this agency and its purpose.”
“As I’ve said before, I just think a man should find his own woman.”
“And drag her back to his cave, I suppose,” she muttered under her breath, seething at the way the corner of his mouth twitched.
“Ah, so you are a romantic, then,” her uncle said with a pleased smile. “I always suspected as much, what with the way you pay attention to every small detail at your club. A man has to have passion inside him for that.”
“Uncle! Have you been to Sterling’s?”
“Mmm . . . once or twice.” He slid Reed a hesitant glance as if a secret were being passed between them. “I’ve been very fortunate at faro when Mr. Sterling deals the cards.”
Ainsley rounded on Reed, pointing her finger. “You should have told me.”
“Harmless fun, highness. I’d hardly beggar the uncle of my betrothed.” The cad had the nerve to wink and her traitorous pulse hitched.
“We are not betrothed,” she said in a flustered rush, the room unbearably hot all of a sudden. “And you are merely attempting to sidestep the accusation of your wrongdoing and, furthermore—”
“I had a sense there would be more. With you, there always is.”
“—and furthermore,” she repeated hotly, “if I were to ever marry, I would choose a gentleman who gave me the respect of requesting my hand because—as far as I am aware—it is still my hand, attached to my person, and therefore my right to give it if I so choose.”
His grin faded. “That wasn’t possible in this circumstance. Your name was tangled up with mine and there was no other way.”
The conversation had now circled around to the beginning. They squared off, the air charged with frustration and conflicting perspectives.
Uncle Ernest, on the other hand, calmly sipped his port. He regarded her and Reed over the rim, then lowered the glass to the table. “Do you love my niece?”
Ainsley gasped, embarrassed. “Uncle, that is a most ludicrous—”
“I’d protect her, my lord,” Reed said with all the emotion of a man awaiting the barber to extract a tooth. “And I’d keep her in a manner in which she is accustomed.”
Then, like a strange dream from which she could not awaken, Uncle Ernest stood and extended his hand.
Reed shook it.
“Just one moment”—Ainsley wagged her finger at both of them—“you’re speaking as if the decision has been made.”
“Of course, my niece will have the final word, but I offer no argument.” To make matters worse, her uncle continued as if he’d already predicted what decision she would make. “The banns will have to be read this Sunday to quiet rumors, I imagine. Will you sit with us at church?”
“Whatever must be done,” Reed replied.
“Good then. And afterward we’ll retire here and speak of contracts.”
“That is amenable. However, I want none of her dowry. Whatever monies and properties she has, she may keep for herself and use in any frivolous manner of her choosing.”
“Very generous of you, my good sir. Isn’t it, my dear?”
Ainsley didn’t bother to speak. None of the words on her tongue were appropriate in front of her uncle, regardless. She merely glared at Reed Sterling, eyes burning with the hateful heat of a thousand suns.
So, in this farce, he would permit her to keep her dowry, would he? Quite generous, indeed. Even more amusing was the fact that she didn’t have a farthing left of the original immense fortune of two hundred pounds. She’d frivolously given it all to debt collectors!
“Well,” Uncle Ernest continued, clearing his throat. “I imagine the two of you have a good deal to talk about so I’ll leave you to it. Good evening, Mr. Sterling.”
“And to you, my lord.”
While they were busy becoming the best of friends, Ainsley took her uncle’s forgotten port to the escritoire. She needed distance between herself and the man she very much wished to murder.
Carefully, she poured the dark liquid back into the decanter—a surprising feat considering how she ought to be trembling with impotent rage. For the most part, her hands were steady. It was her mind that was quaking from this abominable turn of events. None of this was true. It couldn’t be.
Behind her, she heard her uncle depart but knew that Reed was still there. Every fine hair on her nape and forearms seemed attuned to the palpable way he dominated the space.
“What exactly did Mr. Mitchum say that made you announce our betrothal without thinking?” she asked, not turning around. Instead she withdrew a handkerchief from her sleeve and dabbed at the crimson droplets that lingered on the rim of the glass and the neck of the decanter.
“It was more”—Reed hesitated—“the way in which he said it.”
A cold chill tumbled through Ainsley.
Her stubborn refusal to believe him started to waver. She didn’t want any of it to be true, but logic told her that Reed wasn’t the type of man to craft such an elaborate falsehood. No matter how much she wished it in this circumstance. And perhaps that was at the root of it all. She didn’t want to believe him because she was afraid to.
“Nigel always had a way of twisting things to suit his own purpose,” she said quietly. “But I should like to hear the words, nonetheless.”
Another pause came, this one even more alarming than the first.
Reed drew in a deep breath. “He intimated that you were . . . not chaste.”
Ainsley closed her eyes. She could explain to Reed that her chastity had escaped intact by a hair’s breadth, but it didn’t truly matter. Her innocence had been lost that day all the same. “And how many people bore witness to this claim?”
“Enough.”
At once, she felt exposed and vulnerable, as if every person at Sterling’s this evening had been crowded into that tiny parlor and stood watching as she’d struggled to breathe from the force of Nigel’s arm across her throat, leering at her bare legs as he wrenched her skirts higher.
Her hand shook as she splayed it protectively over her fichu. Beneath it, her lungs shuddered, a raw breath catching in her throat where an aquifer of tears waited, threatening to humiliate her further.
How would she ever recover? How would the agency?
“We’ll make it right,” Reed said, coming up behind her.
She turned and looked up at him with wide, wary eyes. “I don’t know why you, of all people, thought to . . .”
“What? Tether myself to a prickly woman who wishes we’d never met?”
Ainsley nodded. But she was actually wondering why her enemy would go to such lengths to save her reputation. And this wasn’t
even the first time.
“I suppose it was better than hanging for his murder,” he said with a shrug, his expression not unkind. He was making light of it. Yet there was an edge of grave sincerity in his voice that almost brought out those tears.
Slowly, he moved closer, a comforting heat rising from his body. She didn’t even realize she was cold until then. A shiver coursed through her, chilling her all the way to her bones and, like a moth to a flame, she inched nearer to his warmth.
Then, as if it was the most natural thing in the world, he folded his arms around her.
For the sake of pride, she stiffened, fighting a sudden desire to burrow into him. “I did not give you leave to hold me.”
“Didn’t you?”
Gently, he tucked her in so that her cheek lay against his solid chest. Then his large, careful hands swept methodically over her back, lulling her into a strange sort of contentment.
Ainsley wasn’t certain what to do, and so went still. This was unfamiliar territory. She was never one who sought an embrace. More often than not, she was the one who gave them. She’d held her weeping mother in her arms and also her sisters whenever they needed a shoulder to cry upon. But it had not seemed right for her to have done the same. She was the strong one, after all.
Yet, as she listened to the sure and steady beats of Reed Sterling’s heart, she realized that she might have gone her entire life without knowing how splendid it felt to be held. Nothing more than a pair of strong arms offering a sense of security, without asking anything from her.
Well . . . other than my hand in marriage and the rest of my life, she thought wryly.
It still didn’t seem real to her. Reed had offered up his own name for the sake of her own?
Surely, a man known for vice and virility would do himself no favors by claiming an attachment to the prudish spinster next door. So why had he done it?
She was too overwhelmed by all the events of the evening to formulate an answer. “You didn’t have to protect my honor. I could have dealt with the ramifications on my own.”
He didn’t respond, but she felt the slow, hot press of something against the top of her head. A kiss?
The Rogue to Ruin Page 16
