He pulled a handkerchief from his pocket. "I'll bind it, and we'll see if you can walk." He leaned over and dabbled the square of pristine white linen in the fast-running shallow water.
"You should be more careful," he chided over his shoulder. "You might have fallen in the stream."
"I know," she managed to reply, unable to do more than gaze at the fascinating contrast of jet hair curling over a stark white collar. Her pulse seemed to skitter.
"Perhaps this will help." He wrapped the soppingwet square of white cotton around her foot. It felt deliciously cool on her heated skin. His knuckles brushed her calf as he knotted the fabric.
She inhaled a quick breath.
He glanced up sharply, removing his hand as if stung. "Did that hurt?"
She shook her head. "It feels wonderful." She felt heat rush from her breasts all the way up her neck to her face. "I mean the cloth." Oh darn it, now that sounded wrong.
His gaze dropped to her feet and a small smile played around his lips. "You have nice ankles. You should take care better care of them."
He thought she had nice ankles? Her blood ran cold then hot again. "I will. Look after them, I mean."
A faint color stained his lean cheeks. He glanced away and rose to his full height. My word, he'd grown tall, all broad shoulders and narrow hips, while in the eight months since he'd been away, she'd grown nothing but rounder.
She flipped her skirt over her feet.
He reached out a hand and pulled her to her feet. "I came to see if you wanted to go riding tomorrow, but it seems as if you will be confined to a couch for a while."
Just her luck.
"Can you walk?" he asked.
She took a tentative step. Pain shot up her leg. "Ouch." She would have fallen had he not caught her around the waist.
Tears blurred her vision. Suddenly, she was airborne, his heart thudding against her ear. "Lucas, no," she cried. "I'm too heavy."
"Rubbish. I could carry you all the way home." Brave words. For all that, he sounded a little breathless as he climbed over the tussocks to the roadside.
Caro clung to Lucas's neck. He had said she had nice ankles. No one ever noticed anything about her apart from her overlarge bosom.
His chestnut mare regarded them with interest as they approached. "Do you think you can climb up on Beauty with my help, and I'll walk you home?" he asked, his black eyes smiling down at her, teasing, but kind.
Much too kind to cause her any real damage. She lifted her chin." Very well, Foxhaven, let us go downstairs and get it over with."
His amusement faded. In one long stride, he faced her toe to toe. He loomed over her, reminding her of his height and strength and width. "Devil take it, Caro. Why are you being so stubborn?"
The heat of his body encompassed her like a warm blanket. Eager trembles quaked in her chest. If only he really did want to marry her. "Please, Foxhaven, stop this farce. We are friends. Nothing more."
His hands dropped to her shoulders. Her stomach rolled over and her limbs developed the consistency of porridge cooked to perfection, not a single lump to hold her up.
One leather-gloved finger lifted her chin. She smothered a quick in-drawn breath at the sheer male beauty of his starkly modeled features. She forgot to breathe out.
His eyelids lowered a fraction. For one incredible heart-stopping moment, she thought he would kiss her.
"What would it take, Caro?" he asked.
She let go her breath. "Nothing will make me change my mind." The words scoured her throat.
It was so easy to deny his attraction when he wasn't standing right in front of her. She'd laughed at his exploits as reported by all the local gossips and congratulated herself on a narrow escape, even as she buried lost girlish dreams beneath calm good sense. Now her heart ached.
She jerked free of his grasp and stumbled the few short steps to the window.
"Bloody hell." Incredulity edged his voice. "Are you scared of me?"
Terrified she'd give in. He'd break her heart. Again. "Of course not."
He shook his head, sauntered to the chair and dropped into it. His long body seemed perfectly at ease, but beneath the studied indolence she sensed barely leashed tension. It crackled the air she breathed.
"You won't leave this room until I have your promise to wed." The deep timbre of his voice brushed her skin like the nap of finest velvet, seducing her will.
She clenched her arms around her waist. He didn't want to marry her. He never had. Tonight must be some sort of horrid prank, perhaps a bet with his rakish friends. She'd heard of such goings on in London, she just hadn't thought he'd try them on her. Unlike the Grantham boys when they were children, he had never stooped to ridicule. When she couldn't keep up during their marches across the fields, the triplets called her dumpling. He simply put her on guard duty. Perhaps he really had changed for the worst.
She flicked a glance at the door, measuring the distance.
"Don't think about making a run for it, my dear," he drawled. His voice dropped to a murmur and a wicked smile lifted one corner of his mouth. "You'd never make it through the door."
She gritted her teeth against his mocking tone. Not even the heir to an earldom could force her to marry. Her current spinster state proved it. She narrowed her eyes, trying to see past his cynical mask. "Why are you doing this?"
"For our families' sake?"
"Their wishes didn't seem to trouble you the last time you asked. I would swear you were relieved when I refused you."
He grimaced. "I wasn't ready to settle down."
"Has something changed?" She managed some mockery of her own.
He slouched deeper in the chair. "My father will cut off my allowance if I can't persuade you to see reason by month's end."
She blinked. "What?"
He shook his head. "Sordid, is it not? I didn't think it mattered what he wanted, because my grandmother died and left me a tidy sum along with a property in Scotland. Somehow Father managed to convince her to change her will and tie the cash to my marrying according to his wishes." Regret filled his expression, softening his angled jaw. "It really is the very deuce."
He shifted in the chair, his gaze drifting over her shoulder as if he couldn't stand to look at her. And who would blame him, when she looked a worse fright even than usual? She just hadn't expected any of the guests to show their faces in the kitchen.
His glance flitted back to her face. He raised his right hand and tapped his lips with his forefinger. Once. Twice. He winked his right eye.
Their old signal for "come to my aid"? One of many coded messages they'd devised as children. She must be mistaken. She stared at him.
Again, two taps and a wink.
Disbelief clogged her throat. "No." She shook her head. "Lucas, you cannot play childish games about something as important as our futures"
"Caro, I've got to have that money." He sounded desperate.
Desperate enough to marry a roly-poly, bespectacled female. "Debts?" she hazarded.
"Something of the sort. Obligations."
Gambling debts, no doubt, like so many other young men loosed on the Town. The newspapers were full of them. And so were the debtor's prisons. It chilled her to think of so vibrant a man, her friend, locked inside dank stone walls.
No. She must not let him impose on her. She had her own responsibilities. "There must be hundreds of suitable females anxious to marry you."
He grimaced. "Not quite hundreds. A few perhaps."
"Then why does your father insist upon me?"
"He thinks you will act as a steadying influence, a vicar's daughter and all that." The expression on his face said she'd better not try anything of the sort. "He's ruining my life."
"Your life? What about mine?"
Head cocked to one side, he gave her a considering look. Another wild scheme being born in his razor-sharp brain, no doubt. She steeled herself for an argument.
"Why not make it a business arrangement?" he asked.
"That is
what it is."
"Not the arrangement dreamed up by our fathers. Something to suit us."
It suited her to head down the backstairs before anyone caught her in here with him. She moved away from the window. "What kind of something?"
His brow lightened. "Neither of us wants to get married. Why not wed in name only?" He leaned forward, forearms on his thighs, dark gaze intent. "We will continue as friends, as always. No marital duties. You know, children and that sort of thing."
She might be the daughter of a gentleman vicar, but she had some idea of the duties he meant. Disappointment left her feeling empty, but unsurprised. She didn't have the kind of attributes to attract a man of his ilk. She shook her head. "No."
"If you won't do it for yourself, consider your sisters."
"You would do well to leave my sisters out of your machinations. It is bad enough that I am involved."
"You won't need to wash dishes for a living." He flashed a breathtaking smile, all seduction and even white teeth.
She became suitably breathless. "I'm not doing it for a living. I'm helping Lizzie."
Dark eyebrows rose in disbelief.
She let go a small sigh. "I couldn't pay her wages this month, but she wouldn't hear of getting another position. When Grantham's butler put the word out in the village for extra help this evening, she took the job with her sister. When Nell became ill I offered to take her place so Lizzie would not lose the money."
"Where is Lizzie?"
"She's helping in the ladies' withdrawing room. I agreed to wash dishes, where I expected no one would see me."
"Together we can make these problems go away."
"I prefer them to the sort of fraud you propose. What would your father say?"
"He won't know unless you tell him. Think about it. Neither of us will have to worry about finances again." He cast her a sly glance. "What will you do when the new vicar arrives? Where will you live?"
He'd spotted her weakness, of course. Now he would pick away at her defenses until she raised a white flag. Defeat stared her in the face. "I have ideas."
"Surely there's something you want, something you need for yourself?"
She had a whole well of unfulfilled desires, but what she wanted meant nothing if it didn't help her sisters. "A season in Town?"
His eyes widened. He seemed to have trouble replying.
Heat rushed to her face. She ran shaking fingers down her stiff bombazine skirts. Idiot. He meant he wanted to buy her something. If he took her to London, he'd have to introduce her to his friends as his wife. He'd be far too ashamed. Perhaps she'd found the perfect way to hold him at bay after all.
"Very well. If that is what you want," he said in rush as if afraid she'd change her mind.
She stared at him in wide-eyed astonishment. "You do realize I will need you to escort me to balls and routs? My sisters will need a knowledge able chaperone when it is their turn to come out." She took a deep breath. "And they will each need a dowry."
He nodded, albeit a little stiffly. "I understand perfectly. Is it yes?"
She nibbled at her top lip. Since a married lady didn't need to attract young men to dance and flirt, she might actually enjoy herself. She'd certainly never have another chance to marry and this might well be her one opportunity to see something of the world beyond Norwich. She could visit the theater, see the Tower, and perhaps catch a glimpse of the royal wedding. The newspapers touted Princess Charlotte and Prince Leopold as a fairy tale couple. A long time ago she had believed in fairy tales and happy endings. "If we married, I could do just as I please?"
A frown creased his brow. "Within reason." His expression cleared. "We both could. You know, once my inheritance is sewn up, we could end it whenever it suits us. I would ensure you and your sisters were financially secure, of course."
Her head spun. "A divorce, you mean?"
"If we marry in Scotland it can be arranged, 'though it wouldn't be entirely free of scandal."
She frowned. Was this another of his tricks to bend her to his will? "Are you sure?"
A shadow of something akin to pain flickered in his eyes. She put it down to a trick of the uncertain torchlight when he curled his lip in sardonic amusement. "I didn't entirely waste my time at university, you know. What do you say? Is it a bargain? We certainly got on well enough before they threw this wedding nonsense in our paths."
"You did," she muttered, refusing to think about happier times.
She rubbed her chilly arms and turned to the window, vaguely aware of the torches twinkling along the crenulated courtyard wall. A bargain? He was proposing a convenient financial arrangement to end in shameful divorce. It sounded so cold and so daunting, particularly the part about the divorce. Her father would have been horrified. Her stomach roiled. A strange weight pressed down on her chest, something dark and slightly sad, like the sensation of finding a baby bird thrown from the nest by a cuckoo.
She swung around to face him full on. "Are you sure there isn't anyone else you can ask?"
He stiffened, his smile fading. "I'm sorry, I didn't realize you found my company so abhorrent." His voice sounded harsh, strained. Asking for help clearly stung his noble pride.
Guilt washed through her. "I don't, not really. I just thought you might prefer...." Someone he would not be ashamed to show off to his tonnish friends. The words remained stuck in her throat.
He shook his head in a slow regretful movement. "There is no time. I must have the money now."
He wouldn't be here if he had another option. A painful but honest confession. She chewed her top lip. He hadn't always been a careless rake. As a boy, he'd been gentle, sometimes rather too sensitive for his father's rough tongue. A true friend would try to turn him from his destructive path. Her beloved Papa would have insisted she make the attempt.
If she agreed, she'd be living under the same roof with him as a friend, pretending to be his wife to the outside world. It sounded like a cross between heaven and purgatory.
It all came back to money, or rather their lack thereof. If she went ahead with this, Lucas would pay off his debts and the girls could return to the luxury of their old life, maybe even better. Lizzie wouldn't need to find other employment and everyone's future would be secure. If she'd accepted him the first time, they might have had a chance at a real marriage, and perhaps her father would still be alive.
So much of the blame for their desperate circumstances rested squarely at her door. How could she refuse for the sake of her pride?
She stared at his darkly handsome face, at the fingers drumming on his knee, and crushed the flicker of hope that he might someday see her as more than a friend. If she did this, it would be with her eyes wide open.
With an impatient hand, he swept a lock of hair from his brow. A long black hank escaped its ribbon and fell in a glossy wave to his shoulder. It tempted her touch. If they married, she'd be tempted every day. But not if she stuck to their bargain. She drew in a steadying breath. "I'll do it."
He smiled.
She didn't trust that smile. Not any more. "I want the agreement in writing."
His jaw dropped in open-mouthed shock. "Impossible."
Two
"Why is it impossible?" she asked.
The golden tones of her skin, which had once reminded him of sunshine and carefree days, had faded to sallow. In her ugly black gown, she looked more fragile than he remembered, less well-rounded, as if she hadn't had a decent meal for months. He felt like a bully.
"This is as much for your benefit as for mine, you know," he muttered. "If anyone were to discover such an agreement, it would be construed as collusion, and a divorce would be disallowed."
She wrinkled her nose. "Oh."
The vulnerability in her huge, amber eyes caused a pang of guilt deep in a place he'd thought frozen out of existence. Vulnerable? What a jest. She'd defied the mighty Lord Stockbridge for months. No mean feat for a woman. It had taken Lucas years to pluck up the same measure of courage.
>
"If it is to be a business arrangement, we should have something in writing," she said.
There it was again, the intractability that seemed to run down her spine like an iron bar. Hell. Why quibble over a piece of paper if it got him what he wanted? "As you wish. But it must remain a secret."
"It will be our private agreement."
He nodded toward the bedside table. "See if that drawer has writing materials, will you? Lord Grantham will throw a fit if I go down and ask for paper and pens."
No Regrets Page 2
