"Lady Caroline," he said--he was smiling--"perhaps more than our conversation could be entirely too familiar, then we might both be well satisfied."

Caro, in spite of all logic, felt a thrill tumble down her spine. If she was not mistaken, Lord Ashdon had made a comment with a decidedly debauched tone to it. She could hardly keep herself from grinning, which would have been a completely inappropriate response. No, she should be insulted, and she was. She was just very, very delighted that he had clearly felt an irresistible urge to insult her. Anne wrenched her arm free and was halfway across the room before Caro could stop her.

"Look what you've done," she snapped under her breath, truly irritated. It was far easier to be delighted by a debauched sentiment and a wicked blue gaze when one did not have to face wickedness and debauchery alone.

"Managed to get you all to myself? I'd say I'd done well," he said.

"Lord Ashdon," she said, throwing her shoulders back and thrusting her chin out, "I was under the assumption that we both understood our current standing. You and my mother"---she paused, embarrassed, "well, the agreement that you reached between you is not to my, that is, I don't plan to marry."

"Yes, Lady Dalby said as much," he said, taking one step closer to her, pushing all the air out of the room. He was very tall and very broad and his eyes were very, very blue. "You don't want to be my wife. You would rather be a courtesan."

He was furious. She could feel it in the air all around him. She hadn't thought he would be furious about her refusal; after all, they didn't even know each other. But to be refused so that a courtesan's life could be pursued...yes, that might make a man angry.

Where was her mother when she needed her? The entire room seemed to have emptied out, leaving her alone to face a furious man. He would likely strangle her, letting her inert body fall to the floor before anyone dared to gaze in his direction.

"Come, come, Lord Ashdon," she said, taking a step back. If he were planning on strangling her, he'd have to catch her first. "Let us not color it too prettily. You had debts to pay and I was the means to pay them. I would not be any man's purse. Strangely, I would like to be liked for myself."

"And you shall have ample opportunity to be liked for yourself, and to measure your likeability on the strings of any man's purse. Any man who can pay your price."

"How very crude you are," she said, taking another step backward.

Unfortunately, he was very tall, his steps were rather larger than hers, and he was still following her.

"Perhaps," he said softly. "But is that not the life to which you impetuously aspire?"

"I am not impetuous. I am practical."

"If you were truly practical, you would have accepted the husband arranged for you."

"Don't you mean to say 'bought for me'?" she snapped as she tripped over the train of her skirts and heard a small rip. Horrid, horrid man.

"As you say," he snarled softly, the muscles in his jaw rippling.

"But do you pretend to be my superior? Are you not prepared to go to any man who can afford your price? Are you not, Lady Caroline, arranging a future for yourself where you will be bought and traded?

You refuse me as husband. Can you afford to refuse me as patron?"

It was then that she backed into the sideboard, knocking the vase of early pink roses to the floor and flooding the back of her dress with water.

top