A Dangerous Love (34 page)

She read the determination in his face with shock. Dear God, could he truly wish to marry her? But why? He’d still given her no plausible reason other than desire. Yet he did seem in earnest.

Unfortunately, he wasn’t the same man she’d thought she was marrying. “What if I don’t want to marry you anymore?”

He looked as stunned as if someone had just struck his thick head with a hammer.

She tilted up her chin proudly. “I see you find it surprising that a spinster with no future would refuse an offer of marriage from a wealthy and handsome young heir to a title. Most people would
think I’m daft.” Wrenching her arms from his grasp, she glared at him. “But then I
am
a bit daft, as you know, and I don’t really care what they think.” She ignored her father’s groan. “I’ve no desire to marry a man I understand so little, whose aims in life are so opposed to my own.”

Rage twisted his features into an ugly mask. “How am I any different now than I was this afternoon? You seemed perfectly happy to marry me then.”

“That was before I knew that your elaborate masquerade was designed to wreak vengeance on Papa by publicly shaming him as well as me and my sisters.”

“Vengeance!” He whirled away from her. “You and Daniel with your narrow minds! This is not about vengeance!”

“Oh? Then what is it about? Why else would you have set out to steal that certificate and use it to strip Papa of his title? You have a fortune, a thriving company. What do you need with a title?”

For a moment, she thought he wouldn’t answer, for he stared away, his neck strained so taut she fancied she saw the pulse throb in it. “I have a thriving company, yes.” He fixed her with a defiant look. “But how long would it thrive if I didn’t seek to improve it and find it new markets? Next year a delegation is going to China to establish trade outside the confines of the East India Company. Every trading company in England wants a seat on that delegation, including me. As a bastard with a scandalous past, I have little chance of being considered. But as an earl in the House of Lords—”

Her heart sank. “Of course. You’d be in the perfect position politically to be included. That’s why you must establish your legitimacy as soon as possi
ble, isn’t it? You must act before the decisions are made. I understand.”

She blinked back fresh tears. Yes, she understood only too well. Daniel had said Knighton Trading was everything to Griff, and now she realized just how true that was.

“It’s simply a practical matter, a business matter,” he explained in that terribly precise tone he always used when speaking of his unscrupulous methods on behalf of his company. “If I could have found another way to achieve it, I would have, but I couldn’t. I will, however, regain the title as discreetly as possible in deference to your family.”

“So when you proposed to me this afternoon, you still intended to use that certificate as soon as you got your hands on it?” When he didn’t answer, she took that for a yes. “What did you plan to do—marry me and then go drag my ill father to the House of Lords so you could publicly proclaim him the worst sort of schemer? I’ll admit he deserves it, but he’s my father, after all. Did you think I would champion you?”

Averting his gaze from her, he yanked restlessly on his cravat. She hoped the blasted thing was choking him.

“I was hoping…that is, I planned…Damn it, I hadn’t thought that far.” His gaze shifted back to her. “But I did assume that when you knew the circumstances, you would see I had a right to the title.”

The sad thing was, she did see he had a right to it. She’d merely hoped he might be noble enough not to exercise his right. But clearly she didn’t know him at all. Griff had no noble instincts. Daniel was wrong in that respect—Griff wasn’t ignoring his heart; he simply
had
no heart.

“Here now, man,” her father protested from his bed. “You aren’t saying you meant to use that certificate before I died. And shame my daughters?”

A terrible sadness came over her. “Yes, Papa, I’m afraid that’s precisely what Mr. Knighton planned to do. Still plans to do, I suspect.”

“Why not?” Griff said defensively. “It’s mine by right, damn it!”

Rosalind sighed. All this time, Papa had thought his brilliant plan would save him from Griff’s wrath and gain her and her sisters a future. Instead, he’d opened the door to the griffin, and now that the griffin had come he wouldn’t depart without his treasure.

Well, there was one treasure he wouldn’t get. “Yes, that title is yours by right. But
I
am not.”

A look of panic came over Griff’s face. “Why does the certificate make any difference? It changes nothing! We’ll live here after we’re married, and your family will live here, too. Yes, there might be a short period of scandal, but people will forget. None of you ever sought their good opinion before. I don’t see why it matters now.”

She thought of Juliet’s desperate urge not to become a spinster and Helena’s defensiveness about her limp. “No, why should it?” she said sarcastically. “My sisters are already odd ducks, after all. They can’t find husbands even with their rank, so who cares if they lose it? Who cares if they’re gossiped about behind their backs? My sisters are beneath your concern, aren’t they? They’re the daughters of a man who treated you badly, so you see no reason to protect their reputations.”

A dark flush spread up his neck to his face.

“Of course, society will gossip about me, too, but not to my face if we marry. No one would dare
laugh publicly at the wife of the new Earl of Swanlea, with all his wealth and influence. But they’ll scorn me privately. I’ll be the sister clever enough to marry the real earl to protect my family from ruin.” She choked back more tears. “I’ll be the whoring sister.”

“Don’t ever call yourself that again!” Griff exploded. “And since when do you care what they think of you, goddamn it? Didn’t you just say that you don’t?”

“The point is that you don’t care what happens to me or my family as long as it serves your purpose. You’ll do anything for Knighton Trading—whether consorting with smugglers or defaming innocents—so what place could a mere woman like me have in your life? Well, I can’t marry a man who cares so little for me.”

She turned on her heel and walked out, afraid to stay any longer. She’d fall apart in her room, away from him.

When she heard him call her name, she increased her pace. She wouldn’t let him work on her with his tempting words, for right now she’d be all too susceptible to them.

If she could hate him, it would be easy. If she could consider him the villain of the piece, she could set her world to rights again and thrust him clear out of it.

But she couldn’t hate him, knowing how dreadfully he’d been treated. Griff had Papa to thank for his character, so she could hardly reprove him for it. While he and Papa had been talking, she’d stood there in horror, realizing the appalling ramifications, imagining Griff’s life as a bastard. His sudden and unwarranted poverty had driven him to awful lengths. With shame, she remembered her ridicu
lous moral posturing in the deer park. He’d done what he could after a wretched betrayal, and she’d chastised him for it.

Tears streamed down her cheeks. He’d spent his life regaining something that had always belonged to him, all because her foolish, cruel father had in one petty act rent Griff’s and his mother’s life in two.

She dashed the tears from her eyes. She understood, truly she did, yet she couldn’t be part of it. Papa might have ripped out Griff’s heart, but that didn’t mean she had to marry the empty shell.

Hearing footsteps behind her, she glanced back, then panicked when she saw Griff striding after her. If he caught her alone, she would never stand firm. He had that curst ability to make her lose all her good intentions…

He was running after her, and she swung about in alarm, wondering how to escape him. She’d never make it to her bedchamber. She was nearly to Papa’s study, but didn’t have her keys to lock herself in.

Then she spotted the ancient sword, back in its spot on the wall. Grabbing it down, she brandished it in front of her just as Griff reached her.

“Keep back, do you hear? I’m done with you! I won’t marry you, so leave me alone!”

The candlelight heightened his determined expression. “You’re daft indeed if you think I’ll let you walk away from me now. I won’t let this change things between us, Rosalind.”

He advanced on her undaunted, and she backed up a pace, nearing the open doorway of the study behind her. The reason for his nickname might have been a fabrication, but it suited him well. He had a griffin’s predatory instincts and obsession with
rightful ownership. Like a griffin, he was fixed upon keeping his treasure.

The sword wavered in her hand. “I’ll…I’ll use this!” she cried, as much to convince herself as him. “I’ll unman you with it, I swear I will!”

He paused, raising one jet eyebrow. “As I recall, you threatened to do that only if I took a mistress. And I haven’t.”

Utter despair possessed her heart. How could he be so blind? “Oh, but you have. You took a mistress long before you met me, one you’ll never relinquish.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“Knighton Trading—as demanding a mistress as any woman could ever be to you. She’s one mistress I can’t compete with.”

Like the lion half of the griffin, he stalked her. “What do you want from me? That I abandon Knighton Trading’s best interests? Is that what you want?”

She backed up into the study, for there was nowhere else to go. How could she use a sword on him? “I want nothing from you.” Nothing she had any right to ask of him, anyway. She wanted him to give up the part of his plans that meant shaming her family. She wanted him to care that much for her. She wanted him to love her. “There’s nothing you could give me that would entice me to marry you now. You’ve killed my feelings for you.”

Fear flickered over his face, then was gone. “I don’t believe you.” He snatched a candle from the sconce and continued to advance, backing her all the way into the dark room. “I refuse to believe that the woman who shared every intimacy with me this afternoon could suddenly turn off her feelings merely because I’m pursuing what’s rightfully
mine.” He closed the door behind him, then set the candle in the sconce near the door. “You still care—I know you do.”

The longing in his voice pricked her raw. How dared he appeal to her feelings after trampling all over them earlier? “You know nothing about me and what I feel, you bloody ass,” she whispered achingly.

He looked stricken. “Can’t call me a
bastard
now that you know I’m not one?”

“Oh, but you are! Inside, you’re still every bit a bastard! Is that what turned you into one? Being called one all the time?”

He shook his head wearily. “Your father is what turned me into one, my sweet. But he’s happy to remove the stain, so I don’t understand why you object.”

“I don’t object to his offering to remove it. Only to your accepting his offer when you know what it will do to my family—”

“Your family doesn’t matter, don’t you see?” he cried. “All that matters is us!”

“Not to me!”

“Damnation, Rosalind, I…” He glanced away, looking hollow-eyed and bleak in the shadowed room. “I understand why you are angry. I should not have deceived you about my purpose.” His gaze shot back to her. “But I didn’t tell you because I didn’t want
this
to happen! I didn’t want you to make the mistake of thinking that this matter between me and your father affects what you and I feel for each other!”

He stepped forward as if to touch her, and she leveled the sword at his chest.

“D-Don’t come a-any nearer,” she stammered.

“Or what? You’ll stab me?” His jaw tautened. “You may be outrageous, but you’re not given to
murdering your lovers. And we both know you’d never unman me.”

“Don’t tempt me!” she cried hoarsely, and pressed the tip of the sword to his breeches.

With an expression of grim purpose, he closed his hand around the blade, gripping it so tightly that if she moved it even a fraction, it would slice open his hand. She froze, her gaze fixed on that terrible union of flesh and steel.

“Let go of the sword, darling,” he urged. “You know you don’t want to hurt me.”

Curse him for being right! “What if I do? What if I want to hurt you as much as you hurt me?”

Guilt slashed across his features. “I didn’t intend to hurt you, I swear it. And if I for one moment believed that you truly no longer cared for me, that you actually wish to hurt me, I’d leave tonight and never return. But I don’t believe it, and neither do you.”

“Because it doesn’t suit your plans,” she whispered.

“Because it’s not true.” He released the blade, but only to move his hand up to cover hers where it clasped the hilt. “Please, my darling…Do not send me away.”

Such blatant need laced his voice that she didn’t resist when he angled the sword away from between them, nor when he removed it from her numb fingers. But when he gathered her in his arms, tears began streaming down her cheeks.

“Oh, God, don’t cry, my sweet,” he murmured, wiping away her tears. “It tortures me when you cry.”

“Then release me from this curst engagement,” she pleaded.

“I can’t.” His lips brushed her hair, her brow, her temple. “I need you too much.”

“To warm your bed, you mean—”

“No, for more than that,” he whispered, dropping sweet kisses along her hairline. “And you need me. You know you do.”

She did need him—that was the trouble. Because she needed him more desperately than he needed her. He might be missing a heart, but he certainly had all his other “parts,” and he seemed to think two out of three were perfectly acceptable. She did not.

And yet…
Do not send me away
, his words echoed in her head as he covered her face with kisses, his tempting kisses that never failed to dissolve her into molten heat. With him, her body had a will of its own. When he kissed her ear, then tugged at the soft flesh of her earlobe with his teeth, she shivered in desire, and yes,
need
.

Oh, why must he always affect her in this way? He’d wrapped his greedy griffin’s wings about her, and she didn’t know how to fight free. How could she resist when the man she loved held her fast against the body she desired?