Helen Dickson (21 page)

She stared at him in bewilderment, feeling an uneasy disquiet setting in. ‘Insecure? My future?’ She could feel her heart moving in slow but gigantic beats. Her mouth was dry with some inner emotion. ‘What do you mean? I am a very wealthy woman, so I shall never be insecure, and surely my future is my own affair.’

Standing with his hands clasped behind his back, Charles gave her what he hoped was an enthusiastic smile and put his plan for her future into action. ‘I would like to make it mine, too. Maria, I want you to marry me.’

Maria had not seen the answer coming and she gasped with the shock of it.

Charles was aware that she was looking at him as though he was speaking in Arabic or Chinese. Her mouth was open in a gape of disbelief, her eyes wide and staring and stunned.

‘I’m sorry. My proposal seems to have taken you by surprise.’

That was true, and two days ago she would have said yes without hesitation. But how could he have the impudence to propose marriage to her while he was conducting an affair with another woman? She knew he wanted her—his passionate embraces last night had told her so, but she had not thought it would lead to this. Charles was offering to marry her. She could not quite believe she had heard him right. And yet she wished he
hadn’t sounded so dispassionate. She was not quite sure if she had received a proposal of marriage or an enquiry about her health.

‘But—isn’t that a bit extreme? Are you doing this to protect me from Henry? Do you think I shall feel not only secure but that I shall also be spared any future physical advances from him? If this is the case, then you need not worry. I am sure when Henry has had time to realise I will not marry him, he will adjust to it.’

‘It is clear you do not know him.’

‘I don’t know you either, Charles,’ she remarked irately. ‘How do I know I won’t be exchanging one reprobate for another—that I wouldn’t be jumping out of the pan into the fire? After all, I have known you such a short time and already you have showered me with amorous advances.’

‘I’m glad you remember.’

‘It’s difficult not to,’ she replied with severe chastisement of herself, knowing that while ever she remained with him she would be unable to resist him.

‘Maria, I am asking you to trust me.’

Slowly shaking her head as the enormity of his proposal sank in, she took several paces back. ‘You don’t have to marry me. Besides, I don’t want to marry you. After my experience with Henry, I am not ready commit myself to anyone else for the foreseeable future. In fact, when I think of that awful scene at his house, it has set me against forming any kind or relationship.’

‘Maria, you are alone and very rich, and prey to fortune hunters.’

‘I suppose I am. And you? Could you not be accused of being one of them?’

‘I too have enormous wealth,’ he told her quietly. ‘I have no need of your fortune.’

Having lived in the opulent grandeur of his home in Grosvenor Square and seen Highgate in Kent, Maria knew this to be true. She also knew that he was renowned in both the military field and government circles for his courage, high character and unyielding sense of justice. He was not merely a bachelor of immense wealth, he was a good catch, but so far no young lady had quite measured up to his exacting standards. So why he would offer for her she could not imagine.

‘You would do this for me?’

He shrugged. ‘I have to marry some time—Mother is always telling me.’

With anger and frustration washing over her in sickening waves, Maria felt disproportionately outraged. He was talking as if she had no say in the matter. ‘Why—because it’s expected of men in your position to marry and to produce an heir? I am not so naïve as to believe the reason you wish to marry me is because you have suddenly fallen in love with me.’

‘You must know that I have come to have a high regard for you, and a strong and very passionate desire and affection for you.’

‘Desire and affection are all very well, Charles, but wonderful as it is, it is not enough—not enough to provoke this absurd compulsion to marry me.’

‘Is it a proper proposal you wish to have? Would you like it if I were to kneel?’ he asked in a demanding voice, annoyed that she was being so obstinate, hostile, even.

‘That won’t be necessary,’ she bit back.

‘So? What do you say, Maria? Will you look favourably on my proposal?’

Her steady expression regarded him coolly. ‘You do not speak of love, Charles.’

She waited, searching that expressionless face for some sign that he felt something, anything for her. Instead he lifted his brows and said, ‘Should I?’

‘Not if it’s—not felt.’

‘By whom?’

‘Either of us, I suppose.’

Charles had never loved a woman, except in the physical sense, and his heart being as it was, he did not expect ever to experience what was called true love.

‘I shall be a good husband. I protect what is mine. No one shall hurt you, I promise you that.’

Maria’s heart contracted with pain, for she suspected that this was how he would conduct a business arrangement and could not, should not, be treated as something romantic.

‘I’m not accepting your offer, Charles.’

‘Dear God, Maria,’ he said, thoroughly exasperated, his handsome face working with emotion, for he was not a man who liked to plead. His head and his heart told him this woman was the right wife for him, and there was nothing to stop her marrying him.

‘I want nothing more than to look after you,’ he went on, ‘to see you come to no harm. I want to put Henry Winston behind us and have you safe—with me—
as my wife.
And don’t look at me like that. You act as though I’d offered you some insult and not an honourable proposal of marriage. It is a sensible solution,’ he argued, unable to believe all his plans were being demolished
and sorely tempted to try a more persuasive method, to drag her into his arms and bring about a victory.

In his expression there was a resolute determination to have his way, an expression Maria was coming to know quite well.

‘Sensible?’ Anger rose up like flames licking inside her, spreading up her limbs. ‘Why, you—you arrogant, overbearing…’ Her eyes shot daggers into his. ‘Can’t you understand that I don’t want to be
sensible?
I have been sensible all my life, letting others direct my every move, but no more.’

Charles turned from her. He leant his hands on the mantelpiece, his body rigid, his dark head bowed. ‘What is this, Maria? Why are you fighting me like this? Can you not see that I am not your enemy? I want nothing more than to help you.’

Maria moved away from him. She did not want to hear any more for she could feel her weak woman’s body straining towards him, yearning to give in, to lean against his strong lean body. He dropped his arms and he rose to his full height. Her heart contracted with pain. She loved him so much, more than anything she had known since she had been old enough to understand reason, and yet when she left, she would never see him again.

Charles turned and looked at her, an ironic twist to his finely chiselled lips in an otherwise cold face. He wanted to shake her. He knew she was playing a part—he believed that behind the bright expression and glib speech the real warm, passionate Maria was still to be found—only he had lost the key. What was it that had driven the girl he knew underground and replaced her with this correct, guarded puppet, who carefully kept
him at arm’s length and used her desire to go home as an excuse to avoid his company?

‘Am I so unattractive a prospect, Maria, that you prefer to look elsewhere?’

His voice was so cool that she lifted her chin in hot indignation. ‘It is the privilege of a woman to act as she chooses, and in this instance I have done so.’

He faced her with challenging eyes. ‘You have made your feelings quite clear—blatantly so. And you are quite right. It is your privilege and prerogative to choose who you will marry and who you will not.’ Even as he spoke he was bemused by the way the sunlight tangled in her dark shining hair. It curled vigorously about her head and down her back.

Maria glanced at him with two stormy eyes. ‘I’m glad you understand.’

He didn’t understand, but if she wanted to go home then he wouldn’t stand in her way. He had watched over her since the day she had left the chateau. He was prepared to allow her her freedom, for he wanted this woman to come to him of her own volition.

‘So, what will you do?’

‘You talk as if I have no control over any of this. I see no reason for me to marry you. What you said to Henry about me having my own wishes and my own will was true. For the first time in my life I am independent of others and I am already beginning to enjoy the feeling.’

‘Clearly,’ he uttered coldly. ‘Maria, I am just trying to protect you.’

Maria’s voice was like splintered ice as she took up a stance in front of him. ‘Protection? Is that the only reason you can come up with for asking me to marry
you? Or are there other reasons—because you feel sorry for me, perhaps pity me? Do you honestly believe I am so desperate for a husband that I would say yes to an offer like that?’ Pride caused her to lift her chin and calmly meet his ruthless stare. ‘No, Charles. Absolutely not. I will make my own way. I don’t need anyone—and I certainly don’t want a husband whose sole reason for marrying me is to protect me from Henry.’

‘It is protection of a different kind I speak of—the protection of a husband for his wife. Winston is no longer a threat.’

Maria stared at him. He sounded so certain. Something unpleasant began to unfold inside her. Slowly she moved closer to him. ‘You know that, do you, Charles? How?’

‘Because he is to return to India.’

‘India? But—this is all rather sudden—and rather odd. Henry cannot go back to India. He left the Company in disgrace. He has no money—I thought he was relying on his marriage to me to secure his future…’ Suddenly she froze and looked at him hard as something cold gripped her heart. ‘Charles, what have you done?’

‘Why should I have
done
anything?’

‘I don’t know, but I think you have. Charles—have you given him some money? Have you?’ When he was about to turn from her, she grasped his arm. ‘Tell me,’ she demanded fiercely. When he didn’t reply, she withdrew her hand and stepped back, glaring at him. ‘If you don’t tell me, I shall go and ask Henry myself. You have, haven’t you?’

‘Yes.’

For a long moment there was a black silence as what he told her sank in. She stood as though turned to stone,
every vestige of colour having left her face. ‘I knew it. Tell me how much you gave him to leave me alone.’

‘Very well. Twenty thousand pounds.’

There was another deep and dreadful silence, a silence so menacing, so filled with the unwavering determination of the two people who faced each other, their eyes locked together in awful combat, that neither was about to retreat.

‘You can’t mean that,’ Maria exploded, her body shaking with wrath, her hands clenched into fists by her sides. ‘How dare you do that? How dare you, Charles?’

‘There’s no need to get into such a temper about it.’

‘Temper?’ Turning on her heel she stormed away from him. ‘Has it not occurred to you that I might be against you giving him anything?’ Suddenly the rage erupted inside her, and she whirled around on Charles in a frenzy of fury. ‘How could you do that? You had no right.’

‘That’s enough, Maria,’ he snapped, striding towards her. ‘I gave him the money to get rid of him. Being the kind of man he is, not for one second did he consider refusing it. No doubt he will return to India and languish in his usual decadence for the rest of his miserable days.’

‘I would have preferred to deal with Henry in my own way. Did you really think I would approve of such a move? And to give him twenty thousand pounds! It beggars belief, it really does.’

Charles loathed the idea of paying Winston off to get him to disappear out of Maria’s life—also in return for his silence, to keep him from speaking of the duel, which would become a scandal that would explode all over London if it came out. His mother would be deeply hurt by it and that was the last thing he wanted.

‘I knew he would pose a problem while ever he remained in London.’

‘And when he’s spent his twenty thousand pounds—as he surely will—what then? Will he be back for more?’

‘There won’t be any more.’

‘You’re right, there won’t. And as for the money he has already received—you have given it to him, I presume?’ He nodded. ‘I shall reimburse you.’

His brows snapped together over biting light blue eyes. ‘I don’t want your money.’

‘I insist. I will not be beholden to you, Charles—not to you, not to anyone—and certainly not for twenty thousand pounds. And now if you don’t mind I have things to do. I would be obliged if you would allow me to leave without any fuss. I have no wish to upset Lady Osbourne.’

‘And you refuse to consider my offer of marriage?’

‘What do you think?’ she retorted heatedly. ‘You’d best go. It seems we cannot agree.’

‘Damn it, Maria. Don’t do this. Believe me, I’m not a man to beg and if—’

‘Don’t threaten me, Charles.’

‘I’m not,’ he bit back, white-lipped with anger, his eyes glittering down at her. ‘To hell with it. I’ll find someone more amenable to a proper offer of marriage. Someone who will—’