The Heart of a Scoundrel (26 page)

Alas, it would take one far stronger than her to wound in any way the great and powerful Marquess of Rutland. A hard grin turned his lips. “I would have you as mine, Phoebe. It matters not that you hate me. We will have desire which is far more than all those other empty unions.”

She shook her head and tried to make sense of those words. That is what he spoke of? Not love or genuine regard…but of desire? “Why?” Why with such professions of hate should he still want her?

He lifted his shoulders in a casual shrug. “Everyone hates me.” In another person, those words would have been intended to ring sympathy, to inspire regret. In Edmund, however, they were delivered with a chilling matter-of-fact calm. “I might as well tie myself to one I hunger for, even if she does detest me.” His square, proud jaw tensed. “And make no mistake. I want you.”
And I intend to have you
. Those words danced around the air. Unspoken but no less real.

A denial sprung to her lips. Then, Justina’s face flitted to her mind’s eye and the false protestations withered and died. If it was only Phoebe’s ruin to consider, she’d easily spit in his face and send him gladly to the devil. But he spoke of her sister; the sister whom she loved and cherished and protected. She’d not see Justina broken by life the way Edmund had been broken and the way he’d shattered her. “You will not wed my sister,” she said with a resolute calm, proud of that steady deliverance.

His expression grew veiled, but he gave no response to that pledge.

Phoebe tried one more feeble grasp at freedom. “We would not suit. Not truly. The women you are…” Her cheeks blazed with heat as she recalled her friend’s claims about ties and knots and bonds. Those vile, dark acts were the kind this man enjoyed. The tender meeting in the Lord Essex’s gardens had been nothing more than a ruse to shatter her defenses and trap her. What would he be like as a lover now, when there were no more pretenses required of him? Unease twisted in her belly. “The women you are a-accustomed t-to,” she stumbled over herself. “Are different.” The
ladies
one such as Edmund would want in his life were experienced and worldly. Even in light of his betrayal, jealousy twisted like a green-edged blade in her belly.
Fool
.

The ghost of a smile played on his lips and she wanted to slap his smug face once again for being so indifferent to the talk of him with other women. “Yes, Phoebe, you are unlike any woman I’ve been with before now.”

As she did not know what to make of that ambiguous, emotionless statement, she said nothing and waited for him to say something.

“We will be wed by special license.”

To say something that was not that.

He stalked over to the door, the matter settled and panic throbbed in her breast. Phoebe sprinted over and placed herself between him and the wood panel. Her back rattled against the door. “B-but…” Her mind raced in an attempt to put her world to right and spare them both this miserable union.

“But what?” Edmund tugged out his watch fob and consulted the timepiece; the casual act, lending power to the tedium of that two-word question. “The way I see it, Madam, this is mutually beneficial to the both of us.”

“How so?” A near hysterical bubble seeped from her lips. How could there be anything remotely good between them? “How can there be anything good in a marriage between us?”

With an effortless grace, he tucked his timepiece into his pocket. “I did not say good. I said mutually beneficial.”

She furrowed her brow. “With the exception of saving my sister from your vile grasp, what benefit could there be to me in tying myself to one such as you?”

Edmund inclined his head. “Would you prefer the Earl of Allswood?”

An involuntary snort escaped her. “I’d prefer neither of you.” His frown deepened as though he disliked being lumped in with the Lord Allswoods of the world, but that was precisely where he belonged. “I daresay there are a good many more options for me than you and Lord Allswood.”

His dark eyebrows snapped into a single, hard line. He dipped his head close and she made to draw away but found retreat impossible with the hard mahogany door at her back. So, she angled her chin up and glared at him.

“Do you believe the options are so very limitless for a dowerless woman, no longer in possession of her virginity?” His words expelled the air from the room. Even with everything she’d heard and discovered, the depth of his viciousness still slammed into her with a ferocity that caused her legs to tremble. And just like that, she was the small girl, alone, in the darkened armoire “What manner of monster are you?” she asked, her tongue thick.

Silence met her question.

Did she imagine that flash of pained regret in his eyes? “You would keep my dowry, even with everything we’d shared?” Agony leant her words a ragged quality. She searched his hard face and by the unrelenting set to his mouth, needed no confirmation beyond that. A chill stole through her. Then, but for their bodies, had they really shared
anything?
Where did the betrayals end? Her father’s disregard and sins through the years, she’d long ago accepted. Or thought she had. Only now, knowing not even her dowry had been valued by the wastrel reprobate who’d given her life, showed her that she was not so very indifferent to that betrayal, either.

Edmund brushed his knuckles over her jaw. “It matters not.”

“It matters not?” she spat, hating that his touch somehow filled her with a reassuring warmth, hating that she still craved his touch, that special bond they’d once shared. “You’d wed a woman without a dowry, who does not want to wed you?” She could not make sense of who this man truly was or what drove him. He was a riddle wrapped in a conundrum.

“You have a dowry,” he said pulling her to the moment.

“I
had
a dowry.” Bitterness tinged her words. Phoebe pressed her palms to her cheeks, blotting out the intensity of his dark brown eyes. “I have nothing.”
Not even my virtue
. Nausea roiled in her gut until she feared she’d cast the contents of her stomach up at his feet.

He continued to stroke her jaw and then expanded his caress to her cheek. “I possess your dowry and now I’ll have you.”

From the thick haze of confusion and tumult, Phoebe lowered her arms to her sides. Edmund’s words came as from down a long hall. She stared at his mouth as he talked. His lips moved, but she only managed to pluck out a handful of coherent phrases from the string of words he now strung together.

“…and now I’ll have you…”

Those last three words snapped her from the haze of confusion and Phoebe cried out. She ducked out from under his arm and raced away from him, placing a King Louis XIV chair between them. “What of my sister?” she demanded in a strangled tone.

His eyebrows dipped, while a muscle jumped at the corner of his eyes, as she suspected a man accustomed to not having demands made to him by anyone, didn’t know what to do with her insistency.

“What of my sister?” Her cry rang about the room.

“I possess only your dowry.”

She ran her gaze over his face; once beloved, now the harsh, cruel one everyone had warned her of. “I don’t believe you.” With the lies between them, how could she believe anything he said?

Edmund leaned a shoulder against the door and folded his arms at his chest, elegant in repose. “I have no reason to lie to you in this regard.”

In this regard. Unlike all the times before this when he’d had reasons to lie to her. She smoothed her palms over her skirts. In this instance, she did not matter. Justina and her innocence and her future happiness and dowry—that is what mattered. Phoebe’s fate had been settled long ago; by her father—by Edmund. “If I wed you,” she began, “will you see my sister is protected? Will you see my father…” the monstrous fiend who’d sacrificed her. She took a deep breath and finished the remaining thought. “Will you see that my father does not sell my sister off to pay his debt?”

He inclined his head. “It is done.”

It is done
. Those three words marked this exchange as a transaction, a contract entered into. Phoebe pressed her fingers over her eyes and drew in several breaths. She could and would forever despise Edmund for his treachery, but she’d courted this disaster by continually allowing herself to meet with him and giving herself over to the notorious marquess. After their scandalous meetings had there ever really been any other recourse except marriage? Phoebe lowered her hands to her side. Edmund continued to study her in that piercing manner. A chill ran along her spine. He may as well have been a stranger she passed on Bond Street to the man she’d lain with in Lord Essex’s gardens.

She eyed him warily. “Why should I trust you?” She spoke that question more to herself. “You do not,” love, “care for me, therefore my sister’s happiness matters less than mine, to you.”

“You should not trust me,” he replied, still lounged against that door. “As my wife, I’d advise you not to trust anyone.” Another icy shiver racked her frame with the evidence of his cold unfeelingness. What a miserable way to go through one’s existence. “But regardless of whether you believe it or not, I protect what is mine. You are mine and no one will dare hurt you or yours for your connection to me. That protection extends to those you care for.”

There was something oddly reassuring in the steely edge of that promise. She’d gone through the duration of her life with a father who didn’t give a jot for her. She’d been preyed upon by men with lascivious intentions for no other reason than the shameful truth of her connection to the Viscount Waters. No, looking at the icy glint in Edmund’s eyes and the firm set to his mouth, he would not tolerate anyone infringing upon that which he claimed as his. For the bumble broth she’d made of her own life, knowing that Justina would be cared for would give her the courage to do this thing with Edmund. It would be the peace she found in life. Her sister would be happy and that would be enough.

At the prolonged silence, Edmund arched a single brow. “Come, Phoebe. At the very least, I would expect you to ask for something for yourself. What do you require?”

She wet her lips. “My dowry.” Phoebe tipped her chin up. “I want my dowry.” For eventually there would be children who she called hers and she’d not have those children dependent upon anyone the way she and her siblings were now, dependent upon their father and Edmund.

He shoved away from the door and took a step toward her. Phoebe tightened her grip upon the back of the chair. The wood bit painfully into her palms. He came to a stop six feet away and then she lightened her grip. “What will you do with your funds?”

Edmund did not say no or outright reject her request. Instead, there was a faintly mocking curiosity threading that question as though he mocked himself for putting questions to her. “That is for me to decide.”

Appreciation flared in his flinty gaze. “You won’t want for jewels or baubles or fabrics. Anything you desire will be yours.” Anything except her freedom and happiness.

Phoebe ran her gaze over his face—this hard, implacable stranger. “Oh, Edmund,” she whispered. She gave her head a sad, slow shake. “You want me, but you don’t truly know me.” He stilled. The dangerous narrowing of his eyes hinted at a man unaccustomed to being called out. “If you think I desire any jewels or baubles or fabrics, as you say, then you know nothing of me at all.”

“Don’t I?” That smooth, quiet whisper washed over her, almost tauntingly. “Do you know what I believe you’d use the funds for?”

Given his scheming machinations these days, she didn’t want to feed any toying questions he’d pose and yet she wanted to know. She inclined her head, giving him a silent encouragement to continue.

“Your freedom.” She started and by the triumphant glimmer in his eyes, he believed his supposition the correct one. How little they both knew of each other. “You would travel to your distant lands, like Captain Cook. Or mayhap closer. To Wales, perhaps?” He spread his arms before him. “And I shall not stop you.”

Phoebe squared her gaze on his. “As your wife, you would permit me to travel?” When most gentlemen would squelch their wife’s freedom, he would send her out into the world without marital strings attached? Why then, with his betrayal did his disregard pull at her heart?

“I would,” he said without hesitation. “I will,” he amended.

There had been so many lies between them she could not sort through them all in a weeks’ time. But by the firm resolve in his eyes, she did not doubt the sincerity of his pledge. He would let her go. “You would let me go,” she pressed. “Even as you insist on wedding me regardless of my feelings on the matter?”

“I would.” He set his jaw at a resolute angle.

She furrowed her brow. He’d have her at any cost, but then also set her free? What sense did that make?

Edmund closed the remaining space between them, so the flimsy chair posed the only barrier. Then, he continued coming, a tiger stalking its prey and she stiffened, her body at war—conflicted with the desire for his kiss while her mind rebelled at his very nearness that threatened her reason. He stopped behind her so her back met his chest, placed his large, powerful hands upon her shoulders, and dipped his mouth close to her ear. “Do not mistake my generosity. Your freedom will not be to visit the beds of others. I will not share you.” His hot breath fanned the sensitive skin at the nape of her neck and shivers of awareness shot through her.

Her eyes fluttered closed and she gave thanks that he could not see that frailty. “Y-you would demand my faithfulness?”

“Yes.” He shot his tongue out and licked at the shell of her ear.

“W-would you offer the same?” She hated the stammer and question together that showed her desire for him, still.

Edmund wrapped his arm about her and stroked his hand down the front of her gown, smoothing the flat surface of her belly, as though reacquainting himself with her body. “Would you want me to offer you the same?”

He’d deliberately evaded responding to her question. He would take others to his bed.
Did you expect anything else from the notorious scoundrel, ruthless in all matters?
Why should the idea of him taking another woman to his bed eat at her like acid being tossed upon an already opened wound? Edmund’s telling equivocation had the same impact of a bucket of cold water being tossed upon her ardor. She spun away from him. “Your business will be yours.”