Your Wicked Heart (15 page)

And then she shook her head, hard, to punish herself and to wake her wits. “My
preference
?” As though the two men were loaves of bread, and it fell to her to choose which was more to her liking?

“What a fine proposal,” she said, attempting to make her words sound scathing. But they faltered at the end.

Oh, God. Something in her was crumbling now. Heartbreak was supposed to feel grand, momentous, a tragedy of epic proportions. It was not meant to feel
humiliating
.

“You think you ruined me,” she said through tears. “And so now one of you must purchase me. Is that it?”

“No!” burst out Charles, but Ripton gave him a black look and came toward her.

Shaking her head harder, she retreated into the corner. “Don’t touch me.” If he did, the last bit of her would break. God help her, she might even fall into his arms. She might even let him marry her. She might . . .

“You will be safe, protected,” he said urgently. “I promise you. All of my days, I will keep you safe.”

And
that
was what she had needed to hear—the offer that snapped steel back into her spine.

She would
not
return to England unchanged. For she was not a coward: she knew that now. “I am done trading my dignity for safety.” The steadiness of her voice amazed her. Pain was a vise on her lungs, but she sounded . . .
strong
.

She was a woman of courage now in truth.

“I want nothing to do with you,” she said. “Ever again.”

CHAPTER TWELVE

London, England

“I’ll be needing the coming month’s rent from you by tomorrow morning!”

“You’ll have it,” Amanda called over her shoulder. The landlady, a perpetually harried-looking woman by the name of Primm, gave a skeptical nod before turning back down the staircase.

The groan of the rotting stairs punctuated the woman’s descent. Amanda fumbled with the keys, then dropped them. As she stooped, she saw that her hand shook.

The interview had not gone as she’d expected.

The door swung open as she straightened. Olivia Mather looked down at her from a height usually achieved only by men. The girl’s red hair was wrapped tightly around her head and concealed, at present, by a calico turban. This strange new affectation she would not explain. “Good news?” she asked, stepping back to allow Amanda to enter.

There was not far to go. The little apartment was barely big enough for a grate, two slender cots, and a wash basin. “Mrs. Primm wants the rent,” she said. “I don’t have it. I’ll need to find cheaper rooms.” For the wedding dress had not fetched nearly as much as she’d hoped for, and without Olivia to share the expenses, she would be sunk very soon.

“I told you I would give you half of next month’s rent.”

Amanda fell onto her cot and then winced. The bed was made of a wooden board and a mattress not much thicker than paper. Restraining the urge to rub her sore backside, she said, “But you’re leaving. It wouldn’t be right. No, I can’t take a penny from you.”

Olivia paced a tight circle around the room. In the meager light that fell through the single, murky window, she looked wan and fatigued. “I have been thinking on it,” she said. “Perhaps I can postpone my voyage for another few weeks. I don’t like to leave you until I know you’re well settled.”

Amanda bit her lip. Olivia’s pressing voyage grew more puzzling by the day. When she had left England with Mrs. Pennypacker, Olivia had been comfortably ensconced in a secretarial position with a society beauty. But now, for reasons she would not divulge, she had quit the position and was determined to go to Paris for a year.

She had offered to take Amanda with her. But lacking French—and any talent for languages—Amanda knew her future must be made here, or nowhere.

“You mustn’t stay for my sake,” she said gently. “I will find something. I’m sure of it.”

Olivia took a seat on her own bed, lowering herself far more cautiously than Amanda had. “I so thought your interview with Lady Forbes would be a success. What happened?”

Amanda looked down to her lap, making a braid of her fingers. “Yes, well, she did offer me the position.”

“What?” Now Olivia sprang up again. “But that’s marvelous!”

“But I declined it.”

“What?”

Amanda sighed. How to explain? She had not told Olivia the circumstances of her abrupt return to England—only the details of why she had quit Mrs. Pennypacker’s service.

“I felt we would not suit,” she said.

It was a lame excuse, and Olivia, for all her gifts, was not known for tact. “Well, that was stupid of you,” she said. “Beyond stupid! You must go back to her, Amanda—tell her you’ve changed your mind.”

“No.” She had realized a minute into her interview that she could not work for Lady Forbes. For one, the woman had not even blinked at the news that Amanda lacked a letter of reference. That suspicious behavior had only been compounded when Lady Forbes dropped word, very casually, of her great desire to see Egypt.

Olivia was gawking at her. Amanda sighed. “I mistrust the offer. And after the debacle with Mrs. Pennypacker, I must be . . . cautious. You understand.”

She knew exactly whom she had to thank for the offer, after all. Baron Forbes had confirmed it when he’d stumbled into their tête-à-tête. “Ah,” he’d said, looking her up and down through his monocle. “Is this the one Ripton recommended?”

“But I don’t understand,” Olivia said flatly. “If you won’t take the position,
I
will! Fifty pounds a year—it’s a fortune!”

“Go ahead, then. Take it. Though I thought Mrs. Chudderley paid you sixty. Why did you leave
her,
then?”

Checkmate. Olivia sat back onto the bed, her mouth forming a mulish line. “I have no complaint against my former employer. Indeed, if she were not on her honeymoon, I would send you directly to her. She must be in want of a secretary now.”

“I will keep her in mind once she returns.”

“You’ll be dead of starvation by then!”

Amanda could not disagree with that. With a shrug, she reached for her portfolio. “I’ve yet to hear from the school that’s advertising in Manchester—”

“Miss Thomas!” This bawling address came through the door, in the less-than-dulcet tones of Mrs. Primm. “I say! You’ve a
gen’lman
visitor!”

Olivia went quite pale. “What? Who could that be? Send him away!” she yelled at the door.

Amanda rose, heart pounding. “Yes, send him away!” she agreed, although she spared a frown here for Olivia, whose reaction seemed peculiarly violent.

“I’ll do no such thing!” Mrs. Primm yelled back. “He’s a seal on his coach and he refuses to go before he sees you!”

Amanda clapped a hand to her mouth. So did Olivia.

They stared at each other for a shocked, frozen moment.

Then Amanda dropped her hand. “Why do
you
look so shocked?”

Olivia drew herself straight. “I do not look shocked.” But then she flew to the window, cranking it open to peer out.

Whatever she saw made her shoulders loosen.

Turning back, she gave Amanda a look of puzzlement. “Whose coach is that?”

Amanda shook her head slowly. “Whose did you expect it to be?”

The door shuddered. “Come down at once!” ordered Mrs. Primm. “I don’t have enough tea for two pots!”

And then came the sound of the stairs groaning again beneath their load.

“You’re in some sort of trouble,” Olivia said, narrow eyed. “What have I told you, time and again?
Avoid the nobs.
At all costs, avoid them!”

Amanda groaned. “I tried!” She had even declined Lady Forbes’s offer of a ride home.

The woman must have had her followed!

She wrapped her arms around her waist, becoming aware, against her will, of a flutter of joy.

He had come for her. Again.

Don’t be stupid. Remember how he deceived you!

“That look on your face,” Olivia muttered, “is not . . . desirable.”

Amanda bent to fetch her gloves, which she had dropped when entering. “What look is that?”

“The look,” said Olivia, “of a very foolish girl.”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“The
blush,
” Olivia said more pointedly. “As though it’s a . . .
suitor
downstairs.”

“Nonsense,” said Amanda, and yanked open the door.

*   *   *

She did not pretend surprise when she entered the small parlor to find Ripton standing by the window. But she did bite her lip lest she accidentally smile at him when he turned, his face grave, to bow to her.

He had never bowed to her before.

Nobody had, in fact. Secretaries did not merit bows such as this one. Ladies in ballrooms, perhaps, but . . .

He came toward her. “Amanda,” he said. “You
idiot
.” And then he grabbed her and pulled her into a hug.

Astonishment made her go still in his arms. And then she closed her eyes and took a great breath of him, and a new amazement broke over her: amazement that it had been so long, nearly four weeks, since she had last seen him. Five weeks since she had last touched him. Nothing had ever seemed so wrong or unnatural in her life as this realization.

“You came for me,” she whispered.

His hand wound through her hair, cradling her. “I will always come for you,” he said.

Her spine was not made of steel after all. It melted and released her from paralysis; her arms came around him and she gripped him back, wanting to embrace him even more tightly than he did her.

But it was impossible. His was the greater strength. She felt his muscles harden, his arms banding around her more fiercely yet.

From behind them came the sound of a throat being cleared. “I’ll not have this under my roof,” said Mrs. Primm.

“She won’t be under your roof much longer,” Ripton said in a cold, haughty voice that Amanda did not recognize.

She sighed into his chest. No, she would not lie to herself. His arrogance was all too familiar.

As the parlor door slammed, she slipped free of his hold. “It is not your call where I go, sir.”

He looked at her a moment, then slowly shook his head. There were shadows beneath his beautiful black eyes, and it looked as though he had not shaved in days. He shoved his hand through his hair, knocking his hat off; it fell, unheeded, to the floor.

“You have no idea,” he said slowly, “how thoroughly I have searched for you. The things I imagined when I discovered you no longer aboard the ship—”

She had stolen away the morning they had docked—begged and then pleaded desperately, without care for her dignity, until the sailors let down the gangplank for her an hour before schedule.

“I could—” Her voice caught. The memory of that morning was unendurable even now. “I could not bear to see you again.”

The words made him go very still. And then he bowed his head. “I expected as much.” When he lifted his face again, his expression was calmly composed. “And it makes no difference. I told you once that I take my responsibilities seriously. That they are my main calling in life. And you are one of them, Amanda. As much as my cousin—more than him. As much as any of my family—or more so. You are mine now to look after. You must see that.”

Her euphoria fractured.

“I am not one of your
burdens,
Ripton.” She stepped back from him, her hands balling into fists at her sides.
This
was why he’d come? To satisfy his sense of duty? “I thought I’d made that clear. If you come only to assuage your guilty conscience, you can go to the dev—”

“No.” Jaw hardening, he lunged forward and caught her by the elbows. “No, we are not reenacting this scene again. By God,
listen
to me. It is not
obligation
that brought me here. It is, I will admit, partly insanity, but a common form, I believe. I
love
you, Amanda. God knows how it happened, but I am not a man to love lightly. And I am not a man to let love go.”

She barely felt his hand on her now. Skin prickling, she gazed up at him. “You . . . love me.”

“Yes.” He smiled slightly. “Why look so amazed? It was you who told me what a fine catch you were. That very first night . . . do you recall?”

She tried to speak, but her tongue had turned to clay. This had to be a dream. “But . . . you’re a
viscount
. The
real
one. You can’t—”

“I can do anything I damn well please,” he said softly. “But . . . I would prefer, in this matter, to have your cooperation. Your ardent cooperation, if you please.”

She nodded immediately, then caught herself and frowned. “In what matter?”

His hand ran down her arm, his fingers twining through hers. He lifted her knuckles to his mouth. “In the matter of marriage,” he said, his gaze fixed to hers.

“I am dreaming.” Now she knew it.

He smiled against her skin. “A nightmare, perhaps? I don’t expect I’ll be an easy husband to love.”

Husband
. She pulled her hand away, obscurely frightened. “But I’m nobody. A secretary.”

He frowned. “What in God’s name does that matter? I’m the head of my family. Who will stop us?”

“But the scandal! That you would wed me!”

He stared at her a moment, then exploded into laughter. “Scandal? Dear God! Amanda, I’m a
St. John
. One of my great-uncles rather famously attempted to marry his horse. If anything, my marriage to a beautiful, well-mannered, perfectly acceptable young woman will be seen as . . .
disappointingly
staid.”

But she could not trust his levity. Not in a matter as important as this. “Think of your cousin! Your family is so important to you . . . If you marry me, he will never speak to you again!”

“Ah.” He sobered. “I do hate to injure your vanity, dear heart, but it took Charles exactly five days to overcome his wounded pride. I gave him a bit of money, and he’s already off to his next lark—India, to be precise. God help them all.”

The answer should have reassured her. Instead, she began to tremble, for she realized that one objection still remained—the largest of them all, the one he could not fix. “I have no idea how to be a wife to you. To”—her voice broke—“such a man as you.”

“What?
No,
” he said, catching her hand again, drawing her back to him when she would have continued to retreat. “Are you mad? Why, that very first night, you told me exactly what I required: constancy and respect, affection and support. Only one thing you failed to mention.”

“And what is that?” she whispered.

His smile faded but his gaze remained intent. “Love,” he said. And swallowed.