Page 70 of Real Earls Break the Rules

She resisted. If she sat close to him, her logic would fly from her head. “Wait. I need to know the truth.”

“The truth?”

Taking a deep breath, she asked the question that was on her mind since she’d left Caroline’s bedchamber. “Are you going to marry Lady Minerva?”

He froze, the muscles in his forearm tightening beneath her fingers. “Where did you hear that?”

He didn’t deny it. A sick sense of betrayal pierced her stomach. “I heard it straight from Minerva’s lips. She said you are to get down on one knee and propose to her tonight at the ball.”

He cursed beneath his breath and shoved a hand through his hair. “Another of my father’s creditors showed the day of the picnic. In exchange for gambling debts, my father offered the textile mill as well as the unentailed Rosehill land as collateral. The money is due in ten days, and I don’t have it.”

She inhaled sharply. He was referring to the land they stood on. She knew how much it meant to him. She recalled that additional tenant farmers lived here as well. The farmers and their families relied on Brandon for their survival. What would become of them if the land was sold?

And what of the factory? She knew how much the textile mill meant to Brandon. He took pride in his work, and he needed the factory’s profits and income. The laborers would surely suffer if he was no longer the owner. Amelia, like Brandon, had often thought of the children. She wanted a better life for them, and she knew Brandon could provide it. She’d wanted to help start a school for the children, and she’d planned on revisiting the factory to oversee the progress. But all would be lost if Brandon was forced to give up the mill to a moneylender who cared only for profit.

She understood the extent of the consequences and what he was forced to do. He needed Minerva’s dowry even more than before.

“It seems to me that you have no choice but to marry her.” Her throat felt like ash as soon as the words left her lips.

Brandon’s gaze held hers. “Nothing has to change between us.”

Her eyes widened. “What do you mean? You need Minerva’s dowry to save the land and the tenants. The factory, too. Think of the children. And of your own family.”

He grasped her shoulders, and his fingers traveled down to caress her arms below her sleeves in little circles. A simple touch and her senses leaped to life.

“We can continue our arrangement. I’ll find a place in London where we can meet in secret.” His voice was low and hoarse.

She stared in amazement. He couldn’t possible mean what he’d said. He wanted their affair to continue after he exchanged wedding vows to another woman?

It was one thing to be intimate with him when neither of them was committed to another, but to go on like they had was unfathomable.

“If you’re insinuating that you want to maintain an illicit affair with me after you marry Lady Minerva, then you are insane.”

His jaw steeled. “Why not? You said you never wanted to marry.”

She glared at him, bristling with indignation. “I won’t be intimate with a married man.”

“What we have is special. Rare.”

The painful tightness in her chest increased. Was he truly going to stand before a priest and exchange vows all the while knowing he would be unfaithful? She couldn’t picture him with Minerva. The thought made her ill.

It doesn’t matter. He needs the money.

Amelia bit back tears.

He shook her gently, his eyes blazing down at her. “Minerva means nothing to me.”

Her traitorous body responded to his touch, and she struggled for restraint. “Stop. Please. It’s over between us.”

“I won’t let you go. I’m coming to your room tonight.”

Panic threaded low in her belly, and she twisted free of his grasp. “Don’t be a jackanapes.”

“You have to come to my study then,” he demanded. “My portrait isn’t finished.”

Anger came to her defense, and she tossed her head back. “It’s nearly complete. Hire another artist to finish it. I no longer care about art lessons. Our arrangement is over.”

Reaching for Bessy’s reins, she mounted the horse on her own and rode back to the house.