Page 36 of Wicked with Him

Roman followed and stopped behind her. He slid his arm lightly about her waist, his lips close enough to nuzzle her ear if he wanted to. “You don’t have to do what he says. You are of age.”

“How can I not go to mourn with him and my family? I’m only here because my cousin took pity on me. He could easily take away this new home of mine, my entire security, if he wanted to. He could insist I marry one of his cronies as compensation for all he’s done so far.”

Roman’s grip tightly about her. “Did Fairbridge, Ravenswood now, threaten that in the letter?”

“I never read the whole of it. But just thinking of going back has made me feel as powerless as I was before you kissed me.”

Roman pressed a long kiss to her cheek. “According to Stratford, you are the only relative he gives a damn about. I cannot believe he would make you marry someone you didn’t like after all he’s done for you.” He lifted her hand, and the letter she still held. “Might I read his words for myself so I can perhaps set your mind at ease?”

“Go ahead.”

Amity collapsed into a chair by the fire, chilled utterly through to the bone now. It had been a glorious day, the best in her memory, until her family threatened to drag her back into the fold and crushed her spirits anew.

Then Roman suddenly cursed. And cursed again. “Damn him.”

Chapter 13

Roman stared sightlessly at the room. He’d thought he’d been so circumspect. How wrong he was. It was lowering to discover you’d been led on a merry dance with only one possible outcome. Especially if he wanted to live to reach an old age without holes in him.

He scowled at the neat script summoning Amity back to the family’s country estate, still in shock that he’d judged the situation entirely wrong.

Amity’s disappearance from London had been for one purpose alone—to flush her seducer out into open waters so he could be reeled in.

And like a fool, he’d never once considered he was already on the hook.

The Earl of Fairbridge, now Duke of Ravenswood, had manipulated them both.

Roman wiped a hand across his mouth, sick to his stomach over his lack of understanding. If he’d been able to forget Amity and not pursued the knowledge of her location, she might never be forced to marry him. But it was all there in the letter.

Amity, and Roman, were expected to attend the new duke’s as soon as they were legally wed.

Gretna Green had been suggested—where many clandestine and expedient marriages were made. Without any annoying members of her family trying to stop proceedings. That was in the letter too. Amity’s older cousin had thought of everything.

Roman raked a hand through his hair, appalled with their situation. This was not how he’d hoped to propose to Amity at all.

He glanced at her. She had her face covered and seemed in something of a panic. Amity hadn’t read the whole letter yet. She’d stopped at the point where her return to the family fold had been demanded. He could pretend Fairbridge wasn’t forcing his hand, but that would be a dishonest way to begin their married life.

He had no choice but to propose now, even if he had intended to anyway.

He walked up to her side and placed the letter in her lap. “You need to read it all.”

“Why? It’s only going to get worse, isn’t it?”

“Hopefully you will not think so,” he murmured, but he did not hold much hope.

He sank down in the opposite seat to watch Amity read all the words. Her eyes grew wide, her gaze shot to his several times, and then back to the letter as she continued to read. She must have read it three times before setting it down again. “Gretna? Surely he couldn’t know about us.”

“He does.”

“But that means…”

“Indeed.”

“I’m so sorry,” they both said at the same time.

Roman shook his head. “This wasn’t the way I wanted it to be for us.”

“Nor I. You should go.”