Page 21 of When We Touch

That drew another of his humorless smiles. “As you wish. Still, I’m afraid you’re going to have to listen to me.”

She lifted her hands with dismay. “It seems I am a captive audience.”

“All right, then. It’s obvious that you are marrying the man for his position, and most importantly, money. A marriage of convenience. Your convenience.”

She smiled as well. “Sir, many a marriage is a matter of convenience. This marriage was arranged. At the very beginning, I was not consulted. Such remains the lot of many a woman who would be a wife.”

“Ah, but I do know your brother, lady. And for all his faults, he is not a fellow who would force his sister to anything against her will. And we are not living in medieval times. This is the nineteenth century.”

“And you suggest that marriages are not arranged?”

“I am suggesting that had you protested the obvious incongruity of this, it would not have come about.”

“You know, I believe that I will tell your uncle about this conversation,” she informed him.

“Be my guest. But we’ve not come to the end of it.”

“As far as I’m concerned, we have.”

“You remain a captive audience,” he reminded her. And indeed, she did. The carriage, spacious enough, seemed smaller than ever. He dominated whatever space he occupied, and that was it. He was simply dressed that day, his trousers and waistcoat pressed black, his cravat a silver gray, and his caped greatcoat equally as dark. Perhaps it was the cut and style of the coat itself; his shoulders seemed to stretch the breadth of the carriage. But were he slender, he might have seemed to consume the space as well, for his eyes seemed to be a burning silver that spoke volumes and echoed and resounded with warning. She denied the shiver that rent through her, and wished that her gaze did not fall to his hands resting on the silver-handled walking stick he carried. They were powerful hands, neatly groomed, but his fingers were long and tense, and the size of his hands, like that of his shoulders, seemed ridiculously emphasized by the space between them. She loathed the man, and yet he seemed to awake something within her. As he ridiculed and she hated, she still found herself wondering with a wicked fascination just how those hands would feel on her flesh, what it would be like to have those fingers, gentle with tenderness rather than rigid with strength, trailing down her cheek, stroking her shoulder....

She jerked her head and gaze away, staring out the window, praying she didn’t look desperate, or that, indeed, she hadn’t given the least of her thoughts away. There had been that one fleeting moment when she had seen him, when she had felt that sizzle down her spine and thought he might be the lord to whom she would be promised.

“Yes, you’re quite right. I remain a captive audience. Of course, I could shriek and scream and throw myself from the carriage, and then, when the police came and the incident was explained to Lord Charles, you might suddenly find yourself a captive audience.”

“You’re not going to do any such thing.”

“Don’t count on my being so determined on dignity!”

His smile deepened. “My dear lady, you wouldn’t so much as set a finger against the door before I would be upon you, make no mistake.”

“How dare you? Perhaps you misunderstand? Your uncle has asked me to be his wife, not his mistress!”

“Madam, that is precisely the point.”

“Yes, please, pray, get to the point.”

“You’re marrying Lord Charles for his money. You seem to have a number of agendas of your own. Marry him for his money. But let me just warn you— there will be no young lovers, no nights out on the arm of a stand-in, and he had best live many a year after the ceremony.”

She gasped, stunned that he would speak so bluntly.

Her eyes narrowed, her temper flared so that it was all that she could do to keep from flying across the carriage to scratch at his face. As it was, her hand twitched, and through no real volition or thought, she leaned forward, ready to strike him.

The carriage made a sudden lurch, sending her across the short space between them, and hard against him. The fingers of his left hand were curled around her wrist; with his right, he caught and steadied her, and for a dreadful moment, she was caught against his chest, staring up into his eyes, and they were face-to-face. And in that brief span of time, she was horrified anew to realize that no matter how it seemed she truly detested him, she liked where she had landed, and that it was exquisite to feel his arms around her, the power of his chest, the heat that radiated from the man, the raw, carnal pull that was so simply and sensually a part of him.

Then she jerked free, straightening herself, awkward in her haste to get away from him, and all the emotions streaking through her. Her hand fell upon his thigh. Too close. She jerked her fingers away, her face flooding with crimson. She was completely rattled, and furious that he could make her so. In her scrambling to regain her seating, he tried to help her. His fingers tangled into her hair rather than catching her shoulders. Pins splayed over the carriage.

“I’ve got them; I’ve got them!” he muttered. But they both made the effort to retrieve them, and their heads cracked in the middle. The deerstalker hat flew from his head, and for a moment, they were both nearly unseated again.

He found his balance first, straightened her, and retrieved the pins. She looked away, wishing that just the brush of her fingers against his as he handed back her hairpins did not evoke any reaction.

A sudden exhaustion had come to her. And she spoke more with that weariness than with outrage. “You may rest assured. There is no potential lover in my life. Your uncle is quite rich. You’re his only male heir, so I understand. If you’re worried that I shall go through your inheritance, you needn’t fear. I’m sure that you’ve made certain there is only so much I can get in the event of his death. I’ve asked for an income, yes, but I believe that even you must admit that the individual allotment I’ve requested is less than moderate. Certainly, you’ve been consulted on the writing of the marriage contract.”

He didn’t reply for a long matter of minutes, and when he did, it was not as she expected. “My lady, I don’t give a damn about the inheritance or the contract. I’m warning you only that you will not break his heart while he lives.”

“I don’t know what else to say to you. If there is anything I don’t want in my life, it is another man.”

He stared at her, and she forced her gaze back to him, and was annoyed to find herself smoothing her hair once again, resecuring pins she had already secured. As he looked back at her, he tapped the roof of the carriage again with his walking stick.