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“Poor Miss Gleadhill, then,” Caroline said with a laugh. Then she grinned up at him. “Do youlikeit?”
“Aye, it brings out the green flecks in your eyes.” And then he winked at her. “But take it off, Caroline. Let me see if I like you better in nothingatall.”
She rolled her eyes. “I know exactly how youlikeme.”
“Completely bare, and in my bed,” heagreed.
“Yes, well, about that,” she began and stepped away from him. “I’m worried about the…well, theexamplewe’re setting for ourdaughters.”
“Example?” he echoed with afrown.
She seemed to take a steadying breath. “I know you never would have brought Rachel, Emma, and me to Saddleworth if it wasn’t out of necessity, but wearehere.”
Where the devil was she going with this? “I am happy to have you all here, youknowthat.”
She swallowed a bit nervously, which wasn’t like her at all. “I kept hoping you would broach the subject, Marc, but youhaven’t…”
He did not like the sound in her voice all of a sudden, and an uneasiness settled around him. “Which subject,exactly?”
“Us,” she breathed out. “Our future…together,hopefully.”
Damn it. “Why wouldn’t it be together?” And what the hell didhopefullymean?
“Well, we’ve been living together as a family, all of us, these last weeks. But we aren’t a family. And I need to know if you mean torectifythat.”
“Marriage,” he muttered the word as though it was the vilest ofcurses.
“You don’t have to say itthatway.”
Well, there was really no other way to say the bloody word. “For God’s sake, Caroline. You know Iloveyou.”
“And I love you. So Idon’t—”
“I have kept Callie here. I have gone to great lengths to make people believe I don’t care for my daughter. I would never be successful at making them think I don’t care foryou, not if we’remarried.”
She looked as though he’d struck her and her mouth dropped open. It took her a moment before she asked, “So what is yourplan,Marc?”
“Do we have to have a plan?” he asked. “Haven’t things been…pretty close to perfect since we’vebeenhere?”
She shook her head. “We can’t stay here forever. And the real world is waiting out there for usrightnow.”
“So when we rejoin the world, we’ll go on as we were before.” He shook his head. “I’ll be by every night and no one ever has to know thetruth.”
“So your plan is to sneak through my servants’ entrance every night, make love to me, and escape before the sun rises inthesky?”
She didn’t need to sound quite so waspish about it. “That’s what we weredoing.”
“For the rest of our lives?” Her voice hitched. “That’s what you wanttodo?”
“Have you abetterplan?”
“Well, any plan I devise won’t leave my daughters thinking I’m yourwhore,Marc.”
Whore, indeed. His jaw tightened at those words. That wasn’t what he was suggesting in the least. And she damn well knew it. “Caroline,” he began rather tightly, trying to keep his anger in check. “I have a lifetime of enemies. You know I do. If we married, if they thought I cared for you, there is nothing in the world to stop them from comingafteryou.”
“And when is the last time, Marc,” she pressed. “When is the last time they came afteryou? You’ve been out for a dozenyears.”
No one had ever actually come after Marc, but that wasn’t the point. “Just because no one has attempted anything yet, doesn’t mean they won’t.” He raked a hand through his hair in frustration. “I’m certain Kelling never thought his past would come back to haunt him and yet it did. Him, his wife, his son, slaughtered by the side of the road. Is that the future you want for us, for ourchildren?”
