Norah's
fingers clenched the silvery satin tight at her breast, her chin lowered in an
attempt to hide the fiery blush he'd raised to her cheeks. "I had no right
to ask. I only..." Have only spent the past hours racked with curiosity
about her, wondering...
Kane
waved one hand in dismissal. "I volunteered the information. That may be
my only virtue: I never make the least attempt to gild the ugly truth about
myself. You needn't ever fear I'll attempt to dupe you into thinking me some
noble hero."
"Whatever
you are, it's not my concern."
"It
damn well is if you're going to marry me."
"M—Marry
you?" Norah took an instinctive step backward, gaping at him as if he'd
run quite mad.
"That's
what you came here to do, isn't it? Enter into holy matrimony? Exchange all
those empty promises? Become my bride? When you and Cassandra stirred up this
insane scheme—"
"It
wasn't a scheme," Norah insisted. "I thought you wanted a wife. That
you were anxious to marry."
Kane
raised one sardonic brow, his lip curling. "Marriage is like the plague,
Miss Linton. You can hardly blame a man for being reluctant to contract it
again once he's survived the malaise from hell. But I've been racking my brain
over this mess, and I've decided that there might be a way to end this
satisfactorily for all concerned."
"Sir
Aidan, I—"
"Just
quit your blasted arguing and hear me out. This isn't easy, you know. Proposing
marriage to a total stranger. God, I should've had at least three more glasses
of Madeira before I came up here, but it's too late now."
"You're
drunk?"
"Not
drunk enough, by all appearances. But it's a situation I intend to remedy the
instant I get this over with." He crossed his arms over his chest and
glared at her. "I have a proposition to lay out for you."
"Wh—What
kind of proposition?"
"Cass
thinks she wants you to stay—not that girls of this age have the least idea
what they want from one minute to the next. But I suppose it's possible that
the girl really will form an attachment to you. If she does, I'll cast the
devil to the winds and marry you, even if it kills me."
Norah
gaped at him. "What woman could resist such a pretty proposal?" She
groped for the words every girl of marriageable age was schooled in before
their entry into society. "I—I am aware of the honor you—you bestow, but I
cannot—" Norah stopped abruptly. The man hadn't honored her. He'd insulted
her, raged at her, embarrassed her beyond bearing.
Kane
hurled out a disgusted oath. "Don't tell me they're still stuffing girls'
heads with that ridiculous rubbish! There's nothing pretty about this, nothing
romantic, and the sooner you dash away any fool notions you may have in that
regard, the better for both of us. I'm offering you a business proposition,
plain and simple. One for which you'll receive a generous compensation."
"Business?"
"Yes.
But before we enter into it, I want to make certain the terms of any such
agreement are clear."
"I...
see."
"Any
union between us will be in name only. I have no desire to exercise my conjugal
rights, nor do I want any more children. I want to go on with my life exactly
as it is now—no recriminations, no complications."
"And
exactly how is your life now?"
"When
I am with Cassandra, I am her father. I protect her, love her, spoil the blazes
out of her. When I leave Rathcannon, I am a wholly different man."
"Different?"
"Would
you like me to spell it out for you, Miss Linton?" His eyes blazed with
defiance, and a fiercer emotion Norah couldn't begin to name. "Last night
at this time, I was at a gaming hell, fleecing a seventeen-year-old boy out of
his inheritance." He held his fist to the candlelight, an emerald flashing
on one finger. "This ring had been in that boy's family since the reign of
Henry VIII, and when he wagered it in an effort to regain his fortunes, I took
that from him as well."
Norah
recoiled, sickened. "I don't—don't need to know—"
"The
bruise beneath my eye is from an opera dancer who threw a vase at me in a
temper because I would not tarry long enough to warm her bed. I would have been
delighted to accommodate her, except for the fact that I had promised Cassandra
I would arrive at Rathcannon before the morning of my birthday."
"The
way you choose to spend your evenings is none of my affair."
"I
beg to differ. If you intend to be my wife—"
"I
don't!" Norah flung out. "How can you even think I would—"
"Defile
yourself
by linking your future to a man like me?" he finished for her. "I
can't imagine why any woman would. But you must have had some reason to come
all the way to Ireland in search of a husband. You must have been desperate. Or
foolish. Or both."
Norah
felt as if he had struck her. "I wanted a place for myself. A home."
"And
so you shall have one. As my wife, you will be mistress of Rathcannon until
Cassandra is grown and gone. Then I will set you up in an establishment of your
own, if that pleases you."
"But
we would still be married in the eyes of God and the world. Linked
forever."
"Countless
marriages end in amicable separation. You need never fear that I would bother
to end it with the scandal of divorce. I don't give a damn if you carry the
dubious honor of the title of my wife to your grave."
Norah
paced the chamber, feeling as if the walls were suddenly pressing in on her.
"This is insane. I don't even know you."
"A
fact that didn't seem to concern you overmuch when you thought me some pathetic
beggar desperate for a soulmate. I shall make it simple for you. Put it in
terms I am certain that even one of your innocence can understand. You would be
wise to heed anything reprehensible you hear about me. The worse the
accusation, the more likely it is true."
"But
your daughter... she obviously adores you."
"Don't
shore up your opinion of me by using my attachment to the girl. A child's heart
is often blind. She regards me as some kind of hero now, but the truth is that
I had nothing to do with Cassandra until she was five years old, and neither
did her mother. We were both so caught up in gambling and drinking and stirring
up scandal that sometimes we forgot she even existed. It's a testament to
Cassandra's own strength of spirit that she survived at all."
"But
it's obvious you love her."
He
shrugged one broad shoulder with a studied negligence. "As much as I'm
capable of loving anyone. It's because I love her that I'm considering making
this marriage. It seems she's worried about what will happen to her if I die. She's
afraid of being left alone."
The
words echoed in the secret places in Norah's own heart. "There is nothing
more frightening in the world," she allowed softly. "But she'll soon
be grown and gone, with a family of her own. With her beauty and wit, the instant
she enters society she will be swept away."
"The
instant she sets foot on the haute ton's threshold, every door will be slammed
in her face," Kane cut in ruthlessly.
Norah
started, stunned at the quicksilver emotion that flashed into those cynical eyes.
Anguish, devastating in its power. Norah could feel the force of it even after
Kane shuttered it away.
"You
see, the one legacy Delia and I did manage to bequeath to our daughter during
those first years of Cassandra's life was to make certain that no decent family
will let her within a mile of their door."
Norah
knew she shouldn't probe any further, shouldn't ask Aidan Kane about things
that were none of her concern. There was no need to understand him, to touch
whatever place in his soul had been illuminated for such a fleetingly raw
moment in those bedeviling green eyes. She was stunned to hear her own voice.
"It was all a long time ago. Whatever happened was not Cassandra's fault.
Perhaps all is forgotten."
"Forgotten?
Surely you must have some idea how cruel society can be, Miss Linton. And how
unforgiving. The stigma of dishonor can't be sponged away by beauty or wit or a
fortune in ill-gotten gains."
"No,
I suppose that is true." Norah turned away from him, crossing to the
window to stare out into the night. "Society would much rather you starve
nobly in the gutter than demean yourself by attempting to make your own way in
the world. They prefer to commiserate and sympathize with you, admit you into
their gilded halls so they can whisper behind their hands how desperately
threadbare General Linton's granddaughter appears."
"General
Linton?" A measure of awe and astonishment crept into Kane's voice.
"Don't tell me you're one of the Lintons of Stanwycke!"
"We
lost Stanwycke years ago." Norah gave a bitter laugh. "Honor is the
only thing my family managed to hold on to through the years, though we lost
everything else."
"Why
the blazes would a Linton of Stanwycke be running off to the wilds of Ireland
to marry a stranger? For God's sake, every door in London must be open
to..." Kane stopped, those predatory eyes of his suddenly burning with a
quiet intensity Norah found more unsettling than any bout of rage. He paced
toward her, and one strong hand caught her chin.
The
callused warmth seeped into Norah, making her tremble, excruciatingly aware of
the way Aidan Kane towered over her, close, so close she could see the tiny
scar on his left cheekbone, she could catch the scent of him—wild Irish winds,
night mist, and recklessness, all overlaid with the subtle tang of Madeira.
When
he spoke his voice was rough, low, as if he were making some effort to gentle
it. "What the devil are you doing here, Norah Linton? Halfway to hell,
with no one to keep you safe? Your family must be crazed with worry."
Norah
knew she should tear away from his touch, tell him her affairs weren't his
concern. But he held her, pinned with that probing gaze, a devastating
uncertainty clinging about lips far too compelling.
"My
family?" she echoed with a broken laugh. "I am quite certain they are
relieved to be rid of me."
Kane's
dark brows lowered, his eyes suddenly free of their lazy cynicism. He was
searching for some clue, some reason for her flight to Ireland. She could see
it in features that bespoke a keen intelligence buried beneath the shadows left
by decadence. She knew the moment he reached a possible conclusion.
"Norah," he said with astonishing gentleness, "are you with
child?"
"W—With
child?" she choked out, stunned. "I—"
"Before
you answer, know that it would make no odds with me. No man knows better than I
do the kind of siege unscrupulous bastards can lay against a woman's
virtue."
There
was contempt beneath those rough-velvet words, a contempt not for the fallen
doves society scorned but rather for the men who used them so badly. Norah was
astonished, set off balance by this Aidan Kane, the one without the hard cast
to his features, the devil-take-the-world attitude in his eyes.
She
swallowed hard and drew away from him, shaken to the core. "There is no
child. I'm not in disgrace. I'm just—just in the way."
"In
the way?"
"An
inconvenient reminder of my mother's first marriage. An unwelcome burden in my
stepfather's house." She struggled to keep the pain from her voice, to
capture a little of Aidan Kane's careless sarcasm and use it for her own.
"It would have been much simpler if I had been a hound or a horse left
behind by my father. I could have been disposed of most expediently, thrown in
a pond with a rock tied round my neck, auctioned off at Tattersalls. But the only
way one can dispose of female children is to wash your hands of them in a
marriage."
"Your
family is responsible for sending you here?" Outrage thrummed beneath
Kane's liquor-warmed voice. "Damn the thoughtless bastards to hell! For
all they knew, I could've been some kind of monster!" His mouth twisted,
grim. "Hell, I
am
a goddamn monster."
Norah
couldn't help but smile a little. "True, you are not exactly what
Cassandra's letters led me to believe. But no man who loves his child as you do
could possibly be such a beast."
"I—blast,
we are discussing how the devil you got abandoned on my doorstep, Norah. I want
to know what could possibly have driven a lady the likes of you—a lady of damn
fine family—to such rash lengths."
"My
stepfather had arranged a marriage for me with a mere youth, the most odious,
disgusting..." She shuddered. "If I refused to wed him, my stepfather
intended to turn me out into the streets."
"I
shall be most anxious to make your stepfather's acquaintance," Kane
snarled with velvet menace. "Teach him his duty by you."
"The
truth is, I wanted nothing more than to escape his house forever. If anyone
else had offered for me, I would have bolted headlong into marriage and my
stepfather would have happily palmed me off on another man. But, as you
observed earlier, I am not...
ripe and rosy
enough for most gentlemen's
tastes. Add that to my lack of fortune, and you can imagine how I fared upon
the marriage mart."