"We are boring our audience, Lord Stockhaven," Isabella said gently.
Marcus's gaze did not move from her face. "Then let us speak in private," he said again.
Isabella shook her head slowly. "Pray do not take offense, my lord," she said, "but I have no wish to do so. A gentleman would need to be exceptional to arouse sufficient interest in me that I would wish to spend time with him."
"As illustrated by your statement earlier, madam, about English lovers." Marcus had drawn closer to her again. His broad shoulders blocked out the rest of the ballroom. She felt isolated, cut off from the rest of the world. Her pulse was pounding, her entire body tense from the effort of matching him word for word, challenge for challenge.
Marcus spoke softly. His tone was rough, like a knife against silk.
"You should give me the chance, Your Highness. I insist upon it. You will find my tales—and my other attributes—far from dull, I assure you." He looked around and deliberately raised his voice. "To persuade you, perhaps I should reveal before all these good people that you are my—"
The word
wife
seemed to hang in the tense air between them. Isabella turned icy cold. Surely. . . Surely he would not call her bluff in this most public and outrageous of ways? And yet, why not? That would be so very typical of Marcus. He had no fear of scandal.
"Lord Stockhaven!" The words burst from Isabella, half in appeal and half in warning.
"—my inspiration in my travels," Marcus finished, very gently.
Isabella could hear the underlying mockery in his voice. She felt weak with a combination of relief and anger. Damn him! Damn him for doing this to her and for enjoying it. He should be safely locked up in the Fleet. It was inexcusable that
he was not. Quite evidently he had tricked her, and her temper was now so frayed that she did not wish to delay telling him exactly what she thought of him. The scandalmongers wanted something to gossip over? Well, she would give it to them.
She slipped her hand through Marcus's arm. After his initial start of surprise, he kept quite still, coiled as tight as a spring and waiting to see what she would do next. She tilted her head in a provocative gesture and smiled up at him.
"I find that you inspire many feelings in me as well, Lord Stockhaven," she said sweetly, "but none of them are suitable for discussion in public." She smiled at their audience. "Excuse us, ladies and gentlemen. I simply must tell Lord Stockhaven what I think of him. In private." She arched a brow at Marcus. "Shall we, my lord?"
She knew even before he spoke that he was equal to any challenge she might throw down. The watchfulness in his eyes told her so.
"It will be my pleasure," Marcus said.
And Isabella had the disconcerting feeling that it would indeed.
M
arcus could feel the anger
in Isabella's body even as she placed her hand on his proffered arm. He drew her away from the knot of guests around the duchess and led her with deceptive gentleness toward the connecting door to the drawing room, where the Duchess of Fordyce had her Scottish artifacts exhibited. A huge swag of tartan draped the doorway, brushing Marcus's shoulder as they passed. The room was candlelit and very hot. The shadowy light flickered off a collection of military memorabilia including a dirk and a sword from the Battle of
Sherrifmuir
, a set of bagpipes that looked to Marcus's eyes to be rather moth-eaten and a chamber pot that had the dubious claim to fame of having belonged to Bonnie Prince Charlie. Neither of them was in the least bit interested in the exhibits, however. Isabella barely waited for them to achieve the privacy of a curtained alcove before she rounded on him, telling Marcus a great deal more about the tangled state of her emotions in the process than no doubt she had intended.
"What are you doing here?" she demanded.
"I should have thought that was obvious," Marcus drawled. He was enjoying her shock. "I am claiming my wife."
Isabella's blue eyes narrowed furiously. "You should be in jail—"
"Very probably," Marcus agreed.
"A
number of people have told me that over the years. However, the fact is that I am not."
"But
why
not?" Isabella's voice rose, but she moderated it at once. Marcus admired her self-control in a situation where most women would be having a fit of the vapors at the very least, if not resorting to a swoon. "Why are you here? You were imprisoned for debt!"
"I was in a debtor's prison," Marcus said. "Never at any point did I tell you that I had been imprisoned for debt. You made that assumption."
Isabella glared at him, eyes spitting fire. The air between them was thick with emotion. She felt trapped and she did not like it at all. He smiled gently and turned the screw still further. Leaning forward until his lips brushed her ear, he said quietly:
"I have paid off all your debts."
He felt her stiffen with fury. So now she was beholden to him as well as trapped by him, and she hated it—hated him—with a passion. He felt a dangerous rush of emotion at the power of the feeling between them. Love and hatred. The two were so close, and he wanted to wring a response—any response—from her to show that he still had the ability to do so.
"I see," she said through gritted teeth. "You are most generous, my lord."
"It was the least that I could do for my wife," he said, watching her face. "Perhaps one might call it a wedding present?"
Not by one flicker of expression did she betray her feelings at this deliberate provocation. She inclined her head with regal condescension.
"How thoughtful. Your first and last gift to me—for you may be sure that I shall sue for an annulment in the morning."
A gaggle of guests had come into the exhibition room. Marcus drew closer to Isabella, taking her elbow to draw her into a quieter corner.
"Have you any idea of how expensive and difficult an annulment can be to achieve?" he asked conversationally. "Particularly when your husband will not cooperate? You have no money to pursue it in the courts and without my promise of silence, all you will manage to do is stir up a huge scandal."
Isabella's head was bent. The candlelight picked out the strands of dark copper and chestnut in her hair. The faint scent of the jasmine perfume she always wore seemed to cloak her with all the elusive memories of their time together. An ache took Marcus then, a sudden deep desire to recapture all that they had lost. It was gone in an instant, but no less strong for all that.
He reminded himself that he had come to the ball that night to provoke her and to extract the first part of his revenge. He had wanted to make her suffer for all that she had inflicted on him by departing from his life so swiftly, only to reenter it again and imperiously demand his help without a thought for his feelings. He wished to make her feel powerless—as stripped and defenseless emotionally as her defection had made him feel all those years ago.
And he had done so, although she had concealed her feelings well in front of the crowd. He admired her for that. She was a very strong character. It made the contest between them much more enjoyable than if she had been a die-away creature with no backbone. But then, she would not have got where she was today, would not have climbed the greasy ladder to worldly riches and status, if she had not been able to trample the feelings of others on the way to her success.
However, it was not all about revenge. Two minutes in her presence had shown him that. He would have opposed an annulment anyway, simply to thwart her. Now he realized that he was going to do it not merely to make her suffer, but because he wanted her. He had never stopped wanting her.
She looked up directly into his eyes and he felt the tug of attraction so fiercely through his body that it was all he could do not to show it.
"I have no difficulty in stirring up a scandal if I have to," Isabella said coldly. "Surely you have realized that already?"
"I have noticed," Marcus said. He wondered how far she would be prepared to go. "I also care as little for the opinion of others as you appear to do, so it seems we are checkmated. Go ahead." He decided to call her bluff. "Cause a scandal. Tell the world that you married me for my money and now you wish to discard me."
Isabella frowned. Her fingers, tapping a brisk tattoo on the wooden frame of her fan, were the only indicator of her deep irritation. Marcus watched her struggles with interest.
"I do not understand why you would oppose an annulment, my lord," she said, after a moment. "Surely you cannot want this marriage any more than I do?"
Marcus smiled. "On the contrary," he said with absolute truth, "there are many aspects of the situation that appeal to me. You seem to have completely overlooked the possibility that I might wish—" He paused.
"
To achieve a full marriage."
He rubbed his fingers gently over the silken material of her sleeve and felt the tiniest shiver go through her. She was not indifferent to him as a man; she never had been. He felt a surge of savage triumph. He had needed that, to know that his own wanting had found an echo in hers.
"I am merely waiting," he said, a little roughly, "for you to indicate that you are ready to leave, madam. It is, to all intents and purposes, our wedding night, and after our enforced separation I find myself. . .eager. . .to be alone with you."
At last he had succeeded in shocking her. Her eyes searched his face as though trying to judge whether he was in earnest or merely playing with her, and he was certain that he saw a flicker of fear there, though when she spoke her tone was quite steady.
"I assume that you jest," she said coldly, twitching her sleeve from his fingers. "We are little more than strangers now."
Marcus shrugged. "That can be easily remedied."
She stared at him. "No!" Once again the fear flickered behind her eyes and was swiftly gone as she took a steadying breath. "It seems that I have misread you," she said. "What precisely is it that you want?"
"I have told you," Marcus said. "I want my bride."
She scrutinized him, her gaze shatteringly direct and appearing so scrupulously honest that he felt it probe his soul. It was an odd sensation and it made him feel slightly guilty. She looked so shocked, so betrayed. But that was what he had wanted. He had wanted her to feel helpless and be at his mercy.
"When I came to you in the Fleet . . .did you have this in mind from the very first?"
"Yes."
She blinked at his honesty. "Why?" she asked. "Revenge."
The stark word fell between them and into silence. In the background the pipe music skirled, a wistful backdrop to the fierce emotions between them.
"Revenge," Isabella repeated. She looked stunned. "Revenge for what?"
Marcus laughed incredulously. "Come, my love, I would think better of you if you did not pretend."
"Because I broke your heart?" There was a shade of scorn in Isabella's voice now. "I thought you were made of sterner stuff, my lord."
"I thought so, too." Marcus took her by the shoulders. He could feel her bones beneath the silk of her gown. Such a fragile creature and yet made of tempered steel. "You owe me because you are venal and corrupt and calculating and I want you to admit it," he said brutally. "I thought you all that was sweet and good, God help me. Then you dropped me to marry for money and a title. You gave me no explanation or excuse. You led the life of a whore and then you tried to buy me again when you required my help." His hands tightened mercilessly, drawing her close so that her breasts brushed his chest. She was very pale now and her gaze was blind. For a split second he wondered whether his words had hurt her, but then she tilted up her chin and defiance burned in her eyes.
"So you want to take me to prove yourself correct and to settle your debts," she said with such contempt that it burned him. "How like a man to try to make everything so simple. I tell you now—I shall not give you what you want."
Marcus let her go abruptly and stood back.
"And I will not consent to an annulment," he said stonily, "so disabuse yourself of the idea that I shall. And without my consent, my love—" he saw her instinctive, angry movement at the endearment"—you will not achieve your aim. I fear you are trapped and eventually you will come around to seeing matters from my point of view."
Isabella made a gesture that was full of repressed fury. "This is an intolerable situation!"