She opened her mouth, but there was no arguing with such a point. It was utterly and completely true. Once married, she would be seen very differently than she was now. At least by the law.
“Mariah,” he continued as he took a step toward her, though he made no effort to touch her. “If we do this, you need never worry about your future in any way ever again. And I will resolve this issue with my father, I promise you.”
She pursed her lips as she examined him carefully. He was so utterly, ridiculously handsome and he stared at her with so much wanting in his eyes.
Wanting
to protect her.
Wanting
to right whatever wrong he felt he’d done by having this man as his sire.
She did not see, however, that he wanted to keep her because he cared for her. So while she should have been happy that the man she loved was offering to make her his bride, she was most decidedly
not
.
Her body felt very weak suddenly and she eased herself to the chair she had vacated. When her vision stopped swimming, she said, “Let us suppose you are somehow able to stop your father and in a week or a month or a year, we deem that I am safe. What then?”
He blinked and there was true confusion on his face. “I’m afraid I don’t understand.”
She shut her eyes. Of course he didn’t. It wasn’t as if he had thought this through beyond keeping her from being physically injured.
“What happens once this is resolved?” she pushed. “We will be married. And?”
He shook his head. “Well, you will be my wife.”
She sighed. “Will I be, John? Will I be your wife in any real way?”
She could see the answer in the way he flinched, the way he shifted, the way he swallowed hard before he answered.
“In every way I could allow you to be.”
The sentence repeated in her head.
In every way I could allow you to be.
It was no answer.
“I don’t know,” she said, covering her eyes with her hands. “I must think. I cannot think.”
He moved toward the table, his eyes flashing with emotions much deeper than any he had ever shown toward her in the past.
“No, there is no time to think, Mariah. Last night should have shown you that.”
She threw up her hands. “Dear God, John! Are you truly so cold that you cannot see how transformative this decision will be for me?”
“Mariah,” he sighed, his tone filled with irritation, but she did not allow him another word.
“Perhaps your life would not significantly change if you took a wife, any wife, even
me
as your wife,” she continued. “But mine will change in every way. You are asking me to leave the life I know and in trade you’ll offer me some kind of protection against harm, but little else. This is not something I can consider lightly.”
“How could you miss the life you know?” he asked in stunned disbelief. “A life where you must depend upon a man’s discretion for your funds, your home, your very existence.”
She arched a brow. “And that would change, how?”
His lips thinned. “I don’t know if other men treat their wives like mistresses, but I would not. You would have guarantees. You would never need worry about…well, anything ever again.”
“What about children?” she whispered.
That drew him up short. “I—I had not considered that.”
“No, I thought not.” She shook her head. “What about Society?”
He blinked. “What about it?”
She gritted her teeth. “I assume as your wife that I would take on some duties in your home. Would your associates and friends accept a woman who once turned up her skirts in trade for protection? Would their wives?”
He hesitated again. “I don’t know.”
She threw up her hands. “You see, there is more for me to consider than you, I suppose. Please give me at least twenty-four hours to do so.”
She folded her arms and stared up at him, determined not to be seduced or bullied into such an altering decision. Especially when her head was swimming and she still wasn’t entirely certain if this was reality or a dream.
“Mariah,” he growled, low and still highly emotional.
But whatever he was going to say was lost as there was a light knock on the door and then Swanson entered.
“I’m sorry to intrude, sir, but Miss Vivien Manning is here and she demands to see Miss Mariah.”
Mariah squeezed her eyes shut. Thank God for Vivien and her impeccable timing.
Obviously John thought something much different. She was sure she heard him utter a curse beneath his breath before he waved at his servant.
“Fine. Let her in.”
Swanson backed from the room and in a moment, he returned with Vivien at his side. She gave him no time to announce her, but burst into the dining room and straight to Mariah’s side for a tight, hard hug that all but sucked the air from her lungs.
“Thank God,” Vivien whispered against her hair.
“I’m all right,” Mariah responded as her friend released her and instead turned her attention, in the form of a dark glare, on John.
“How could you sweep her away like that?” Vivien demanded, her face dark pink. “How
dare
you? Did you even ensure that the wrappings on her wound were properly changed?”
John straightened his shoulders and Mariah could see he remained angry and frustrated, and probably as much at her as at her friend.
“Of course I did. What do you take me for?”
Vivien folded her arms. “I do not rightly know anymore, John Rycroft.”
He stood staring at the two women for a long moment, but then he stalked across the room to the door.
“I’ll leave you to each other since it’s evident I am not needed here. But, Vivien, talk some sense into your friend.” He locked eyes with Mariah. “Perhaps you are the only one who can.”
With that, he slammed the door behind himself and left Mariah alone with Vivien.
Chapter Eighteen
Vivien collapsed into the seat beside Mariah and stared at her friend. Mariah drew back in surprise. The other woman’s eyes were rimmed with black circles and bright red from what could be nothing else but tears.
“Dear God,” she said as she took Vivien’s hand with her uninjured one. “You did not stay up all night fretting over me, did you?”
Vivien stared at her in disbelief.
“How could I not? You were brutally attacked in a room just down the hall from me, I
found
you in a pool of your own blood and then John swooped in and carried you away, leaving everyone to wonder what in the world was going on. Selfish man!”
Mariah squeezed her friend’s hand gently. Although she currently had much the same sentiment about John, she could not help but defend him nonetheless.
“Do not be too hard on John,” she said softly. “He has his reasons for what he did.”
Vivien scoffed and released Mariah’s hand to pace to the window. She looked out over the street for a few minutes before she turned with a shake of her head. “And what did he mean with his parting words? What sense must I talk you into?”
Mariah shifted. As much as she wanted to tell her friend everything, the situation was complicated. Vivien would most certainly scold her.
“What is going on?” she asked with wide eyes when too much silence stretched between them.
Mariah shrugged. “It is nothing of consequence.”
“Bollocks!” her friend burst out in a rare flash of temper. “You owe me honesty after last night, so tell me this instant.”
“I do.” Mariah folded her arms. “I’m sorry. John has…he has proposed marriage to me.”
Vivien stood stock-still for a long moment, then moved to the closest chair and sank down in it with a thud. She stared at Mariah the entire time, her gaze boring into her like a tool through wood.
“I am going to get a reputation,” her friend finally muttered.
Mariah smiled at that quip. One of Vivien’s other matches between mistress and protector had just resulted in a marriage. But those were far different circumstances. A love match.
Her smile fell. “His reasons for asking me are not due to some romantic notion, I assure you,” she said softly.
Vivien tilted her head. “No?”
Mariah lifted her eyebrows at her friend’s expression. “Why do you look and sound so surprised by the facts? You know our situation.”
Vivien laughed, though there was little humor to the sound. “No, my dear. I do not. In truth, I think you two have as little notion about it as anyone. But if John has not admitted an attachment, then why would he ask you to be his bride?”
Mariah sighed. If she had come so far, there was no need to hide the truth any longer.
“The attack on me last night,” she said softly. “It was…because of him. Or so he thinks. Because of his family. And he has convinced himself that marriage is the only way he can protect me until he can deal with his…”
She broke off. This was John’s secret and his pain, not hers to tell, even to her best friend.
“His father?” Vivien asked when she did not finish her sentence. “Is it Vaughn Rycroft who hurt you?”
Mariah’s eyes widened. “How do you know that?”
She shivered. “A woman in my position would be foolish not to know the dangerous men as well as the rich. I’ve heard tales of him, vague but disturbing. And
he
arranged your attack?”
Mariah shrugged. “So John believes.”
Vivien returned her gaze to the window. It had begun to rain and droplets clung to the glass like teardrops. She was silent for so long that Mariah stood, believing the exchange to be over.
But her friend surprised her by pivoting around, her face pale, and said, “You should accept his offer.”
Mariah gripped at the edge of the table in disbelief. “His offer of marriage?” When Vivien nodded, Mariah continued, “What in the world are you talking about? I would never have thought I would hear those words coming from you!”
“And if this were a normal circumstance, when a gentleman is infatuated with his mistress and offers her a marriage, I would tell her to refuse. Those scenarios rarely work out, and the woman almost always comes to suffer far more. But this offer he makes you is not about love or passion. You could be killed. And I have lost too much, too many people. You are…” Vivien choked and tears sparkled in her eyes. “You are my best friend.”
Mariah sucked in her breath in shock as she scurried around the table and embraced Vivien as hard as her friend had embraced her earlier. For a moment, they stood together, silent, their foreheads pressed close.
Then Mariah drew back and Vivien swiped her tears in frustration. “Does that mean you will accept?”
Mariah shivered. “I don’t know. It would be one thing to marry someone I did not love, someone who did not love me. We would be on equal ground. But to enter into a union such as this when I feel so much and he so little…”
Vivien wrapped an arm around her. “Think of it this way. If he had asked you to be his mistress today, be your protector rather than marry you, would you have agreed?”
Mariah considered the question. Certainly that was all she had hoped for. And despite her feelings for him, she knew the answer.
“Yes,” she admitted. “I would have said yes.”
“Then say yes to this,” Vivien insisted. “The difference between wife and mistress is not so great as you think.”
Mariah pursed her lips. “You must be desperate to try to make me believe such lies,” she said. When Vivien shook her head, she lifted a hand to keep her friend from arguing. “Please! I may not be as experienced as you are, but I know what you say isn’t true. And so do you.”
Vivien’s shoulders slumped. “Perhaps you are right. But I urge you to think about accepting nevertheless. With the situation so dire, I beg of you not to dismiss it out of hand.”
Mariah nodded and was rewarded by Vivien’s relieved smile. But even as she returned the expression, there was a pit in her stomach. If she said yes to such a shocking proposal, the entire situation would end in only one thing—heartache. Hers. And soon.
John was expecting Vivien to burst into his office in a fury, so when she did just that an hour after her arrival to his home, he did not even look up from his paperwork.
“Sit down, Vivien,” he said. “Allow me to sign this and you’ll have my full attention.”
She huffed out her breath, but did as he asked and flopped herself into a chair across from him. She waited, rather patiently, actually, as he signed his name to the missive he’d been writing and handed it off to the same servant who had trailed her into the room. But once the door was shut behind the man, she did not even allow him a breath before she started in on her inevitable tirade.
“What are you thinking?”
John shut his eyes and pondered all the ways he might remain in control for the next few moments.
“I am not certain to what you refer,” he managed through clenched teeth. “Are you angry at me about last night? About the threats against Mariah? Or about the proposal of marriage? I ask because I’m certain you now know about all those things.”