Authors: Embracing Scandal
With Becca glaring at him, he swallowed down his words. But thoughts of how much worse it may have been, what else they may have done to Becca, lingered in his head. For long minutes, he’d thought her kidnapped or worse, perhaps dead, and his own heart had stopped beating. The heart he thought he’d protected with a hard shell for several years, cracked. Cracked so hard it was a wonder the others couldn’t hear. But he couldn’t take the time to think about the ramifications of his splintering core.
• • •
Laura and his brothers arrived in a rush and clustered around. Cayle’s first concern was to remove Becca from danger. With little effort he scooped her slight frame up into his arms, but as he strode for the door her feeble voice stopped him in his tracks.
“No. Not outside. Seen. Gossip.”
Even when in danger, Becca never stopped considering others. Her uppermost thought was always to protect her family from unwanted attention. And to protect him. He nodded his understanding. “Laura, go and fetch your aunt. Tell her Becca needs her. Brian go with her. Tony, you stand guard at the door. Keep everyone else out.”
Carefully, as if she was the world’s most precious cargo, he placed her on the chaise lounge with a cushion beneath her head. But the strain of the last months — the horror of seeing Becca lying as if dead — was too much.
His whole body shook with rage. He was furious with himself for not removing her from danger or taking the escalating threats to her safety to the authorities days ago. Angry that men had attacked her when she was under his protection. A gentleman of honour would ensure a lady was safe at all times, especially if it was the woman he was pretending to be betrothed to. She was attacked while he was in the same building. While Julia waylaid him in the corridor, Becca had almost been killed.
Remembering the fright she’d just endured, he damped down his turbulent emotions and spoke as gently as to a child, while his fingers stroked down her cheek in a soothing motion.
“Tell me what happened. Who hurt you?”
“Two men. Grabbed me … from behind … dragged me backwards … retiring room … snatched my reticule.” She rubbed at her wrist and he noticed the red marks encircling her fragile bones. He bent his head to the spot and spread light kisses around the red circle. So intent was he upon the injury done to her, still so angry that he allowed this to happen, that he almost missed her whispered words.
“Looking for — ”
“Looking for what?”
She hesitated a moment before giving a shrug. “Money. Thieves. Looking for coins.” She cleared her scratchy throat. “I carry few.”
She studied her wrists and wouldn’t meet his eyes, making him even more suspicious. With a finger under her chin, he raised her expressive green eyes to his. “Rebecca Jamison, do you remember when we were children and you used to try to deceive me into doing your bidding by telling me an exaggerated tale of woe, or a half truth?” The emerald circles widened and she gave a reluctant nod. “And do you remember that I never believed your larger-than-life stories, yet I helped you anyway?”
With her usual shrewdness, she sidestepped his questions and adopted a defensive position. “Are you saying … you don’t … believe me?” Shamelessly, she used a haughty look and an affronted attitude in a vain attempt to make him feel guilt. Despite the grim situation, it amused him. He may admire her audacity but he wouldn’t fall for her tricks.
“Oh no, my sweet, you may save your manipulation for someone more gullible. I always know when you’re lying to me.”
She remained silent and went back to staring at her clasped hands. “Which begs the question of why you’re telling me a fib now. There is something you’re not telling me about these men. And what happened.”
Aunt Agatha interrupted by rushing into the room, red and flustered. He heard Becca’s sigh of relief at her aunt’s fussing. Normally, Becca hated anyone making a fuss over her so something was seriously amiss. “Oh, my goodness, my darling. How are you? I was so worried. We must get you home. You need to go to bed. Thompson must summon Doctor Simmons.”
“No. No doctor.” Becca cleared her throat and waited until she was able to speak in a stronger voice. “Fine. Just bed.” Her anxious aunt and sister helped her to her feet and she shuffled towards the door.
Leaning close to her ear, Cayle whispered,
“Saved by your family’s intervention. However, our conversation is merely postponed. Not forgotten.” Her eyes widened again and he heard her breath catch.
• • •
Brian called for the carriage to be brought to a side door of the theatre, and with a minimum of fuss Cayle manoeuvred the family out of the theatre. He asked Brian and Tony to remain at the theatre to question the footman as to how Becca’s attackers had gained entrance to the theatre and if anyone had seen them leaving.
Once back at Grosvenor Square, Cayle followed the women inside and addressed Aunt Agatha with exaggerated politeness. “Lady Jamison, I request a private word with Lady Rebecca before she retires. I will only keep her a moment.”
Becca shuddered slightly at Cayle’s request. She’d known Cayle would demand a reckoning as soon as he could arrange to be alone with her and she needed to have a feasible story prepared. His tone of voice brooked no argument and his temper held in check only by the sheer force of his strong will.
Her aunt dispatched her sisters up the stairs and to their beds chambers. But before departing herself, her aunt’s perceptive gaze flicked from Cayle to Becca and back again. “You seem to be making a habit of requesting privacy with my niece. Is there any reason I should be worrying, or informing Michael?”
“No,” Cayle and Becca snapped in unison, then turned to glare at each other with belligerence.
“Oh, my goodness,” Aunt Aggie said, raising her brows. “You two sound like an old married couple.”
She laughed with glee at her own joke but neither Becca nor Cayle were amused. They continued to watch each other in a hostile way until her aunt also departed. Cayle moved to the door, turned the key to lock it and then paced the room like an enraged lion. Becca was nervous at being left alone with him. Locked in with him. She sensed that he’d been barely holding his anger in check during the carriage ride home and he was now about to unleash his fury. In her direction.
“Marry me!” He barked it out as an order as if she were a hound to be brought to heel. She jumped in fright.
“I beg your pardon?” She was stunned. Annoyed and bewildered. She’d expected anger over her being at the centre of yet another dramatic incident but she hadn’t expected this. Never this. Several men had proposed to her with flourish in romantic settings, although all for selfish motives. Arthur Bennett had gone down on bended knee in this very drawing room to offer her marriage. It was the normal manner of requesting a woman’s hand in marriage.
Gentlemen didn’t demand the charade of a temporary betrothal from a woman. And they most certainly didn’t issue a command that a woman marry them, no matter what the reasons.
“I said,” he enunciated slowly, holding his jaw tight and his face contorted, “you need to marry me.”
“You mean you ordered me to marry you,” she corrected. “Not the most romantic proposal I’ve ever had. What possible reason could you have for wanting to marry me?”
“I don’t want to marry you.”
Her shoulders slumped and her head bowed. Unwittingly, he’d wounded her. Again. He kept doing it. “It seems to be a pattern with me. Men ask me to marry them. However, they don’t actually want me. I’m merely a means to an end.”
“No. No, I didn’t mean it that way.”
“So why did you ask?”
“I can see no other way to keep you safe. Under the protection of my name, no man would dare lay a hand on you, or your family.”
“So you’d marry me simply to keep me safe?”
“If that’s what it takes, yes.”
“At least you’re more honest than the others.”
“Then it’s settled, we’ll become officially betrothed to marry,” Cayle said, as if he had just arranged the purchase of a new mare.
“Nothing is settled as far as I can see. I’m still in the dark as to your reasons. Are you saying you love me?”
“No!”
“Well, that’s making your feelings clear enough. At least you aren’t going to tell me lies.”
“Love is not the key issue here. Your life is. You can’t leave here and go running around all of London unless you’re under my protection. So, from this moment on, we’re promised to each other. More or less.”
“Promised?”
“It’s just a figure of speech. Until we sort this out.”
“And as my promised husband, will you be continuing my lessons on pleasure?”
“No. I’m not a complete enough cad to pressure you into anything more. At least not physically. Consider it a … business association.”
“So, I will still be free to ask other gentlemen to instruct me further on the rules of intimacy.”
“No! You most certainly will not. I forbid it.”
“I’m uncertain of the rules of being promised, in a business sense, to someone. But somehow, I don’t imagine such a vague agreement should give you the right to forbid me anything.”
He sucked in a deep breath as if searching for patience. “You’re quite correct. I can, of course, forbid you nothing. You’re a grown woman with a mind of your own. Nevertheless, I beseech you to refrain from engaging in any flirtations — ”
“Oh,” she said with a hoarse chuckle, a reminder of her sore throat. “What I have in mind is rather a lot more than flirtation.”
“You’re deliberately trying my patience with this pretence of other flirtations. And of taking other lovers.”
“And how do you know it’s a pretence?”
“Because I know you. You’d do nothing to get yourself branded a trollop. You value your family too greatly to take that risk.”
She studiously ignored his use of such a derogatory word as trollop. He was trying to rattle her defences. Get her to give in to his demands.
“And has it not been a risk with you? What we’ve done?”
“Despite what happened between us before, I’ll not take any further liberties with you.”
Then he shook his head and moaned deep in his throat. “God! Not unless you ask me. Or perhaps beg me. Will you do that, Becca?”
She wisely ignored his question. It was too close to the truth. If Cayle continued being her hero, her fantasy come true, and riding to her rescue, she could well be reduced to begging him for his favours. And soon. She’d tasted bliss and she craved more. Madame had assured her that one day she’d meet a man who was her match and she’d surrender her innocence to him with a willing heart. He’d be a man who understood her compulsion for knowledge and allow her to explore, to learn and grow, even in the bedroom.
Unfortunately, Cayle was that man. The one who wanted to dominate and protect her, yet at the same time understood her enough to allow her freedom to fly. She knew his feelings on the subject of love and marriage. She understood them. Until recently, she’d thought the same way, had wanted the same things. She’d hide her feelings from him for both their sakes. He’d be embarrassed and she would be mortified if he rejected her.
Changing the subject, she said, “You’re foolish if you believe a promise between us will be a deterrent to these men. I have no idea why men think they are the planners. Women have more intuition for the finer points of a problem.”
“It was Tony’s idea.”
“Your brother thinks we would suit?”
“No!” At his vehement reply, she hunched like a wounded sparrow trying to avoid further attack from a larger bird of prey but if he noticed her pain, he gave no sign.
“Tony thought that if we married you could live at our country house where you would be guarded more closely.”
“I see. A wife in name only?”
“Not necessarily. In time, I will require an heir. Children.”
“Let me understand.” She studied him, searching for some hint of kinder, gentler feeling towards her after the closeness they had shared in this very room only days earlier. “I’d be your wife, hidden away in the country, waiting until you to decide which year you will join me in bed so I could become enceinte. Waiting until you decide I’d be useful to provide you with an heir. Followed I assume, by the requisite spare child.”
Her calm exterior was a deception and one she knew Cayle would normally have been perceptive enough to recognise. It should have been enough warning for him to retreat while he still wore his skin. But tonight for some reason, he was being obtuse. He’d suffered a fright on her behalf at the theatre but that didn’t excuse his deliberate coldness in speaking to her of an arranged marriage. She deserved more from him.
Once, a marriage to him would have been a dream come true. Now, she shuddered at the thought of tying herself to him without even a small concession to love. Some sign that his heart hadn’t hardened to an unbreakable stone block while he was abroad.
“Precisely,” he answered, still oblivious to her dilemma. “And I assure you that when the time came, I’d make being in my bed enjoyable for you.”
“Huh! Enormous conceit on your part, Cayle. But I don’t doubt your skills as a lover. After all, many women have spoken on that very subject.”
He groaned.
“And your honesty is a refreshing change from my other proposals.”
“Exactly how many proposals have you received?”
“I think the number is above twenty now. Lottie keeps count.”
A small sound of pain escaped him.
“And just why did they want to marry you?”
She shook her head in disbelief at his continuing stupidity.
“Not … not that your obvious beauty and charm is not enough.”
“Naturally,” she replied with sarcasm. “Several of them, I won’t embarrass myself with a number, only wanted to marry me for my connection to Michael and his expertise. Some thought to also gain a willing bed partner from the bargain. They mistakenly imagined I’d be content at home like a typical downtrodden woman, preferably at a distant country estate, to produce an heir.” She scowled at him. “Exactly the same thing you wish for me.”
“My proposal differs from theirs in that I only want to protect you.”