Johnny frowned. “Speak, Antonia. If only to berate.”
She swallowed and stepped away from Nicholas, who loomed at her side in bristling silence. “I don’t want to berate you,” she said wearily.
That was the wrong thing to say. He looked brighter. “Have you forgiven me? Great passion tempted me to great wickedness. If you’ve forgiven me, perhaps you’ll consider my offer.”
“Offer?” she said stupidly, wishing herself anywhere but here.
“Yes.” To her dismay, he dropped to his knees. “My wife is dead. I’m free to ask what I should have asked ten years ago.”
He paused but Antonia was too horrified to interrupt. He continued in a low, urgent voice. “Antonia Hilliard, my beautiful beloved, will you marry me?”
Nicholas made a disgusted sound. “Get up, you bloody fool. You’re making a complete ass of yourself.”
Johnny looked as though he awoke from a dream. He blinked in confusion and glanced past Antonia to her companion.
“Ranelaw?” He frowned and she realized he’d been so shocked to see her, he hadn’t registered whom she was with.
“Yes,” Nicholas bit out between his strong white teeth. He strode forward and dragged Johnny upright with such roughness, the slighter man stumbled.
“Don’t hurt him,” she found herself protesting even as she stifled a distinct desire to kick her former lover. And her current lover as well.
“You’re not taking this milksop seriously?” Nicholas shook Johnny like a terrier shook a rat.
If Antonia needed proof of the contrast between the two men, she had it now. Johnny dangled from Nicholas’s fist in picturesque helplessness. Nicholas looked big and commanding.
Fool that she was, something primitive within her had thrilled to Nicholas’s grumpy protectiveness. There was no thrill now. Just boundless irritation at the machinations of masculine vanity.
“Put him down,” she snapped.
Johnny looked as though he’d lost a sovereign and found sixpence. He was pale and shaking. She couldn’t help noticing he retained his beauty even in devastation.
“Antonia, what is this man to you? You haven’t . . . you haven’t sold yourself, have you?”
She gritted her teeth. “You lost the right to ask me that question after you stole me from my father’s house, vowing a lifetime of devotion but omitting to mention you had a wife and child already.”
“There was no child, it was a lie,” he said quickly. “That woman trapped me into marriage.”
“What a prize she got for her trouble,” Antonia said, not remotely mollified. “Ranelaw, I said put him down.”
“I’d like to smash him against the nearest tree,” Nicholas said, still in that grim voice.
“You might like to. But you won’t,” she responded sharply.
She should be terrified of him but strangely she wasn’t. He was furiously angry but she knew him well enough to trust that reason would prevail. His was a much less volatile personality than Johnny’s. Nor was he as self-absorbed, for all that he lived for selfish pleasure. There was a degree of self-awareness in the Marquess of Ranelaw that shallow Johnny Benton was incapable of achieving.
There was a strained pause. Then with a contemptuous gesture, Nicholas tossed Johnny aside.
“Good God, man, what do you think you’re doing?” Johnny stumbled with a clumsiness she knew would chafe his conceit. Panting with outrage, he glared at Nicholas while remaining judiciously out of reach.
She saw so much now that should have been apparent ten years ago. Even as an inexperienced girl, she should have recognized Johnny’s lack of backbone and that his principal ambition was to be the perpetual focus of admiration.
She supposed she had noticed. She just hadn’t realized how that reflected on the character of the man she convinced herself she loved.
With an injured air, he straightened his clothing. Unfortunately his pouting displeasure made him look like a handsome trout. The glances he cast both her and Nicholas were sulky and childlike. But of course he was childlike. Clearly that hadn’t changed either.
Since leaving Johnny Benton, she’d grown up. He’d remained a petulant boy. A pretty boy, she couldn’t help acknowledging, studying his face and his graceful body with a jaundiced eye. At least she hadn’t deceived herself about his beauty.
“Antonia, I know you still love me . . .”