She hadn’t thought
about the money. Odd when it had colored her relationship with every previous suitor. “No.”
“Upon our marriage, your property becomes mine, but I swear I have no intention of keeping it. After the wedding, we’ll have papers drawn up returning your fortune to you after a time, I suggest three months, just in case your stepbrothers try something.”
“You don’t know how much money you give up.”
“I don’t care.”
Strangely, she believed him. Yet again, she thought how remarkable he was. Why in the name of all that was holy couldn’t he see that?
“We can settle legalities before the wedding, if you insist. But the sooner you’re my wife, the safer you’ll be.”
Gideon’s wife. That was all she wanted to be. But not like this. Never like this.
“I trust you,” she said flatly.
He sent her a searching look, then crossed to fill two glasses from the decanter of claret on the coffered sideboard. Like most of the furniture at Penrhyn, it was old and beautiful and completely out of fashion with its heavy seventeenth-century carvings of satyrs and nymphs.
In a day or so, she’d be mistress of this house and all it contained. What a bizarre thought. She’d loved Penrhyn from the first moment she saw it. At the moment, she’d willingly consign it to the sea.
“I know this is difficult for you.” He passed her the heavy crystal glass. As if she pressed on a bruise, she noted his care that his fingers didn’t brush hers. “I wish I could make it easier.”
You could love me, she silently told him. She stared mutely at him while her hand tightened around the glass until her knuckles shone white. “It’s not your fault,” she said through stiff lips. “My stepbrothers’ greed instigated this disaster.”
He sipped his wine, then placed it back on the sideboard as if it weren’t to his liking. She knew what wasn’t to his liking—tying himself to a woman he could never care for. And who cared for him too much.
He faced her, his eyes like black stones. “What you do after the marriage is completely your choice. If you take a lover, I’ll acknowledge any children as legitimate. Within my power, I’ll ensure your happiness.”
She summoned some last shred of resistance although her strongest impulse was to run from the room and cower from the fate that closed around her. “What if I ask you to live as my husband in reality?”
His expression remained somber, implacable. “That’s not within my power.”
Bitterness surged. She thought her heart broke now. How would she survive endless years of this? “And you? Will you take lovers?”
“No. I pledge my fidelity.” His voice contained an undertone of irony that perplexed her. “You needn’t fear gossip about an unfaithful husband.”
Charis drank some wine, needing the courage, however spurious. If only she embarked on a future of love and hope instead of this arid bargain.
“Yet you’re prepared to play the cuckold yourself.” Despite her best intentions, sharpness edged her response. “That seems uncommonly generous.”
His face was stark with tension. This couldn’t be easy for him. Yet again, she reminded herself he put himself through this for her benefit.
“Charis, you’re too warm and vital to endure life without love. With your money and freedom, in fact if not under law, you’ll be the envy of every woman in the ton.”
Her lips tightened against the pain that shafted through her. “I doubt it. I’ll be that most pitiable of creatures, a woman in love with a man who can’t bear her.”
His brows drew together, more in regret than anger, she thought. “I hold you in the greatest esteem. If things were different, I’d…” He stopped and dragged in a shuddering breath as he straightened.
“You esteem me so much, you consign me to a future of deceit and adultery.”
She had no right to berate him. Guilt cramped her belly. An apology hovered, but she couldn’t quite squeeze it out. She swung away to stand near the fire, but its warmth couldn’t thaw the ice inside her.
“If this course is repugnant, we needn’t pursue it,” he said steadily. How she wished he’d be angry instead of endlessly understanding. She didn’t deserve him. She didn’t deserve this astonishingly heroic act he made on her behalf.
She turned back to him. “What choice do we have?”
“We run. We hide. We hope to blazes your stepbrothers don’t find us.” He picked up his wine and stared at it as if it held the answer to all the universe’s questions. “Or we stay here, and I bluff them into thinking I’m not involved in your disappearance. I doubt they’d find you in the smugglers’ hole.”