“Very well. What is it you wish to say?”
She was not making it particularly easy for him, he thought, studying her profile. “I wish you were wearing the necklace. It would be perfect with that gown.”
“No.”
“Face me when you wish to be rude.”
She didn’t mean to be rude, not really. She loved the necklace, loved to touch it. “All right. Here, I’m looking right at you. You gave the necklace to me as a bribe. I realized that soon enough. You thought I would do whatever you wished once that thing was around my neck, didn’t you? That I could be bought with that necklace. Well, it didn’t work.”
“I gave you that necklace because I thought you would like it. It pleased me to give it to you, to see your pleasure. Nothing more than that.”
She said nothing at all, but she didn’t have to. She thought he was a liar.
Jerval sighed. Why couldn’t something this important be just a bit less complicated? “You kissed me,” he said.
“Yes, as I would kiss a friend. Not a man.”
“I’m a man and your friend.”
Damn him, it was true, and so she forced herself to say, “Mayhap so.”
“I wish you weren’t so afraid of me. If you could see me clearly, then you would realize that I mean you no harm. I want you to be happy. With me. As my wife.”
“I am not afraid of you. Now, Graelam—he was a man to fear, but I wasn’t afraid of him either.”
He laughed and she very nearly sent her fist into his nose. Her father’s threat blared loud in her brain. It stayed both her fist and her tongue. She didn’t want to be sent to a convent; the mere thought of it curdled her blood.
“You are so filled with bravado. You’ve raised defenses that would keep out the stoutest of warriors, defenses that would likely send them running for their lives, thankful to avoid you.”
“Not you, more’s the pity.”
“No, not me. Will you wed me now that you have had time to consider it?”
“My father believes that you will make me a fine husband.”
“That is the truth. However, I do need you to agree with your father.”
She wanted to smash him onto the stable floor, but she knew she couldn’t even try. How to make him leave her alone? To make him not want her any longer, but in such a way that she wouldn’t be sent to a convent? Oh, aye, she believed her father’s threat.
She said, chin up, “I don’t wish to lie with you.”
That was something a man never wanted to hear, he thought, wanting very much to taste her mouth right this moment. No, he would hold firm, keep to his course. Aye, once they were wed, he would have her. He said easily, “You don’t have to worry about mating with me until we are wed. Mayhap then you will change your mind.”
She said nothing to that, just kept looking down at her feet in their leather slippers. “My father has bedded every comely girl within Croyland’s walls. The only woman he never beds is Lady Dorothy, his wife.” She frowned, shaking her head. “Were I a man and her husband, I doubt I would want to get that close to her either.” She shrugged, then said matter-of-factly, “I saw him several times with a girl younger than I was. I don’t ever wish to do that, ever. It is humiliating. It makes me sick to think of it. But that is the way men are. I hate it, but there is nothing I can do about it.”
“You believe I would bed females at Camberley, with you as my wife?”
She simply nodded.
He hadn’t realized that she’d seen so much, that it had scarred her so deeply. It was a pity. Also, there was something else going on here. There was too much between father and daughter, deep unspoken feelings that he didn’t want to even think about. But all that would pass. She would forget. She would gain years and maturity. She would be his wife, away from Croyland, away from her father.
“I will not bed other women once we are married. It is a vow I make to you. I will be faithful to you.”
It was clear she didn’t believe him.
He sighed. “You will come to believe me. I am not an ogre. Nor am I a liar. I love you and respect you. Why would I ever want to hurt you? This is one way I am not like your father.”
She said quickly, “My father isn’t that way, not really. It is simply something that a man must do. He cannot help himself, but he doesn’t mean it.”