‘I suppose not,’ she admitted grudgingly. ‘But—’
‘But nothing. You have no reason to break our betrothal. So I am not going to permit you to do anything so foolish—do you hear me?’
She gaped at him.
‘But why? I mean, you cannot possibly want to marry me.’
‘I want to know why you persist in saying that, Prudence. When I have given no indication that that is the case.’
‘But... Well...’ She twisted the handkerchief between her fingers. ‘I asked you to marry me. And you were thinking about it, I do believe, because you wanted to...to bed me,’ she finished in a rush, her cheeks heating. ‘And then in the morning, when the farmer found us and I sort of embellished our relationship so he wouldn’t haul us off for trespass, I can see that you had to go along with it. And then, when we got here, I suppose you felt honour-bound to introduce me as your fiancée since you hadn’t found the words to let me down gently.’
‘What utter nonsense! If I hadn’t wanted to marry you I would have introduced you to my family as a lady under my protection. I am a selfish man, Prudence. Nobody can make me do anything I don’t want.’
‘What are you saying?’ She rubbed her forehead, where a vein was starting to throb.
He strolled to the foot of the bed and propped one shoulder up against the post.
‘You do realise,’ he said coldly, ‘that after this episode you will be completely ruined?’
‘Wh...what? Why?’
Was he threatening her? Saying that since she’d refused to marry him he wouldn’t help her get her money back? No, no, that couldn’t be it. He wouldn’t do something so despicable.
Would he?
‘Most women would kill to have been in your shoes,’ he said. ‘Betrothed to me, that is. No matter how the betrothal had come about. Nobody is ever going to believe you cried off. They will say that I jilted you—do you realise that? They will speak of you as my leavings. Is that what you really want?’
‘No, of course I don’t!’ She gasped, sickened by the picture he’d painted of a future of shame. ‘But surely you can see it will be even worse for you if we were to marry? I had to let you off the hook—can’t you understand? If I made you stick to a vow you gave under duress I’d feel as if I was no better than...than...’ She shook her head, at a total loss to think of anyone she could imagine doing anything worse than forcing a man into a marriage he didn’t really want.
‘So you maintain you broke the betrothal for my benefit?’
‘Yes. You deserve better.’
‘Isn’t that for me to decide?’
‘Well anyway, it’s too late now.’
‘No, it isn’t,’ he said. Then he strode back to her side of the bed and dropped down on one knee. ‘I can see that I have made you think I am a touch reluctant to enter into the matrimonial state for a second time. So this time round I am asking you. So you can have no doubt it is what I want. Prudence...’ He took hold of her hands. ‘Would you do me the very great honour of becoming my wife?’
All the breath whooshed from her lungs, leaving her head spinning.
‘You cannot mean that—’
‘Why not?’
‘Because you said...and Hugo said you’d rather cut off your arm than marry again—that everyone knows it.’
‘You are surely not going to base your entire future on what Hugo says?’
‘No, but he—’
‘Prudence, listen to me,’ he said sternly. ‘You told me once—do you recall?—that you were reluctant to marry because you wanted to be free. Yet you changed your mind and proposed to me. Why can you not believe that meeting you has changed my view of matrimony, too?’
‘But you—’
‘Yes, I stood over Millicent’s grave and vowed that no woman would have a hold over me ever again. I admit it. And I have never let another woman close. And I did gain a reputation in society, which I freely confessed to you, for keeping my numerous affaires on a purely physical level. I was determined that no woman would ever reduce me to the state she did.’
‘Exactly! Which is why I cannot bear to back you into a corner now. You got all tangled up in my troubles, and now you—’
‘Hush.’
He reached up to place one finger against her lips. It was all she could do not to purse them and kiss it.
‘Look at me now. I am on my knees, asking you to marry me. I don’t have to. Last time I had to marry a woman chosen for me by my parents. This time I am asking you to marry me because I want to.’