Sitting with an ankle crossed over his knee, Nick braced himself, trying to present the image of a reposing, unaffected gentleman.

“Meredith, have a seat.” Teddy pulled her down beside him on the sofa, folding her hand in his.

Nick’s gut cramped at the sight of those slender digits disappearing into Havernautt’s fist. How could she still encourage Havernautt? The bastard let her drown. Was that the kind of man she wanted by her side for the rest of her life?

“I hope you don’t mind, but I asked Lord

Brookshire to join us.” Havernautt’s voice penetrated Nick’s mental grumblings.

She darted a quick resentful glance at where he sat, and Nick read the question in her eyes. In response, he lifted his shoulders in a slight, bored shrug that belied the tension coursing his blood.

Havernautt continued, “I felt that as your guardian—”

“He’s not my guardian,” she wasted no time correcting. “I am of age.”

Nick could have guessed she would set to rights that misapprehension. He smiled, then scowled.

Why must he know her so well?

“Well… yes,” Havernautt floundered, his eyes flitting back and forth between Nick and Meredith. “But he is your only male relation—”

“There is my father,” she corrected once again.

“Er, yes, of course.” Teddy tugged at his cravat miserably, and Nick almost felt sorry for the bastard. But not quite. “I was given the impression that he is not, er, in prime health…”

Her face flushed, and Nick knew she was embarrassed and defensive all at once, no doubt wondering what gossip Havernautt had heard about her father. It could not have been complimentary. Gossip never was.

He decided to spare them all by hurrying things along. If permitted, Havernautt would drag this out until tomorrow. “Get to the point, Havernautt. What is this about?”

A flicker of annoyance crossed Teddy’s face, then disappeared in a flash. He squared his shoulders, and with a faint cracking of his knees, knelt before Meredith. “Lady Meredith, will you honor me by becoming my wife?”

Nick found himself leaning forward, hands braced on the arms of his chair, straining to hear her answer.

She bowed her head, the line of her profile elegant and graceful in the dimly lit study. With his breath held tightly in his chest, he studied the sweep of lashes veiling her downcast eyes. Her gaze fixed on the hands holding hers. He watched as she turned her palms over, considering Havernautt’s hands as if she would find the answer carved on his flesh.

Noise roared through his head with the increasing fury of a storm. His scrutiny of her at first distracted him from realizing the noise was a single word reverberating through his mind, repeating over and over again, speeding together like so many droplets of water in a rushing stream until indistinguishable. No, no, no, no...

He didn’t want her to wed Havernautt. Or anyone else for that matter. After all his pushing and prodding and bullying, he wanted to hear her refuse. He wanted her to tell Havernautt he could take his proposal and stick—

The soft sound of Meredith’s voice slipped past the roaring in his head. “Yes.”

 Yes? She actually said yes?

He should have been relieved. The bloody husband hunt was at an end. As well as his forced mingling and socializing with the ton. In more ways than one, he was free again. Free to resume his normal life. Free of one deceitful, scheming woman. Free to forget her. But no sigh of relief was forthcoming. Only fury. Fury and desperation. The sight of Havernautt pulling her into his arms jarred Nick. He lurched from his seat, hands fisted at his sides like a rigid tin soldier.

Havernautt detached himself from her while still keeping a proprietary arm looped around her waist. He faced Nick with a stupid grin on his face. “I requested your presence, my lord, in order to ask your blessing.”

Nick looked only at her.

She stared back in cold silence. Not a warm expression, by any means. Nothing in her look suggested she felt anything for him at all.

“My lord…” Havernautt’s voice cut through the silence, a touch of anxiety in his voice. “Do we have your blessing?”

Nick opened his mouth, ready to give his blessing, but no sound would come forth.

“Come now, Teddy.” She touched Havernautt’s arm. “It’s silly to ask for the earl’s blessing.” She released a thin, vacant laugh, continuing to stare at Nick in that cold, infuriating way. “He is no blood kin to me.”

“It is not silliness to me,” Havernautt replied in haughty tones, eyes still on Nick, waiting.

“But of course he approves,” she sighed, and gave Nick a quelling look. When he still said nothing, she cut her gaze to Havernautt. “He is no doubt ecstatic you offered. He has encouraged our courtship from the start. Is that not so, my lord?”

To put it mildly.

Nick found himself speaking, but the words seemed to come from somewhere buried deep inside because his brain marveled to hear himself say, “Sorry, Havernautt, but I cannot give my blessing.” As he delivered this announcement, he could swear he saw a flash of relief cross her face before indignation took over.

“What?” she demanded in affronted tones.

Havernautt shrugged past her and advanced on Nick, hands lifted in supplication. “I don’t understand, my lord. Have I done something to offend you?”

Before he had a chance, Meredith answered for him. “You have done nothing wrong, Teddy.”

She shot an angry, bewildered glare at Nick, hissing none too discreetly, “What are you doing?

This is what you wanted.”

“I thought so.” He nodded in agreement, tension surging through him. “But I find I cannot let you go through with this.”

She stepped past an astonished Havernautt, disregarding him to jab Nick in the chest with her index finger. “Well, I find that I’m tired of living my life at your whim.”

“Pardon me for saying so, my lord,” Havernautt interjected with a surprising degree of spirit,

“but if you cannot give me a single valid reason for protesting this match, then I am afraid your lack of blessing won’t matter.”

“Is that so?” Nick asked, feeling his mood take a sudden, dangerous shift.

Meredith’s eyes widened at his menacing tone and she stumbled back a step.

Nick continued in that lethal voice, “Would the fact that I have compromised the lady be a valid enough reason?”

She covered her face with her hands and would have fled the room if Nick had not grabbed her hand and forced her to his side. Satisfaction swelled inside him at Havernautt’s stunned expression. A deep, primal satisfaction.

Until the bastard turned his shock and contempt on Meredith.

“Whore,” he hissed, face twisting into ugly loathing.

Nick left her side in a flash, sending his fist flying into Havernautt’s face with a resounding smack of bone against bone. Havernautt crumpled to the carpet. Nick flung his arm back for another go, but Meredith grabbed hold of it. “Nick! No!”

He tried to shrug her off, but she clung tenaciously. “Nick, can you blame him? After what you just said? Leave him be.”

He turned to look at her flushed face, his arm lowering a bit, the wild desire to finish Havernautt off thrumming in his blood.

“Get up.” Nick kicked Havernautt’s boot.

Glaring balefully from his bloodied face, Havernautt shook his head and scuttled farther away.

“I’m marrying her,” Nick ground out before he had time to consider what he was saying.

“Understand? One word, one slur against my wife, and I’ll finish this.”

Meredith still clung to his arm. Nick followed the sight of her pale, slender fingers up to her equally pale face.

It was done. She was his. He had seen to that.

“Pack your things and meet me downstairs in five minutes.”

Chapter 22

 Nothing will change. His life would go on as before. He glanced across him at the woman he had claimed for himself only a short while ago. Nothing will change, he repeated. Nothing except that Meredith would now occupy a permanent place in his life, in his bed.

Several hours had passed since she met him in the foyer, and still she had not uttered a word. Her silence unnerved him. She had come along willingly enough, but her mutinous silence made Nick feel as though he were kidnapping her. He was not a kidnapper. And she didn’t have to sit there wringing her hands and biting her lip like a bloody hostage.

“Did you really intend to marry that worthless fool?”

Color flooded her face at his ruthless words. Perhaps not the best way to broach a conversation, but her acceptance of Havernautt’s proposal— ridiculous as it seemed, given his ultimatum that she find a husband—rubbed him the wrong way. He simply could not let her go through with it.

Perhaps if she had chosen someone else… someone with a measure of backbone. Nick shook his head. No. The bloody king himself could have proposed and he would have stopped her.

“Do you stop every woman you’ve bedded from marrying another?” she countered.

“No,” he answered drolly. “Quite a few are married with a brood of children by now.”

“Then why me?”

An excellent question. And one he was unprepared to answer. At least not without delving into emotions he had no wish to examine.

“Answer me, Nick. Why couldn’t you let me marry Teddy?”

Rather than answer her question, he looked out the window at the countryside and asked mildly,

“Aren’t you interested in where we’re going?”

Crossing her arms over her chest, she grudgingly said, “Very well. Where are we going?”

“Gretna Green.”

“Scotland?” Her eyes narrowed to wary slits. “Whatever for?”

He thought the reason clear enough but obliged her by explaining anyway. “Despite what you may think, I didn’t intend to propose to you when I entered that study.”

She leaned forward, her eyes conveying a decided lack of delight as she said bitterly, “Was that a proposal? I could not tell. You were addressing Teddy when you declared that you were going to marry me. Of course, you can’t have been sincere.”

He frowned. “Men never lie about such subjects. Trust me.”

Her eyes flared wide, as vivid a green as the hills rolling past them. “I certainly won’t hold you to your… proposal.” She uttered the word proposal like it was obscene.

“I would not have confessed to compromising you unless I was prepared to marry you,” he explained with a sigh.

“Yes, while we are on the subject, how dare you blurt out that we… we… how dare you humiliate me! I won’t ever forgive you for that.”

He shrugged. “Whatever the case, I did tell him. It’s done, and since we don’t have a wedding license, to Gretna we go.”

Her chin jutted out at an obstinate angle. “I don’t see the wisdom behind compounding this debacle by rushing into marriage. Rest assured, you need feel no obligation to marry me.”

“I told Havernautt I bedded you. Then whisked you away before a house full of London elite. We are getting married.” His voice rang flat with finality. “There’s no other choice.”

“I disagree.” She glared at him in defiance.

“Look,” he began, “unless you want to become a social pariah, we must.”

Her green eyes blazed brighter. “The only reason I face becoming a social pariah is because you told Teddy—”

“Yes. We’ve already gone over that,” he snapped. “Move on. It’s done. The point is that you are ruined unless we wed.”

Arms crossed tightly over her chest, she quivered with suppressed fury, snarling like an angry cat, “You might as well instruct the driver to turn this coach around. You can’t force me. I’ll take being ruined over marrying you.” That said, she averted her face to look out the window, signaling the conversation’s end.