“Kay,” he said, his voice gentle. “I know I am to blame for all of this, and I want to make it right.”
“Why? To ease your conscience?” She sniffed, clearly unimpressed. “I didn’t realize you had one.”
“Well, I do. But what I really mean is that I want it for your sake. Is that so hard to believe?”
Inside, Kay began to shake, because suddenly, for reasons she did not understand, she wanted to believe him, which only proved that he could not only destroy her life, he could also destroy her sanity and make her as crazy as he was.
“You can’t make it right, Devlin,” she said. “Even if what you suggest solves everything—which I’m not conceding for a second, by the way—things will never be right. The damage is done.”
“Damage? I saved you from making a disastrous marriage.”
“And I’m supposed to be grateful for the favor?”
“No, of course not. I only meant that he wasn’t right for you—”
“That wasn’t your decision to make!”
For the first time, a shadow of what might have been guilt crossed his face. “It wasn’t what I’d call a decision,” he muttered. “At least, it wasn’t a deliberate one. I just… lost my head.”
“Well, your action makes it abundantly clear that you haven’t grown up much in the last fourteen years. But I have, Devlin. I’m not a lovestruck girl anymore, I’m a mature woman. Even if marrying Wilson would have been a mistake—and I do not concede that for a moment—I have no intention of making an even worse one by going off half-cocked and marrying you. Especially not because of one passionate kiss.”
For some unaccountable reason, that made him smile. “At least I’ve finally gotten you to admit that kiss on the terrace was passionate.”
Unable to refute that contention, she tossed her head. “That’s beside the point.”
“Is it? Just think about this for a minute, Kay. People won’t be able to accuse you of driving all your suitors away, will they? I’ll wager the deed would scarcely be done before the scandal sheets would start gushing about our happy ending and how first love is the truest love.”
She made a gagging sound, but all that accomplished was to make his smile widen into a grin, so she decided to be as brutally blunt as possible.
“Everything you say might be true. From the standpoint of sheer logic, it might make sense, and yet I remain unmoved. In fact, Devlin, after what you did, I wouldn’t marry you if you were the last man on God’s earth. Rather than reward your unspeakable conduct with my hand in marriage, I’d prefer to die an old maid, alone, in an attic garret in Bermondsey.”
“Quite a poetic end, Kay, but completely unnecessary.”
“But still my choice.”
“You’d rather face gossip, embarrassment, and humiliation than accept my proposal?”
“Yes,” she answered at once.
“You’d rather endure scandal and shame? Be stared at everywhere you go? Be whispered about and laughed at? You’d rather face poverty than marry me?”
Reminded of painful practicalities, she hesitated, but only for a second. “Yes.”
“You’d rather watch your sister’s chances diminish?”
Agonized by that prospect, she wavered, but then she reminded herself he was using Jo solely as a means of manipulation andcontrol, and she wasn’t about to let him do it. Wilson had tried that trick, too, and she was fed up with it. There had to be another way out of this mess, and since Devlin didn’t have any solution to offer that she could possibly live with, she was going to find her own. Somehow.
She lifted her chin. “Yes,” she said, absurdly proud of herself for the firmness of her reply. “Now, are you finished?”
“Yes, except—”
“Good,” she cut him off and once again turned to go, but instead of stepping back and letting her leave, he remained where he was, his arms coming up on either side of her.
“Except,” he resumed, his lips brushing her ear and making her shiver, “for one thing. Just what,” he added as she pressed her forehead to the door with a muttered oath, “is your objection to my proposal?”
She whirled around, shaking her head, laughing a little in disbelief at that absurd question. “You really have to ask?”
“Yes, I do. You were ready to marry Rycroft to solve your financial problems, weren’t you? So why not me? I’m reasonably well off nowadays—not as rich as Rycroft, granted, but I’ve got plenty of money to support you and any children we might have. I’ll take care of your family, too. In addition to that, I’m also quite good company—”
