CHAPTER FOUR
“Absolutely not!” Caroline wheezed, dizzy with shock.
Max put a brazen arm around her, holding her to his side. “I am a fair alternative, and I willnotbe responsible for your ruination. For years, I have cleaned up the messes that my brother has made—why should today be any different?”
She tried to push away from him, but her hands came up against the solid muscle of his chest and the ridged lines of his ribs. An upper half she well remembered from that night at the Grayling Estate. Sculpted by the heavens themselves, and not merely for show. There was such power in his physique, and that power kept her tight to his side in a strange embrace.
“Do you hear yourself?” she whispered. “I do not want to be anyone’s ‘mess’ and I assuredly do not want to be your wife, of all people.”
He glanced down at her. “Lady Caroline, I am afraid you do not have much choice. Dickie is not coming, and you cannot leave this church unwed.” He paused, searching her furious face. “In truth, I do not think you quite understand the predicament you are in.”
“I assure you, I do,” she retorted, but he shook his head.
“There will be no more parties, no more balls, no more invitations to so much as an afternoon tea,” he told her. “Your friends, as much as they might adore you, will distance themselves. They have to protecttheirfamilies andtheirgood names; they will not risk similar scorn by being seen with you. So, unless your heart’s desire is to be a recluse, what I am offering you is the best chance you have of recovering from your… mishap.”
Her jaw dropped, all words snatched away by the horrifying picture he painted. She did not like to think of herself as naïve, but shehadassumed that the scandal would fizzle out, and when it did, everything would return to normal. Indeed, she had imagined herself as a younger version of Beatrice Wilds, the Countess of Grayling: accepted as she was, utterly free, fiercely independent, making her own decisions about every moment of her life.
But her husband died. She became both infamous and celebratedafterthat. And other than mysteriously convincing the Royal Court to allow her to become the Countess of Grayling in her own right, inheriting what should have been an earldom, she had no true scandals written about her.
“My friends would never abandon me,” Caroline muttered, finding her voice again. “You are trying to scare me into marrying you, and it will not work. Goodness, I did not even want to marry your brother, and I actuallylikehim as a person—what makes you think I would simply accept you as a replacement?”
Max blinked in surprise. “I do not know what I have done to deserve yourdislike, but your opinion of me matters not at this moment.” His expression turned solemn again. “I am not trying to scare you into anything; I am being honest, whether you like the truth or not.”
You do not know what you have done to deserve my dislike?
She almost told him, the vitriol dancing on the tip of her tongue—that he had marred the night of her debut, that he had insulted her character at the Grayling Ball, that he had never been anything but cold and dismissive toward her, but no words could emerge. She was too aware of Max’s arm around her, of the heat and strength of him, and of his unfairly handsome face, peering down at her in earnest.
Those sea blue eyes were intense as they met hers, almost challenging her to keep trying to convince herself that this was not her only choice. She tried to imagine all of the ladies who would swoon at the thought of getting to marry such a man, how lucky they would feel, but by her own design, she felt extraordinarily unlucky.
Perfect as you are on the eyes, you were not supposed to do this. You are ruining my plan.
Of course, she could not saythatout loud.
“You do not want to do this,” she said in a softer, more sultry voice, choosing persuasion. “Your Grace, I would infuriate you, as I have often done in our brief exchanges. Come now, look at me. Look at me properly, and you will see that this is foolhardy.”
She had not expected Max toactuallylook at her properly, his fierce gaze skimming her from top to bottom and back again. Beneath that somewhat revealing observation of her, she felt as if she wanted to lean further into him, to hide the fact that she was so exposed by his visual assessment.
Fortunately, the vicar spared her blushes.
The old man cleared his throat, clasping his veiny hands together. “Not to hurry you, but is there to be a wedding or not?”
Ignoring him as panic returned to a rolling simmer in her chest, Caroline turned her imploring gaze toward her brother. But there was no respite or relief to be found in Daniel’s demeanor either. His expression was desperately troubled, his lips pursed as his attention flitted from his sister to Max and back again, clearly balancing the consequences of staying or leaving.
“You cannot be considering this,” she gasped, struggling to breathe. Her lungs burned and she tried to rub away the tightfeeling with the heel of her palm, to no avail. Nothing short of waking up from this nightmare could alleviate the terror that gripped her.
Olivia stepped forward, scooping her arm around Caroline and leading her away from the man who was offering to marry her. A bizarre feeling of absence existed for half a second before Caroline shook it off. In this instance, Max was no protector, despite the fact he resembled a stoic hero. He was not the keeper of her dreams; he was the one about to stomp on them with his righteous behavior.
Phoebe joined them, flanking Caroline on her other side, the two women diverting the honorary member of the Spinsters’ Club onto the empty front pew.
“What is going on?” a nervous voice asked from the pew behind.
Caroline knew who it belonged to, but could not bring herself to face her mother. No one had informed Amelia Barnet, the Dowager Countess of Westyork, about the events of the ball, nor the scandal that had spread through society like a plague. The newspapers and scandal sheets had mysteriously vanished each morning, though Caroline’s mother rarely read them anyway.
Of course, she had been surprised to hear that her only daughter was going to marry the Earl of Greenfield in a rushed ceremony with a special license. But Daniel had smoothed it over, fabricating a charming story of how the two friends had suddenly realized that they loved one another and could notwait to be wed. A story that would soon unravel, all the careful untruths now useless.
I should have told you everything…
“Caro, what is wrong?” her mother pressed in a tight, high voice. “Where is Dickie? Phoebe, Olivia—will someone please tell me what is happening? My nerves cannot bear it.”
