You mean you paid him off.
“Don’t call melove. I’m not your love,” Harriet hissed. “I am the exact opposite!”
A hint of impatience entered his gaze. Hah! The man wasn’t an emotionless statue after all. Well, to be fair, he had already shown that with his kiss. A kiss she’d been trying not to think about at all. No matter, Harriet still felt a measure of satisfaction at having ruffled at least one of his perfectly arranged feathers.
“I am not your enemy, Harriet.” His voice had lowered, almost to a whisper but not quite, yet the blow to her midsection wasn’t any less impactful. He was so close that a shiver ran from the back of her neck to the tips of her toes.
“Not my enemy?” Harriet shot him an astonished look. “Everything you have done since I met you has been in direct opposition to my wants. How are you not the enemy?”
“An arranged marriage is hardly the stuff of horrors.”
“So you say. In truth, you only think about yourself. Neither you nor my father ever considered me, how I feel, or what my wishes are. I was not even given the courtesy of being informed. Again I ask, how are you not the enemy?”
“I agree that your father and I are at fault. Forgive me for my presumption that you would embrace the arrangement of our betrothal.”
“Will my forgiveness change anything?”
His lips parted, then closed.
What did she expect? She wanted nothing more than to poke the man in his heart. “And what if I have affection for another?”
He visibly stiffened. “If you did, you would be running toward him and not another country.”
“Who is to say I am not running toward him? Why else would I travel to a lawless country when I have no friends or family there?”
“Why would I not know of such a person?”
She shrugged. “If you had taken the time to court me, you would not be as in the dark as you are now. All I wish to know is whether you would let me go if I were in love with another man.”
Harriet almost lost her nerve at the intensity of the gaze that bore into her. As if that weren’t enough, his nearness made her a touch dizzy and breathless.
“No.”
Hot color flooded Harriet’s cheeks. She couldn’t say if it was because of anger, exasperation, or something else entirely.
“So it doesn’t matter if I love another?”
“It matters.”
“But you won’t change your mind?”
“No.”
The glare she shot him would have cut him to bits were it a set of knives.
“Do you love another?” Leeds asked.
“Since it matters a little bit but not a whole lot, why should I tell you?”
“Harriet . . .”
She lifted her chin.
He cleared his throat. “I don’t believe you are the sort of woman to sit idly by when you are in love. That is why I don’t believe you have affections for anyone—you would have been with him already.”
“How would you know when you know nothing about me?”
“I am hoping we can change that.” His gaze swept over the cabin. “Are we returning to London or traveling to the Americas?”
