“But you were adamant you didn’t ever want to marry.”
She tilted her head. “And there it is again, you see? You thought you knew what I wanted but it wasn’t what you wanted, so you just trampled over my feelings, my opinions, my wants in order to get your way. What I wanted didn’t matter to you at all. Just like your mother.”
He stared at her. He was white around the mouth. Her words had shocked him to the core, she could see.
Good. He needed shocking.
She pushed the rug aside and prepared to get down from the curricle.
“I’ll drive you—”
“No, I’ll walk across the square.” Unaided, she jumped lithely down from the curricle. He followed her.
“I will put a notice in the newspapers, canceling our betrothal.” His voice was heavy but sincere. “I’m sorry. I didn’t think—I didn’t realize—” He broke off and shook his head. “I have no excuse for my behavior. I’m truly sorry.”
George looked up at him. She’d never liked him so muchas at this moment, when she was about to be free of him. “No, don’t do that,” she heard herself saying. “Call on me tomorrow and I’ll tell you of my decision.”
The cynical look returned to his eyes. “Toying with me, are you? Making me wait? Well, I suppose I deserve it.”
Anger sparked. “Don’teveraccuse me of that. I’m not the one who deals in strategies and playacting and lies. What I say, I mean. Please yourself then—call on me tomorrow or send a notice to the papers, I don’t care!” And she stormed off across the park.
Hart drove home in such deep shock that when his horses pulled up in front of his house, he looked around, blinking, having no idea how he’d driven from Berkeley Square to his house. He tossed the reins to his groom and went inside, deep in thought.
He had deliberately distanced himself from his mother over the years, ever since he’d first realized that the various illnesses and disabilities and megrims she suffered from were devices she used to trick people into doing what she wanted.
Her dishonesty disgusted him. He had prided himself that he was nothing like her. And now... Georgiana Rutherford’s words echoed around and around in his brain.
You’re more like your mother than you think.
And she’d proved it to him. Hehadgone out of his way to try to force her into marrying him. He’d been—now he came to reflect on it—quite proud of trapping her, in fact.
Ever since that first kiss at her family’s ball he’d made up his mind to marry her. She was everything he wanted; independent, attractive, wellborn, a girl with a sense of her own future, who would not be looking to him to fulfill all her needs, a woman who would not hang off his sleeve day in, day out.
He’d kissed her, just as an experiment, to see whether she might suit him, to check whether she had an antipathy to men or not. Not that it really mattered to him; sexual preference had little to do with marriage and the procreation of heirs.
But that kiss... It had set off a, a conflagration inside him. He’d almost lost all sense of himself. Never had he experienced such a reaction to a simple kiss.
His body had hungered for her ever since.
She’d felt it too, he knew by the way she’d reacted. He’d made up his mind, then and there.
You’re more like your mother than you think.
She was right. Knowing her stated aversion to marriage, he’d set out to entrap her, coolly and deliberately. He hadn’t even thought about the rights or wrongs of it. He was a hunter. Always had been. He’d even thought himself quite clever.
He sat down at his desk and drew out a sheet of paper.
Lady Georgiana had held out against seduction; she’d stood firm against family and society pressure. She had said, over and over, quite openly, that she wanted never to marry, that she wanted to live her life in peace in the country, raising dogs and horses.
She’d only buckled when—no,becausehe and his mother between them—and damn it for a truth that sickened him—had trapped her.
And society had blamed her for it.
He would write to the newspapers and withdraw the betrothal announcement. He picked up the pen, dipped it in the inkwell and stared at the blank page. They’d blame her for that too. Men didn’t withdraw from betrothals—it was too dishonorable. A gentleman’s word was his bond. Only women could withdraw.
But if the betrothal were cancelled she’d be labeled a jilt. And worse.
He put the pen down and pushed the paper aside. Damn it all, what was he going to do?
