“He’s not a widower. He’s never been married.”
“Never been married? And yet now, in his sixth decade, he decides to take a wife young enough to be his granddaughter?” Nash shook his head. “There’s something wrong there. A man of that age, a bachelor of long standing—more than sixty years!—suddenly decides to change his life? I don’t believe it. What does he have to gain?”
She bared her teeth in imitation of a smile. “Me.”
He snorted again. It was outrageous. The very thought of her, and some old man . . . any man . . . He jammed tightly clenched fists into his pockets, out of sight.
“It’s true,” she insisted. “He told me when I was a little girl that he would marry me one day.”
He rolled his eyes. “That’s just something you say to a child.”
The anger sighed out of her. “I know,” she said more quietly. “But he maintained that position ever since. I thought his references to it were mere pleasantries. But when Papa died Mr. Hulme insisted that that Papa had approved the match.” She grimaced. “I think the real attraction is that he admired the way I looked after Papa when he was dying.”
Nash was revolted. “You mean he wants to tie a lovely young woman to him so he’ll be well looked after in his old age? I’ve never heard of anything so . . . so . . .”
“Selfish?”
“Wasteful,” he snapped. “Wasteful of you, your life, and all its wonderful possibilities.”
She gave a mirthless laugh and looked around her. “Yes, indeed, why would anyone give up all these wonderful possibilities”—she indicated the small cottage, barren now of its warmth—“to marry a wealthy old man? Why give up the constant and unrelenting struggle to feed and clothe five children when by marrying you could give them everything they need and want?”
“And what about what you want?”
She gave him a long look, then shrugged enigmatically.
“You refused him before,” Nash persisted. The very idea of her marrying this unknown old man appalled him. She couldn’t be allowed to sacrifice herself so cold-bloodedly. She deserved something better, much better.
She turned away from him and started briskly folding clothing. “Yes, well, I’m older now, and wiser.”
Guilt lashed Nash’s anger and frustration to breaking point. She hadn’t spoken of becoming an old man’s darling two days ago, when her garden was destroyed and her hives burned. She hadn’t talked about marrying Hulme then. On the contrary, she’d been determined to fight back.
Now, all the fight was gone from her and he hated it, hating seeing resignation and acceptance in her eyes, knowing that he was the cause of it.
“If it’s money you need, I said before I could—”
She turned on him, enraged. “Do not dare offer me money!”
Dammit, had all his diplomatic skills deserted him? Nash took a calming breath and rephrased it. “I didn’t mean it like that, you know I don’t. But naturally you want security for the children. I thought you understood that I would look after them, as well as you. I mustn’t have made it clear.”
“You made it quite clear and you have nothing to reproach yourself about. But I cannot accept that kind of support. You may not know what it’s like in a small village, where everyone knows everyone’s business, but if you sent men along with firewood, the village would know, if you gave me a rug for the floor, they would know. And they would whisper and talk. And the good, respectable women who have been my friends up to now will sh—speculate. And no longer commission bonnets. And everyone would gossip. And the children would suffer for it.”
She’d been going to say something else, he thought. Sh—Shun?Her friends would shun her? “I will buy you a house somewhere else—on one of my brother’s—”
“Thank you, but no,” she cut him off firmly. “You mean I would live as your mistress I suppose.”
She paused and, horrified, he realized he had no answer. He hadn’t thought about anything, except that he was going to lose her just when he’d found her.
She read an answer in his frozen face and shook her head. “Living as your mistress, seeing you only when you returned to England, when you could spare the time?” She made a decisive gesture. “I refuse to live on crumbs of attention and spend my life waiting. I will make my own choices.”
Her cold-blooded assessment of the situation lashed at his guilt. A fine fellow he was indeed, to bring a girl to this when all she’d done was save his life. “I’m sorry. I know it’s my fault, that my being here—and what happened between us last night—”
“Donotapologize for last night!” Her eyes flashed, her honey-smoke voice vibrated with emotion. “Last night has nothing to do with this—nothing! It was between you and me alone, and if there’s anything I regret, it’s not that we made love.”
She passed a hand wearily over her face, gathering her composure. Her fingers trembled and pain twisted in him.
In a quieter voice she said, “Your offer is very generous, Nash, but you don’t need to take care of me or give me money or cottages or rugs or firewood to assuage any guilt you think you have. You have nothing to reproach yourself for. Everything that happened in this cottage was my choice—mine! And I regret none of it.” She paused. “Except perhaps for Mr. Harris discovering you here. But again, that was my responsibility—I knew the risk and accepted it—”
She was being far too generous, Nash thought. He’d provoked Harris’s vindictiveness and caused the scandal that would force her to leave, to marry an old man.
