Duke of Thorns (Heiress Games 1) (31 page)

Unless she counted her own heart. That wretched traitor remembered the Gavin she’d met over whisky, not the duke who had forced her into an engagement. Even now it hummed with happiness that she would have him, not someone else, as her partner.

She wouldn’t have Gavin, though. She would have Thorington. And that was an entirely different proposition.

Most of the doors in the Tudor wing were closed, but the last two rooms before Thorington’s were open and empty. It was unlikely anyone would hear anything. She turned the handle and pushed his door open.

Her candlelight connected with his. Thorington reclined on the bed, propped up by pillows. The candle illuminated the book in his hand. It was an incongruous picture. Her gaze flickered over the rest of him — no cravat or jacket, no boots, but still wearing a shirt and trousers. The shirt gaped open at the neck, giving her just a glimpse of his chest.

He looked like a warrior at rest.

When she looked back up to his face, he was watching her with those hooded, inscrutable eyes. He clapped his book shut in one hand, snapping it like a trap. Then he swung his feet down and sat on the edge of the bed.

He didn’t stand for her like a gentleman would. But then, a lady wouldn’t have come to him.

“You shouldn’t be here,” he said.

She looked down. Her nerves, unexpectedly, felt like giving out. What had she hoped to accomplish by coming here? She couldn’t murder him. She couldn’t even escape him. He was one of the most powerful men in England. If she jilted him after he’d kissed her publicly, it would be the end of her. The infamy would follow her anywhere she went — and Callie wasn’t popular enough anywhere to weather it. She’d have to give up the Briarley name, find some other home.

But she couldn’t let him win. She couldn’t let him steal her fortune when she would rather share her heart.

“You shouldn’t have kissed me,” she said.

She finally looked up and met his gaze. In the shadows, she saw something that looked like misery.

But he was the man he had warned her about. And that man was incapable of misery.

She sensed the moment when he became the duke again, when that twist came back to his mouth and his eyes turned mocking. He leaned against the wall with his hands behind his head as though she’d come to entertain him. “You weren’t upset when I kissed you last night.”

He was going to die.

She walked across the room and set her candle next to his. She let her skirts brush against his knee as she passed him, but she made no further move to touch him. Then she sat in the room’s only chair. Or slouched, more like — she crossed her arms over her breasts and stretched her legs out before her in a position that was wholly negligent.

She wanted to look like she didn’t care. “I was willing to practice with you,” she said, when her voice was capable of selling a lie. “But I didn’t wish to be saddled with you.”

“Saddled with me?” He stayed still, but his eyes narrowed.

“Yes, saddled with you. At least when I had a horse named Duke, I could sell him when he no longer fit my purposes. You won’t be gotten rid of so easily, will you?”

“No.”

Stark and final.

“Then I have come to arrange terms,” she said.

He paused. She didn’t try to fill the silence. Anything she could say, when her heart and mind were warring over what to do, would only harm her negotiation. But his words, when they finally came, surprised her.

“Will you give me the opportunity to explain myself?”

She doubted that he had ever asked such a question before. If he had, he was sorely out of practice. He sounded stiff and slightly angry, not remorseful.

She shook her head. “There is nothing to explain. You saw what you wanted and took it.”

“As you took my ships?”

That wasn’t anything like what she wanted to hear. “Is that why you want to marry me? To get your ships back?”

He leaned forward, all pretense of calm gone. “I’m not marrying you to regain my fortune. I’m saving you from Captain Hallett.”

“Hallett hadn’t even made a threat before you kissed me,” Callie said.

“It was only a matter of time, my dear. You should have changed the name of your ships before you took up privateering. My messenger to London took less than a day to unearth your secret. If I could discover your activities, anyone could. Someone else would ruin you if Hallett didn’t.”

“You investigated my shipping concerns?”

“Of course,” he said. “You were a potential investment for Anthony when I sent my man to London. Wouldn’t you have done the same?”

She thought of the hours she’d spent reading the society papers, searching for clues to who Thorington really was. When she stayed silent, he laughed, not entirely unkindly. “Of course you would have. I didn’t expect to discover that you were a privateer. But once I knew, I couldn’t ignore the ruin you’re destined for.”

“My ruin is my problem, not yours.”

She knew she sounded sulky, but her pride was tweaked and her heart was bruised. Thorington didn’t give her any mercy. “I made a vow to protect you. I won’t let anyone harm you.”

Callie was having trouble slouching. She wanted to lean forward and shake him.

She stayed still. “I suppose I should thank you, although I don’t feel grateful at the moment.”

“I would save you whether you felt grateful or not,” he said.

There was so much good in him. Callie saw it, even though he wasn’t saying it — even though he didn’t seem to believe it himself. The cool, rational part of her knew that he did what he thought was best for her. That this marriage was intended for her benefit, not his.

But her heart wanted more than a vow of protection. And her head didn’t believe Thorington was capable of giving it.

She drew a breath and ordered herself to stay the course, like a soldier standing still during an enemy assault. “You must agree to my terms before I marry you.”

“If it’s ships you want, you can have them,” Thorington said. “As I said, I’m not marrying you for your business.”

“That’s part of it,” Callie said.

“And the other part?”

She wasn’t sure she could say it, now that the moment had arrived. She had practiced the words in her room while she’d waited for the house to go to sleep. But her request was so…heartless.

Heartless like Thorington, not Gavin.

But if she was to marry Thorington, not Gavin, her heart couldn’t bear it. She would slowly, inevitably fall even more in love with him than she already was. And she would never win Thorington’s heart to replace the one she’d given him.

So she had to start as she meant to go on. And that meant protecting herself from anything she could trick herself into believing was a love match.

“I want a marriage of convenience,” she said.

He leaned back as though he’d expected those words. “You want to share my house but not my bed?” He smiled grimly. “I have practice there.”

Callie shook her head. “The opposite, actually.”

He ran a hand through his hair. “You want to share my bed but not my house?”

“I cannot live with you, Thorington. Not if I want to retain my freedom. You’ll make every choice, won’t you? If you decided I had to marry you for my own good, even though it would cost me Maidenstone — even though I never said I wanted to marry you — what’s to stop you from deciding I cannot run a shipping company?”

“You are far more capable at shipping than I am,” he said. “I won’t take it away from you. I vow it.”

She heard the weight in his voice. Thorington kept his vows. Her heart tried to leap, but her head punched it back down.

“Perhaps you won’t take it away outright. But you’ve spent the entire party giving me lessons in how to be someone I’m not. If I live with you, where will those lessons end? When I look like all the other women in London? When I can host a party without saying anything at all?”

Thorington shoved his hand into his hair again. “Callista…Callie. It’s not like that. I wouldn’t want that.”

Callie waited. Her shorter name sounded sweet on his lips, and she almost melted when she heard it. But even though his face was etched with misery, he didn’t say anything else.

And he still hadn’t apologized for forcing her to marry him.

Her patience snapped. “Enough. I can see the value in producing children with you to continue our lines. And if I must be married, I would very much like to have a family of my own. But that’s all I need from you. Everything else I can provide for myself.”

“All you want from me is children?”

She nodded.

“You’d keep me like your stallion? Use me for breeding, then put me out to pasture?”

He said it so coldly. Callie swallowed. “You can see the children, of course. If they interest you.”

“Legally they would be mine. I could take them from you and never allow you to see them again.” His voice dropped as he spoke, taking the temperature of the room with it. “You could ask my mother how that felt, but she is no longer able to give advice.”

She hadn’t realized until it was far too late that she’d touched a wound. Not just touched it — poured acid into it.

“Shall we start tonight?” he continued. His voice turned savage. His hand dropped to his trousers, unfastening the first button. “A demonstration of my skills before you buy me?”

She swallowed again. “I have already seen your skills. I shall return to my room, I think.”

She stood. But she was too close to him, and he grabbed her wrist before she could escape. “You can have your ships. And you can have my seed. But don’t allow yourself to think you can use me.”

“I will never believe that,” she whispered.

She looked down into his eyes as she said it. They were finally close enough that even in the darkness she could see the expression there — desperation and regret mingled together, with enough anger and self-loathing to feed the harshest words.

“Will you not?” he whispered back. The savage tone was gone, replaced by despair. “I’ve known you less than a week, and I would enslave myself to touch you again.”

His words shook her. But she couldn’t forget what he had done. “You’ll be sated soon enough,” she said. “When you are, you’ll turn your attention to my business. I won’t have any power at all to stop you. Now, let me go.”

She tried to shake him off. His grip tightened. “You haven’t heard my counter-offer.”

“What is it?”

“Not that it matters — if you don’t marry me, you will be so ruined that not even Ferguson and Madeleine will receive you publicly. But I’ll grant you your ships. We will set aside your dowry in a trust for our children.”

“That isn’t a counter-offer,” she said.

His other hand returned to his trousers, undoing the remaining buttons. “I’m merely adding a codicil. I’ll father your children. But I will be the only one who touches you. And you won’t deny me anything when I come to your bed.”

*     *     *

He had expected her to demand a marriage of convenience. But he hadn’t expected this.

It was the only reason he could find for why he was so angry. Surely it was merely that she had offered him something he hadn’t planned for.

Surely it wasn’t that he was hurt.

He’d shocked her into silence. Her wrist felt so fragile in his hand, but he wouldn’t let her go. No matter what she said, no matter how she said it. She was
his
. His to protect, his to touch, his to love.

That word was too dangerous. He pulled her into his lap and kissed her, hard.

She made a surprised sound in her throat, but she didn’t push him away. She opened her mouth instead, inviting him in. He took what she offered, wanting to touch every bit of her, to taste every part of her soul.

There was salt at the corner of her mouth. He grazed his thumb over her cheek and felt moisture there.

“Callie,” he whispered.

It was the only word he could say. He wanted her to hear what was behind it — sadness, regret, certainty. He couldn’t be the man she deserved. And he was the very devil for stealing her.

But it never could have ended differently.

She grabbed his hand and pulled it away, not letting him trace her tears. “Business,” she said. “This is a business arrangement. You can’t take more than what we agreed to.”

He wasn’t sure whether she was reminding him, or herself. But it made him angry again. “Do we have an agreement?”

“I keep my ships, you give me children, and we live in separate houses? I accept if you do.”

He wanted more than that. He wanted so much more. There was nothing in that agreement that promised laughter. Or sweetness. Or any of the hundred new and varied emotions he felt when he saw her. It was as bloodless as the original agreement they’d made in the same room a week earlier — as though nothing had happened between them that merited something more.

Something better.

But he had never deserved her.

“I accept,” he said.

He wanted her to hear what he couldn’t say. Any words he tried would be the wrong ones. He kissed her instead, branding her with his mouth. He let go of her wrist so his hands could rove over her, seeking the delicious boundary between silk and skin. The dress was beautiful, but he didn’t need silk to find her appealing. He would have been happier to see her in her divided skirt, standing in the mud, teasing him.

He wanted her to know that. He attacked her hair, not stopping the kiss as he scattered pins on the floor. He hadn’t seen her hair framing her face since she’d asked a real lady’s maid for help with her hair. He had been a fool to say she should.

Her hair fell around them, slowly, a veil dropping and yet revealing what he sought. He found the final pins to set her free, then ran his fingers through the winding strands. She arched her neck, letting her head fall back into his hands. He moved lower, kissing the pulse point above her collarbone, making her gasp.

“Callie,” he whispered over her skin. “I accept.”

But he didn’t just accept. He worshipped. He skimmed his lips over her collarbone as his fingers dropped through the waterfall of her hair to find the buttons of her dress. He yanked harder than he should have. Some of them fell to the floor to join the hairpins, but he was beyond caring. She never should have been in that dress. She should have been in something stronger, something made for the sea.