A Dash of Scandal(94)

“Yes, that’s exactly right.”

He glared at her with an incredulous expression on his face. “No, that isn’t right.”

“What we just shared was all my doing, sir. I asked you to make love to me, remember?”

Chandler picked up one of his shoes and rose from the rug. “You can’t take credit for that. And don’t pretend you had to twist my arm to get me to agree. I’ve been wanting to make love to you since I first saw you. When I didn’t even know your name, I wanted you.”

“I don’t remember you ever mentioning anything of the sort to me.”

“A gentleman wouldn’t come right out and tell a lady he wanted to make love to her.”

She pulled the capped sleeves of her dress back onto her shoulders and straightened the front of her gown over her corset. “A gentleman you say? You have behaved like a rake from the moment we met.”

“No, not in all things. I keep telling you I do know how to be a gentleman at times, and not telling you that I wanted to take you to my bed was one of those times. Furthermore, it just so happens I want to marry you.”

Millicent stopped fiddling with her sleeves and looked up at him. Her worst fear had come true. He felt guilt over what they had done.

Her heart pounded slow, hard, and sure. Chandler was a gentleman after all. If only he had said that before tonight things would have been so different.

She couldn’t bear him thinking she had planned tonight just to force him to propose. That thought chilled her.

“You don’t know what you are saying,” she managed in a hoarse whisper.

“Of course I do.”

“Tell me truthfully, if we hadn’t just made love would you be proposing to me right now?”

Chandler hesitated for a second too long and that told her all she needed to know long before he said, “Truthfully? Right this moment? No.”

Millicent let out a shaky breath. “That’s what I thought. My point is proven.”

“You have no case to prove. I only meant I would have asked for your hand in the proper manner, soliciting your guardian first.”

“You can’t want to marry me. You don’t even know me,” she whispered.

He looked pointedly, knowingly into Millicent’s eyes. Very quietly he said, “I know every inch of you, my dear.”

“Oh! How dare you be so crass about—” She stopped.

“Making love to you?” he asked with a frown settled deep between his eyes as he hopped on one foot while trying to get his bare foot into his other shoe.

“You’re hopeless.” Millicent looked around for her gloves. Chandler was being deliberately obtuse. “I meant that you don’t know anything about my family or the true reason I’m in London.”

He stopped trying to step into his shoe and just held it. “That’s right, because you have seen fit to deny me that important bit of information even though I have asked about it more than once.”

She reached down and picked up one of her gloves, then looked back at Chandler. She opened her mouth to tell him the whole story of her mother’s debacle in London’s Society and her aunt’s double life as Lord Truefitt, but she stopped. If Chandler knew, would it make him love her? Would it make him forget she had spied on his peers and written for the scandal sheets? If none of that would change, then why expose her aunt to ruination?

“I can’t tell you because it involves someone else. There’s too much at stake.”

“What? Why, if no one is forcing you to do this gossip column? Did you lie to me when you said you weren’t doing it for the money?”

“No, no. I haven’t lied to you.”

“Trust me with what you know. Trust me with what you are doing. You can trust me, Millicent.”

Millicent looked at Chandler, with his chest bare, his breeches unfastened, and only one shoe on. Oh yes, she loved him with all her heart. She wanted to confide in him. And her heart would be overjoyed if she knew he wanted to marry her because he felt for her what she was feeling for him.

When her gaze met his, she knew she had to leave immediately. If not she would give in to his demands and tell him everything. “Don’t ruin what just happened between us, Chandler. I want nothing more from you than the sweet memory of being in your arms tonight.”

She turned and rushed out of the room.

“Millicent, come back.”

She heard him call her name, then a sound like he had stumbled over something and tripped. She didn’t stop to find out. She ran to the front door and slung it open. She dashed out into the night, running as fast as she could to the coach that was waiting.