Beauty in Breeches(11)

Julius looked down at her, his tone slightly acid. ‘The pleasure is all mine,’ he said in clipped tones. ‘Would you deprive me of that?’ He stepped away from her. ‘We need to talk.’

‘Yes, we do.’

‘Now would be as good a time as any.’ His eyes held hers. His face was a taut mask of controlled anger. For an instant he thought she would argue—he was relieved when she tightened her lips and inclined her head in apparent acquiescence. ‘Come, let’s take a walk.’

With studied calm Beatrice allowed him to place his hand on her elbow and escort her out of the stable yard and into a quiet part of the gardens. There was a controlled alertness in his manner, like that of a large cat, its strength ready to explode, but for the present docile. She was reminded of a large black panther she had seen on her visit to the zoo at the Tower of London with Astrid. In repose the panther’s sinews had flexed and stretched in a fantastic rhythm of life that mesmerised. Julius Chadwick was slim, yet sturdy, and moved with almost sensuous grace. There was a sureness in his stride as if he carefully planned where to place each foot. At the moment he appeared relaxed, but Beatrice knew that he was aware of her and everything around him.

His grip felt strong and steely. A host of unfamiliar sensations passed along her nerves and her heart turned over distractingly. Such unexpected susceptibility was not, to her mind, a helpful development. She had never before been so afflicted—she hoped the effect would fade quickly. To her chagrin it did not go away when he removed his hand.

‘I don’t think we’ll be disturbed here.’

His tone, clipped and dry, had Beatrice shifting her gaze to his face. He was a towering masculine presence in this quiet corner of the garden. ‘What is it you want to say?’ she asked, beginning to feel the first pangs of discomfort with the dark way he was regarding her, his gaze narrowed and assessing.

The corner of his mouth twisted wryly. ‘Don’t look so worried. I don’t intend to harm you.’ Looking down into her wide eyes, Julius saw speculation leap in their depths only to be replaced by wariness. His gaze locked on hers. ‘I believe it’s time for a little plain speaking.’

Beatrice stiffened. ‘On what subject?’

‘On the subject of your ridiculous forfeit—our future.’ In an endeavour to disguise the tension that had gripped him and the way her nearness was affecting him, how he found it nigh impossible to look away from her golden hair lightened by the sun, her unfathomable green eyes and beckoning fragrance, he took a couple of steps away from her and gazed over the gardens. ‘Am I honestly supposed to take you—I mean, this proposal—seriously?’

‘I assure you, I am completely serious.’

‘Then do you mind if I ask you a few questions?’

‘Ask me anything you like.’

He tilted his head to one side, his face a mirror of bewilderment and disbelief. ‘Are you, by any chance, under the influence of drink, Miss Fanshaw?’

‘Absolutely not. I rarely drink anything stronger than watered-down wine.’

‘Then am I supposed to believe that at some point you might have fallen in love with my larger-than-life reputation? That is what it would have to be since, to my knowledge, we have never met.’

‘That scenario is as ludicrous as the one before it.’

‘Then it can hardly come as a surprise to you to learn that I might have some objections to the proposal.’

‘It wasn’t a proposal.’

Julius’s contemplation was steady. ‘What was it, then? An order?’

‘No.’ The word was out before Beatrice had considered it. She tried to erase the admission with a casual wave of her hand. ‘That is…’

‘Plain speaking I believe I said. I don’t like being forced. It goes against my grain. It is a most unwise thing for you to do. Most unwise. How dare you compromise me in this manner?’

Beatrice lifted her chin. ‘I had hoped you were too much of a gentleman to renege on your word.’

‘I don’t have to be a genius to work out that you planned this. What concerns me now, what we need to discuss, is what comes next.’ Leaning against a low stone wall and resting his arm on the top, letting his hand dangle limply, he caught her glittering gaze and held it. ‘Tell me. When do you want the wedding to take place?’

‘Why, I…’ Feeling heat wash over her face, she faltered, taken off guard.

‘Come now,’ he pressed. ‘Don’t tell me you haven’t thought it out. One day? Two days? A week—a month? How long?’

‘As soon as possible was what I imagined.’

‘Well, imagine again. If you imagined I’d meekly consent to this madness, you were far off track.’

‘If you recall, my lord, you did consent to it. Very well, we will wed at your convenience, I suppose.’

‘And I suppose that would be never.’

‘You mean you will go back on your word?’

‘You can bet your damned life there is nothing that would please me more. But were I to do that, I would blacken my reputation. The short of it is, Miss Fanshaw, I don’t want to marry you—and if you know what is good for you, you wouldn’t want to marry me either. Which is why I am leaving it up to you to cry off.’

She gaped at him. It was her turn to be nervous. ‘Cry off?’

His eyes mocked her. ‘That’s what I said. It’s very simple. You can let it be known that your forfeit was a joke, that you did it for a laugh, that you had no intention of holding me to my word. You will have to be the one to say it. Everyone must hear it from your own lips.’

‘But I can’t do that.’

‘No? Pray tell me why not?’

‘Because it would be a lie.’

‘You mean you actually do want to marry me?’

She looked at him surreptitiously. ‘Yes,’ she replied—not that she had any idea what marriage to him would entail once she had caught him. ‘I will not withdraw the forfeit.’

She would not beg him to wed her. Nor would she back down. But what a disaster she had made of it. She must have been out of her mind to think she could manage this. With that characteristic recklessness with which she tackled everything in her life, she had rushed to accept his wager without much thought to how he would react should she win the race and request his forfeit. But it was too late now. She had set the ball rolling, so to speak, and she would not back out now.

‘When I named the forfeit, why did you concede by going so far as to announce our engagement?’

‘Because at the time I did not take your proposal seriously. I thought you were playing some kind of mischievous game—that it was some light-hearted jest, that in some twisted way you were trying to get back at me for what you accuse me of doing to your father. I merely entered into the spirit of things. Naturally I believed you would withdraw your ridiculous proposal and it could be laughed off with no ill feeling.’

Beatrice met his look squarely. ‘You do not know me. You were wrong to think that.’ She glared at him. ‘It was no twisted, mischievous game, Lord Chadwick. I have thought long and hard about this. Perhaps now you will realise that I was being deadly serious. Besides, after asking you to marry me in front of an audience, the scandal will be being broadcast throughout London as we speak. If you refuse to marry me, I will have ruined any chance I might have had of making a suitable marriage.’

‘That is unfortunate for you, but it is entirely your own doing. It does not concern me.’

‘I accept that, but you could do a lot worse than marry me. I have nothing of my own to bring to a marriage, but both my parents were well connected. I meet a gentleman’s criteria of youth, good health, breeding, I am reasonably pretty, or so I’ve been told, and I have an unblemished reputation.’

Julius raised a sardonic brow at her self-praise and contemplated her wickedly gleaming green eyes. ‘I am impressed, but you failed to mention problematical, as bold as brass and as determined as they come.’

She smiled. ‘I admit that I can be troublesome on occasion, but on the whole, you can have no objections to my suitability.’

Julius’s expression was one of disbelief. He looked her over carefully, as if to judge her for her worth, and appeared dubious as he crinkled his brows. ‘No objections—’ he retorted sharply, then bit back the rest of his words, clenching his jaw so tightly a muscle jerked in the side of his cheek. ‘I have plenty, Miss Fanshaw, and I can imagine Lady Standish will have some of her own to add. How will your esteemed aunt receive your outlandish proposal to me?’

‘She will be livid, I expect. You see, where my aunt is concerned, as an impoverished orphan she has never had any regard for me. I am a duty she is forced to endure. In her world, marriages are arranged for consequence and money. She has you in her sights for Astrid. Not only are you outrageously wealthy, but you are also a marquess and we haven’t had one of those in the family before, so she sees it as advancing the family cause.’ She cocked her head on one side and looked at him steadily. ‘Would you have offered for Astrid? Did my aunt read your attentions toward Astrid correctly?’