A Match Made in Bed (Spinster Heiresses #2)(13)

He looked to her. “Tell me again what I did?”

“You drew a picture of a dog on one of the slates in the schoolroom. You wrote my name on it.” Her chin lifted in justified anger. She sounded grievously offended.

This was apparently what she wanted an apology for, and Soren should give it to her.

But he couldn’t.

From deep within came that selfsame desire to revolt that he’d experienced the day he’d stolen the port. He did not remember drawing a picture of a dog or even holding a slate. Could he have done it? Yes. It would have been a foolish, rude thing to do, but that day, he’d been in a mood.

So, he said what he truly felt. “You’ve been nursing a grudge against me all these years because of some childhood piece of nonsense?”

“You were fifteen.”

“I was an idiot at fifteen. All boys are idiots at that age.”

“Except you have apparently not improved,” she countered crisply, and would have marched around him for the door, save for his arm going up to block her way.

“What does that mean?” he demanded.

“Exactly what I said,” she returned.

He could have put his fist through a wall in frustration. “You are carrying on this way because of some silly drawing I did on a slate when we were children, and you believe I am immature? Do I understand you correctly?”

“I was hurt,” she replied primly.

“I see. And in your ‘hurt,’ do you feel you have the license to behave like the lowest class of person toward me? There are draymen who have better manners than you have, Miss Holwell.”

She did not like that at all. Her brows knit together sharply. “I believe you are overreacting.”

“I believe you don’t know what friendship is.”

“A friend doesn’t call another one a dog.”

She was right. Still . . .

“I was fifteen. I was a stupid, rowdy boy. We do things like that. It means nothing—”

She cut off his dismissive words by raising her arms in the air as if to block them. “You didn’t do it to the boys around you or to the other girls. You did it to me. You said you were my friend—and I didn’t have many. I trusted you.”

That sobered him.

“You made the others laugh at me. And now?” She lowered her arms. “Now, you are supposedly courting me for my fortune and act confused that I’m not overwhelmed by your attention.” Her voice took on a simpering tone. “Oh, my dear Lord Dewsberry.” She batted her eyes and fanned her cheeks as if they were overheated.

Now, who was mocking whom?

“All I’ve done is ask you to dance a time or two and escort you in to dinner,” he countered tensely.

“But what you really want is money. My money; anyone’s money. You don’t see me, Soren. The dog incident brought home to me that my friendship didn’t mean anything to you. I was a novelty, nothing more. We’d both been warned to stay away from each other and, of course, how could we? We were both too curious for our own good. And the idea of a friendship between us? It was all a sham, just as a marriage between us would be nothing more than a charade.”

She wasn’t right about the friendship, but she was dead correct about the money.

He’d marry Beelzebub if the devil had the blunt he needed. Pentreath Castle was at stake. Soren had returned to England to learn that his late father had mortgaged the estate to the hilt. The man’s body had barely been cold before creditors had come knocking on the door.

Soren was determined not to lose his birthright. What he had once been willing to walk away from had taken on more meaning with the birth of his son. He would not fail Logan or future generations the way his father and grandfather had. Therefore, since any money he had was tied up in his Canadian businesses, he’d made a pact with one Jeremiah Huggett, the most ruthless of the moneylenders—but what choice had Soren had? None.

Now a payment was due and Huggett was looking for his money or Pentreath.

Soren’s motive for marrying was a time-honored solution. However, it would come across as shallow to an overly moral woman.

There was a long beat of silence between them.

Soren broke it first. “So, where are we? Friends? Enemies? Passersby? I never intended to hurt you.”

The heat left her.

Her hand reached out to touch the wooden top of the washbasin. She rubbed a finger along the grain as if in deep thought. Her whole being softened with sadness, and he realized she wasn’t as set against him as she pretended.

“Cass—” he started. Yes, he sensed an opportunity in his favor, and he was desperate enough to mine it.

She cut him off. “Our friendship was a long time ago,” she admitted. “I was quite na?ve then. The picture you drew on the slate, it didn’t really matter, Soren. I’ve been called worse names, especially back then. But what hurt was your callousness. I thought you understood what your friendship meant to me. You see, everyone liked you. They thought I was odd. I didn’t fit in. And all of the parish believed my family had unfairly taken your grandfather’s lands. Even now, they don’t like the Holwells overmuch. I try never to go back Lantern Fields.” She referred to the house Toland had built on York lands.

“Nonsense. How many elections has your father won?”