A Match Made in Bed (Spinster Heiresses #2)(27)

Neither of them answered him. He could come or go as he pleased. They had something more important to discuss—themselves.

Soren took a step toward her. “I know you have been raised to believe every York is a wastrel but damn it all, Cassandra, I’ve worked hard to be a better man. I have businesses in Canada. Or, I had them. They were struggling when I was called home to take over the title and care for my mother. What with the war, I could be even more of a pauper than I am now. How is that for honesty? But you, too, are not without faults. For one, you are more pigheaded than your father.”

“Pigheaded—?”

“Yes, stubborn, obstinate, ridiculous even.”

“I know what pigheaded means—”

“Then stop fighting me. I’m not the one who made the rules but here they are—if you refuse to marry me and I don’t duel with Bainhurst, then there isn’t a soul in London who won’t think you a fool. They will pity you because you ruined yourself.”

He was right, both about what would happen to her, and her pigheadedness. She resisted accepting the truth even as he rationally laid it out to her. It was all unfair.

Soren sensed his advantage. “What choice will you make, Cassandra? Will you marry me and save Bainhurst’s miserable life? Or should I run him through?”

“It would be unwise to kill him. He is a powerful man.”

“I’m in a powerful mood. And he has lost all sense of judgment over that adulterous wife of his.”

“You know.” The information caught her off guard. She’d not told him what she’d witnessed the night before.

“That Letty Bainhurst is ready for a tumble in any man’s arms? Oh, yes. The person who doesn’t know is Camberly. He is besotted with her. But then, so is her husband.”

“Are your debts bad?” she asked. After all, she did have a practical mind.

“I could lose Pentreath,” he answered soberly. “I’m doing everything I can to save it. The castle isn’t just my birthright, but my son’s.”

His son. If she married him, she would be the mother of his children. She would not be alone or the object of scorn and pity. “I don’t want to be the unmarried relation,” she murmured.

“I imagine it would be like being buried alive for a woman.”

He was right, and no matter what her parents said, that was the truth of it.

Lord Bainhurst called out, “Dewsberry, shall we move on with it?”

“No,” Cassandra called, even as Soren said, “Yes.”

She frowned at him. He shrugged his answer. “I am going to do what is honorable. One way or the other.”

“It doesn’t seem right that we should be forced to marry because of last night,” she insisted. “Nothing happened . . . except it might have helped if you had been dressed. I was shocked you don’t sleep in nightclothes.”

A wicked grin flashed across his face. He took another step toward her. They stood so close, she could feel his body heat. “There are other things I do that might shock you as well . . . at first. Does that make my offer more tempting? Or do you wish to spend the rest of your life playing safe?”

There it was, her choice. She could do what her father expected, which was safe. Or she could embrace what Fate had placed before her. Soren knew how to tempt her.

“In honesty, Cass, of all the heiresses in the world, I like you best.”

She rather liked him as well, when she wasn’t exasperated with him.

Still, for the sake of argument, she had to say, “You don’t know me, Soren. Not any longer. We are both very different than the children we were.”

“Perhaps,” he agreed, then added, “Perhaps not . . .”

And then, before she knew what he was about, he kissed her.

He didn’t ask permission. There was no fanfare or fancy words. Just his lips on hers as if it was the most natural thing in the world to do.

In fact, he’d probably been two steps ahead of her from the moment she had confronted him. This had always been his objective.

Cassandra had been kissed before. At one of her literary salons, one of the poets, seeing they were momentarily alone, had seized upon the opportunity to plant a kiss on her mouth right there under her father’s roof.

It hadn’t been an easy kiss. Roger Edmonds had been far shorter than she. She’d been sitting in a chair, instructing him on what would happen at her salon when he’d taken advantage of the opportunity. It had been decidedly awkward. He kept bumping his mouth against hers as if she should be doing something.

When he was done and found her unmoved, Roger had insisted he could do better. He’d wanted to call on her the next day and spoke of “loving” her. She’d known better. He’d wanted her fortune.

Soren wanted her fortune as well—except he knew how to kiss.

He was also taller than she was. He didn’t need to sit her down.

And his lips must have had some sort of magnetized property because not only did the kiss pull her to him, their lips fit together very well. There was no sloppy wetness. No furtive probings. He kissed like a man who enjoyed the art of it—and how could any woman resist opening to him? It was as if he breathed her in.

The kiss broke too soon.

He was the one who ended it, and she found herself leaning against his chest, his sword arm around her waist.