Too Wicked to Tame (The Derrings #2)(19)

Yet his eyes betrayed him. Hot, determined, they glowed like polished jet, the gray nowhere in evidence. The sight made her heart beat harder against her breast. A purely feminine reaction—

one for which she sharply reprimanded herself.

“So you see,” he continued, “I won’t have children. Won’t risk future generations.”

She rubbed the base of her palm against her temple, struggling to understand why her grandmother would want her to wed a man burdened with such an affliction. “But my grandmother claimed you’re a catch—”

“Money, my dear,” he cut in sharply, his words echoing within the cavernous room, in the far corners of her heart—a death knell that marked an end to her clinging faith, to the belief that her family regarded her above that of money.

“Many families would gladly forget my tainted bloodlines for a piece of the Moreton fortune,”

he said, his voice rolling over her like a numbing fog—pervasive, consuming, obliterating.

Families like hers.

Shaming heat crawled up her neck and face.

He continued, “I’m guessing your family is in dire need of funds.”

She longed to deny it, to deny that she belonged to such a family—deny that her heart wasn’t breaking to think that her grandmother cared so little for her. She opened her mouth, but no sound emerged.



“We might be the Mad Moretons,” he went on, not bothering to wait for her reply, “But we’ve more money than we have use for.”

More money than we have use for. That would be her family’s sole requisite.

She sank down onto a chair, her shaking legs unable to support her weight. Bile rose in the back of her throat as cold comprehension settled over her. Her grandmother would surrender her to a madman all because his pockets ran deep? Portia had thought she loved her. At least as much as she could love anyone. True, Grandmother strove to see her wed, but Portia had not thought her so desperate, so uncaring. She wouldn’t put such a scheme past her brother and his wife. Bertram and Astrid would sell her to the Sultan of Turkey, if Grandmother let them.

He continued, the velvet timbre of his voice doing nothing to soothe her. “Now you know and you can depart and count yourself lucky to have escaped.”

Depart? Return to her family?

Lifting her gaze, she shook her head. “No.” Absolutely not. More than ever she was determined to remain here. To escape. At least for as long as she could. Grandmother had warned her that this Season would not be like the others—had vowed that Portia would be betrothed by the end of it.

“What do you mean ‘no’?” He rose, two long strides bringing him before her.

Evidently she had spoken aloud. Her head fell back to take in the great length of him towering over her. She wet her lips and told herself that he did not intimidate her.

“I have no wish to wed you,” she said coolly, striving to sound practical, matter-of-fact. “And you have no wish to wed me. What difference does it make if I remain here? I could use a little escape.”

“A little escape,” he echoed. “What is it you wish to escape?”

“When I return home, my family will begin where they left off, pelting me at gentlemen whose pockets run deep enough to cover my brother’s debts.” She lifted one shoulder in a carelessly affected shrug, as if that fact did not make her chest tight and her skin itchy. As if she did not feel like a commodity to be bought and sold.

“And money doesn’t interest you?” His skeptical gaze slid over her, stopping at her bare feet peeking beneath the hem of her nightgown. “You prefer owning tattered nightgowns with frayed hems?”

Air escaped her in a whoosh. So her wardrobe was a bit shabby. He was no model of fashion.



“The need for funds motivates my family. Not me.” She straightened her spine where she sat, resisting the urge to pull her legs beneath her and hide her unraveling hem. “Is it so hard to imagine that I wish to—”

“Remain a spinster?” he finished for her. “Yes.”

Her hands knotted into fists at her sides. “Like you, I have my reasons for eschewing matrimony.”

His lips quirked in a scornful smile. He looked down at her in that mocking, skeptical way of his that set her teeth to gnashing. “Madness runs in your family, too?”

It would seem strange to him—to anyone—that she wished to live her life unwed, pitied and reviled by Society. But there was freedom in it. No ties. The freedom in never answering to a husband, in being bent to his iron will. Freedom to pick up and leave when her mother came for her. Perhaps it was foolish to cling to that particular dream. Especially now, eight years later. Yet Portia remembered the mother who had read to her, talked to her for long hours, dismissed the governess so that she herself could teach her daughter her favorite Greek myths. That mother had promised to come for her, promised that they would live a grand life of travel and leisure together. Without husbands.

She raised her eyes to his waiting stare. He would never understand. And she had no intention of revealing so much of herself in order to explain.

“My reasons are my own and none of your concern.”

“Convenient,” he mocked. “However, if this is some trick or device to stay here in an attempt to persuade me to marry—”

“Don’t,” she snapped, outrage consuming her, burning low in her belly. “You give yourself too much credit.” Was there no end to his arrogance? “Even if I were interested in finding a husband, I certainly wouldn’t look to you.”