Too Wicked to Tame (The Derrings #2)(71)

“It’s done,” he said with a lift of his shoulder. “I’m concerned with now, this moment. For the first time in my life, I have a future to look forward to.” He grasped her by the arms, his eyes glowing with an unyielding light. “Do you know what this means, Portia? There’s no reason I shouldn’t marry.”

“No,” she said slowly, “There’s no reason you shouldn’t.”

“Considering I’ve already ruined you, you’re the best—”

“Ruined?” God, how she detested that word. “I’m not ruined. No one knows—”

“That doesn’t change the fact that I’m honor bound to marry you.”

“Stuff your obligation,” she cut in. “I release you from it.”

“You can’t release me. Obligation is simply that. No one can release someone from their duty.”

Duty. A word she had come to appreciate lately. She felt inappropriate laughter bubble up inside her. He offered her marriage. He could wed her, bed her, and beget children with her. All for duty. Not out of love, not out of need or desire for her, but out of what was expected of him. She pressed a hand to her belly, suddenly feeling ill.

And ironically enough, duty demanded she wed.



Yet not him. Not this arrogant, insufferable man who had already broken her heart once. Who couldn’t even manage a dignified proposal. She would not give him the power to hurt her again.

“I have my own obligations,” she said tightly, lifting her chin. “I’ve changed, too, you know.”

His gaze flickered over her face. “Is that so?”

“I no longer shirk my responsibilities.” She shook her head, feeling painfully foolish to ever have thought that she could, that she could have been that selfish, that she could have been so much like Bertram. Squaring her shoulders, she confessed, “My brother has left us, departed for foreign soil.”

“He abandoned you?” The astonishment in his voice rang clear and Portia smiled grimly. Heath would not be able to make sense of such a thing—a brother, an eldest son, fleeing duty, leaving his family to face trouble alone.

“Where has he gone?” he demanded in affronted tones, as if he himself would fetch her errant brother home.

She laughed dryly. “He did not exactly leave a forwarding address. It’s for the best, I suppose.

Scandal was imminent if he remained. Bertram became involved in certain activities.”

Heath stared at her for a long moment before nodding, accepting the little she had told him and not pressing for more.

“With Bertram gone,” her voice faded. “Well, suffice it to say things have become rather desperate.” Humiliation stung her cheeks, sharp as a Yorkshire wind. It scraped her pride to make such a confession, to reveal her brother’s abandonment, to disclose the weaknesses of her family—even if logic reminded her that his family had its fair share of flaws.

“Portia,” he began, his hands flexing over her bare arms, the rasp of his calluses on her flesh fluttering her insides. “Let me help. Marry me and—”

“No,” her voice rang out, sharp and inflexible. Automatic. Although she had accepted the notion of marriage, she could not accept the notion of marriage to Heath. Let me help. So now he would marry her out of pity as well as obligation? Could he humiliate her any more? Regardless of how he made her feel, how her body responded to him, she could not tolerate marrying him for those reasons. And for what reasons could you tolerate marrying him? Shaking her head, she shoved the question into the dark night of her mind.

“No?” he echoed, his angry voice reverberating in the confined space, eyes flashing in the glow of the moon. “Why am I not acceptable? I thought deep pockets were the only requisite? You said you’ve decided to wed. You need to marry someone capable of supporting your family. I’m willing. Why not me?”

Why not me?



She shut her eyes in one long blink, hating how logical he sounded—how illogical he made her sound. Why not him?

His face as she had seen him that last day in the library—his handsome features twisted in loathing—flashed in her mind. He’d hurt her, wounded her to the core. She could not let him do so again. She couldn’t be that weak, that stupid.

Her lips moved numbly, spilling forth an explanation that had nothing to do with the one that squeezed at her heart, “Oliver Simon will not simply support us, he will also settle Bertram’s debts.”

His fingers dug into her arms, nearly lifting her off her feet. “I can do that.”

“Why would you want to?” she bit out. “With Simon it’s an even trade. I get something. He gets something. Business. Plain and simple.”

The opera resumed, the music swelling until it pounded all around them, humming along the walls and floor beneath their feet.

“And what exactly does he get?” The question was loaded, rife with danger. Heath’s gaze slid over her, indicating he had already formed an opinion.

It was the one question she refused to dwell on. Not when her nights were spent thinking about Heath, remembering his hands and mouth on her. “Mr. Oliver wants respectability, an entrance into Society.”

“He smells of the docks.”

“It’s a practical arrangement. You and I—”