Too Wilde to Wed (The Wildes of Lindow Castle, #2)(83)

“You risk confirming the rumors that I trapped you into servitude,” he added.

“I understand.”

“You must behave like any other guest in the castle. That means archery this afternoon, dinner and card games tonight. Whatever Ophelia has planned.”

“I understand,” she said again. Her voice was dull, and everything in North rebelled. But he couldn’t seduce her again; last night shouldn’t have happened.

Diana climbed out of bed, went to the basin, and poured water from the pitcher. North silently watched her wash herself, a rough cloth passing over all the places he’d licked and kissed and caressed the night before.

But for quiet splashes when Diana rinsed the cloth, the room was silent.

She put on a chemise and stays, and then pulled a yellow morning dress over her head. It wasn’t saffron-yellow, but softer, the color of cowslips in springtime.

Still, he sat silently, watching with hungry eyes as he memorized every soft curve. The way she lifted her silky hair from the neck of her chemise. The way she drew the strings of her stays together, and how it supported her breasts. The way her gown’s bodice complemented the swell of her breasts.

Only when she began brushing the last of the powder from her hair did he find words and return to the subject he’d raised earlier. “You won’t be happy living with Lady Gray.”

“I may marry in the near future.” Her tone was indifferent. She had once told him that she would marry only for love. He choked back a response.

“If I am not enjoying life with Lady Gray,” she said, looking into the glass but not meeting his eyes there, “I shall leave, but I would never take money from you, North, if that’s what you are intending to offer.”

The firm, set lines of her face made him want to howl as no gentleman should. “You are my responsibility.”

“No, I am not.”

“I want to buy a house in the country for you. I’ll send Peter with you, to ensure your safety.”

“You have no responsibility for myself or Godfrey,” she said, steadily brushing her hair, as if the conversation was trivial.

“If I had never asked for your hand, would you be in this situation?”

“What is the point of that sort of thinking?” she asked. “If I hadn’t refused Archibald, would Rose be alive? My mother thinks so.” Her voice grew tight.

“Your mother is deranged.”

“If you hadn’t called up a regiment, would those boys you told me about be alive?”

“Perhaps not,” North said.

“I was not for sale when my mother tried to sell me to a Scotsman, and I am not on the market now,” she said. “You have absolutely no responsibility for me whatsoever.”

North stood up and went to the window, his back turned. “Is anything to be gained from splitting hairs?” he said, wheeling around. “I saw you; I lusted after you; I bought you with a combination of my rank and wealth. Your mother was angry when you spoiled the transaction.”

Diana’s self-respect strangled any response she could have made in her own defense. She wasn’t for sale, but the wax doll her mother had created? That Diana had been for sale. North had bought her. He was right.

To hide the tears that had sprung to her eyes, she bent over and pulled on her stockings. She used to think North was an unbending poker of a man. Now she knew he was all that on the surface, and a protective, primitive warrior underneath.

“This is all the fault of my impulsiveness, and has nothing to do with you,” she said, once she had her emotions under control and her stockings in place. “I ran away from you, thinking only to save Godfrey. We both know it was a foolish decision—as was allowing Lady Knowe to believe Godfrey was yours.”

She moved toward the door. “I must go down to breakfast.”

“Three hundred a year? And a house, or even just a cottage?”

She froze, a hand on the latch. Three hundred pounds? Once upon a time, she wouldn’t have known what that meant. That was when she was an heiress, able to buy any frivolous pair of shoes that took her fancy.

Now she knew differently. With three hundred pounds and a cottage, she could live comfortably with Godfrey. The blaze of longing that accompanied the thought was the final straw in her humiliation.

When she turned around, North’s face was blurred from the tears that came with rage, or at least that’s what she told herself. Somehow she had been stumbling along, hanging on to her self-respect. Telling herself that she had had no choice when she agreed to be a governess.

Would he pay visits to the house he was paying for? Probably not, because he was a decent man. If he did, they would go to bed together, because she couldn’t be in the same room without thinking of it.

Even now, erotic longing clawed at her. She wanted him. She wanted to fall backward on the bed and pull up her gown and chemise, let her legs fall open. She wanted him to pounce on her with his thick, hot length and . . . and service her.

A cottage in the country, and North walking in the back door, that glint in his eyes?

Hell’s bells. Yes.

No.

The three hundred pounds would come at a terrible price, for herself and Godfrey. She took her rage and let it fill all the fearful, aching, lonely spaces in her heart that seemed to have imprinted themselves with North’s image.

“I admit that I took this position under false pretenses. I gave no thought to how it would affect your reputation. But I have worked hard for my wage. No one has ever given me money.”