Page 77 of Heiress Gone Wild

“Marjorie,” he said gently, seeming to sense her feelings, “nothing happened.”

“Nothing?” she echoed, her voice rising a notch. “Is that what you call it?”

“I only meant that what we did—what I did,” he corrected at once, “won’t ruin you. It might have, of course, had anyone caught us. But no one did.”

She made a sound, a hitching hiccough of fear, and swayed on her feet.

His hands gripped her by the arms to steady her. “The doors were closed. Everyone was in bed and asleep. No one saw us.”

“But... but...” She paused, thinking hard, but there was just no delicate way to bring up the crucial point. “But what about a baby?” she burst out.

He blinked, and then, to her complete consternation, he gave a shout of laughter.

“This isn’t funny!” she cried.

“No,” he agreed, assuming his former grave expression, but in his eyes, there was a lurking hint of wry humor that made her scowl.

“Sorry,” he said. “I know this isn’t amusing. But Marjorie, you do have a way of forever knocking me off my trolley. I had thought myself thoroughly prepared for this moment and anything you might say, but knowing you, I should have known better.”

“What you’re prepared for isn’t of much concern to me just now, Jonathan,” she said crossly.

“No, but I took it for granted that someone would have explained all that sort of thing to you ages ago. Mrs. Forsyte, or one of your married friends... someone...” His voice trailed off, implying a question, but when she shook her head, he resumed, “What happened last night isn’t how babies are made. That’s not how it works. At least, not precisely. I mean,” he added as she sucked in another panicky breath, “things between us didn’t go far enough for that.”

“Oh,” she gasped, relieved that her apprehensions were groundless, but curious, too, for she couldn’t imagine what “going far enough” would have entailed. To her mind, the intimacies of last night had gone pretty far.

“But they could have done,” he said before she could ask, the humor vanishing from his eyes. “And that would have put you beyond the pale. I fear they will go that far at some point.”

“I see,” she said, an inadequate reply, for she didn’t see at all, but she had no idea what else to say. She couldn’t seem to think straight.

Jonathan was proposing. Marriage. To her. She still couldn’t take it in.

“So, I’m not ruined?” she asked. “And,” she continued when he shook his head, “there’s no possibility of a baby after... after...” She paused, giving him a dubious look. “Are you sure?”

He smiled, a tender smile that sent her heart slamming into her ribs. “I’m sure.”

“But then, why on earth would you want to marry me? Are you—” She broke off, staring at him in renewed shock as a new reason occurred to her, one she’d never even thought of as a possibility before, but she had no chance to voice it, for he spoke again, and it was almost as if he’d read her mind.

“You want to know my feelings, of course.” He let her go and took a step back. “I shall confess them, though it means confessing things that are never easy for a man to admit. First, let me say quite bluntly that I want you.”

Heat hit her in the belly, spreading outward, overtaking her entire body, and she could manage only one word. “Oh.”

“I feel for you a deep and passionate desire.”

Romantic thrills began shooting up inside her like fireworks, but given his infuriating disregard of late, it seemed incumbent upon her to appear as unmoved by this exciting confession as possible. “Yes,” she said, but her matter-of-fact reply came out in a strangled whisper and shredded any pretense of sophisticated indifference. She gave a little cough and tried again. “Yes, I... umm... ahem... I did gather that much.”

“I’m sure, but what you may not know is that I have wanted you almost from the very first moment we met.”

“What?” Marjorie was beginning to feel like Alice in Wonderland, except that the six impossible things she was supposed to believe were happening at midnight, not before breakfast.

“Given my position as your guardian, I have known all along such desires are inappropriate, but even I was not aware of how ungovernable my desire for you would become. I instinctively tried to shield you from it—first, by leaving you behind in New York, then by putting Lady Stansbury between us, and then by attempting to leave you with my sisters and escape to Africa.”

He gave another laugh, a caustic sound of self-deprecation. “I told myself and you that all these actions were motivated by my duty, and that I was protecting you from the unsavory attentions of other men. But after last night, I can no longer even attempt such hypocrisy. I am compelled to be honest with both of us.” He met her eyes, his gaze resolute and steady. “What I have really been trying to protect you from all this time is me.”

Marjorie’s heart was thudding so hard in her chest, it was as if she’d been running, and her head was still in a whirl.

“To be blunt, the past two months have been hell for me. Being mere friends with you is impossible, for the more I am near you, the more I want you. Despite my attempts to resist, I feel that resistance fading, making you more vulnerable to attentions of this sort from me with each day that passes. As I seem to repeatedly demonstrate,” he continued with obvious self-disdain, “I cannot be trusted to behave honorably where you are concerned.”

Marjorie, who’d never been the subject of masculine attentions, dishonorable or otherwise, could not share his low opinion of his conduct. Perhaps she had a wild streak in her nature, but what Jonathan had done to her last night was the most thrilling, glorious thing that had ever happened to her. She might have said so, but words were beyond her at this point.

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