Page 32 of How to Tempt An Earl
‘But there is more than that to us, more between us that must be sorted. We have our own needs. Marriage requires the surrender of my freedom. I do not want to be owned by a man, Kieran. I’ve already travelled that route. As my guardian, Roan possessed me. I promised myself when I fled I would not put myself in that position again.’
‘I would not ask it of you. You would not be my slave, Celeste. Surely, in the time we’ve been together, you know that? Surely I’ve shown you I would not treat you like that?’ He paused, another thought crossing his dark eyes. ‘Is that what you think of me—that marriage to me would be akin to being Roan’s ward?’ Kieran was either aghast at her thoughts or the dark direction of their conversation.
‘Yes and no. Legally, the ownership would always be there. Marriage is easy for men, Kieran. Men give up nothing. Even so, I wonder if you’re truly free. You are owned by your grief. You will spend the next year hunting the men on the list because you can find them, whereas you cannot your brother. You’ve not dealt with the loss of your brother. I… I am not sure there’s room for another in your life until you can accept that he is gone.’
‘Heisgone,’ Kieran said forcefully. ‘But I refuse to forget him. I do not want to erase him.’
She grabbed his hands in her earnestness. ‘No, of course not. I’m not saying to forget him. I am saying I’m concerned about what this list will do to you. I regret offering it to you. It’s a tool for revenge. It would be easy to think that you owe your brother that revenge. It would also be easy to think that, by avenging him, you will fill the space his loss has left. It won’t. Violence solves nothing but it does beget more violence.’ She’d lived through it. She did not think she could live with herself if he died pursuing that vengeance.
His dark eyes were obsidian-hard. ‘Am I to ignore the list, then?’
She would make this demand and force him to see that she asked too much of him; that his fantasy of playing house asked too much of him and that it existed in contradiction to the life of the Horsemen. ‘I think you must if you want to keep a family safe. I do recall that was originally your biggest opposition to marrying when we first met. You cannot seek out violent men and expect them not to retaliate. You would be deliberately bringing that violence home.’
Kieran was quiet for a long while. Her argument had hit a target. ‘My brother has chosen marriage. Grandfather chose marriage and kept his family safe for decades.’
‘But what if you can’t? What if the worst did happen? If you’re going to play with “what ifs”, Kieran, you have to play with all of the possibilities. Could you live with yourself if anything happened to them?’ He already had one scar and she suspected that was merely the visible one. ‘You still carry Leipzig with you, in your mind. The blame, the guilt for letting down your guard just the once, has left you with doubt.’
She relented for a moment, lying back down on the blanket before launching her last salvo, a gentle arrow aimed at his heart. God, how it would hurt to give this man up. He was certainly too good for her. She had to help him see that. ‘Even if all of your “what ifs” were right, I would not be a credit to you.’
He followed her down and propped himself up on an elbow. ‘How can you say that, when I look at the progress you made in the house, when I hear Mrs Hanson sing your praises? I see what you’ve done for me, and for others, even though your role is only part of a ruse. But you haven’t treated it as such. You’ve made these last few weeksreal. I don’t believe they are all pretence for you. You don’t want to walk away from this or from me.’
So, hehadseen the truth despite her best efforts. He was too perceptive by half. ‘As you said that first night, our being here is different for the staff, for the town, than it is for us. They’re counting on me. They need more from me than a façade.’ She tried to rationalise why she’d thrown herself into her role wholeheartedly.
He reached a hand out to stroke her cheek and push back a russet strand of hair, and her resolve trembled. ‘What about what I need from you? MaybeIneed you to stay, Celeste.’
He needed her. It was a wonderful, warming thought. His eyes lingered on her mouth, dark and burning. It would be easy to let the conversation go, to let sex replace words, but it wouldn’t solve anything, and she didn’t want him to think he’d won this argument.
‘I am not countess material. Yes, I went to boarding schools with the same girls who were raised to marry titles and run noble homes. But their reputations were spotless. There was no blemish to their name, no scandal. I am none of those things, and you know that.’ He was too smart not to, and he knew how Society worked.
‘I am none of those things either. I’ve killed men, I’ve stolen secrets and I’ve spread false information to confuse enemy troops. I’ve had numerous affairs, some with married women.’
‘And for that, Society calls you a rake and celebrates your behaviour. Women do not have that leniency. We are either Madonnas or whores. Neither are actually celebrated. Madonnas are too ethereal and whores are too earthy. We can’t win.’
She could feel his gaze on her, considering, weighing her words, and feel the warmth of his hand on her hip. ‘No decent girl would be caught on a picnic blanket like this.’
‘Then we will be scandalous together and everyone will say how well we suit.’ He was patently avoiding the arguments she’d made earlier, treating them as if they didn’t exist or matter.
‘That won’t last. We’ll be outcasts, and not because of you but because of me. I am the ward of free Europe’s sworn enemy, and the personal enemy of the Horsemen.’
She lowered her voice even further. ‘No one marries the ward of the man responsible for killing his brother. A man of your standing does not marry a woman who has nothing. I have no money, no title, no bloodline. You are an earl and the grandson of an earl. Your sister is married to a duke. I am beneath you in every way. You are a man of honour but I am a woman of dishonour—my father’s and Roan’s. I am dirty, Kieran.’
And there were all the ways in which she’d abetted Roan’s perfidy. These were considerations that might be overlooked for an affair on the road, but must be weighed in the balance when one contemplated a future in which they were tied to one another.
He dismissed her arguments with three simple words. ‘I don’t care.’
How nice it would be to think that was true, that his words would be true today and on into the future. But therewouldcome a time when he would care—for the sake of his family and for the sake of his children. He was being stubborn. He didn’t like to lose. She had to make him see the impossibility. ‘I care, though—for you and for me. Maybe you have talked yourself into the idea of making this fantasy real, but I have not.’
Perhaps he, too, sensed they were at impasse. He shifted on the blanket and changed his tack. ‘Instead of a life together, you will seek a life of loneliness when you leave here? You would trade what we have and could have for that?’ It was cannily done. He knew very well her plans for the future were unformed, contingent on the outcome with Roan.
‘I object to the word “loneliness”. I will seek a life of freedom and independence,’ she corrected. ‘Why is it so hard for men to see that?’ Probably because they’d never been without those things and didn’t understand their worth. His eyes were dark with thought. She’d disappointed him. No doubt he was seldom disappointed by women. But he would appreciate it later.
‘I can give you more than that. I can give you a home. I see how you crave this place. I saw how your eyes lit up from the first day. I can give you a family. You envy me mine—in the best of ways.’
‘At the expense of my freedom and your happiness?’ She shook her head. ‘Kieran, it’s not that I don’t care for you. It’s that I care too much for you. I can’t make you happy. Your misery would become my misery.’
He gave a dry laugh. ‘Is this the part where I am supposed to say, let me be the judge of that? We don’t have to decide anything today. I did not mean for our picnic to turn into this and I don’t think you did either. But, if you’re thinking about leaving, promise me you will also think about what I said. Think about staying…because I want you to.’
‘I will.’ She could give him the words. It wouldn’t change anything; it couldn’t. But heaven help her when he looked at her with those eyes and stroked her hip with his hand. He wasn’t making it easy. She was going to have to fight a two-fronted resistance—one against him and one against herself. History was not kind to such battles. They were seldom victorious strategies.
