What Price Love?

She gave him only an instant to absorb that summation before stating unequivocally, “No. I don’t agree! I will never agree to marry because society deems it necessary.”

There was so much anger surging beneath her words they wavered, but it was the sorrow swirling through her that shook her to her core. She dragged in a breath and went on, clinging to her temper, drawing on its strength. “I knew what I was doing from the first-I never imagined marriage was any part of our arrangement, because it wasn’t, as you and I both know. What we had was an affair, a succession of mutually agreed interludes. There was a reason for the first. And the second, if you recall. The rest came about because we both wished them to.”

His face had turned stony, a set of hard angles and unforgiving planes in which his eyes burned. “Do you seriously imagine-”

“What I know is that you didn’t seduce me-I seduced you.” She gave him back glare for glare. “Do you seriously imagine I did that so that now you would feel obliged to marry me? That I did what I did-dallied intimately with you-in order to trap you into offering for my hand?”

Hurt fury laced her voice as she gave her temper free rein. Better that than any of the other emotions coursing through her.

Confused exasperation disrupted the intensity of his dark gaze. “I never said…” He frowned, scowled. “That wasn’t how it was.”

“Yes, it was!” Her voice had grown shrill; she was close to crying with the frustration and futility of it all-the sad irony of fate. Until he’d said the words, raised the specter, she’d been able to ignore it, pretend it didn’t exist-convince herself that she didn’t want to marry him, that dalliance and experience were all she’d ever wanted. That they were enough.

But now he’d said the fateful words-for all the wrong reasons. For the worst of wrong reasons. And in doing so he’d raised the prospect and she could no longer hide from the truth. Marrying him, being his wife, was the dream she hadn’t allowed herself to acknowledge, the one she’d pretended she hadn’t had.

There was no way to turn back the clock, to start again as if they were simply gentleman and lady, to ignore the reality of what had passed between them over recent weeks.

No way for them to marry without knowing that it was not love but social dictates that had brought them to it.

And that was something she would never accept.

Especially not with him. Better than anyone, she knew it was impossible to trap a wild soul without harming it.

She held his gaze, clung to her composure, tilted her chin. “Regardless, I have absolutely no interest in forcing you to marry me. Indeed, I’m no longer sure I have any interest in marrying at all.”

He stared at her, still scowling, then exhaled through his teeth. Lifting one hand, he raked it through his hair.

She seized the moment; she couldn’t bear to stand there and argue, not when it felt like every word, every phrase, was another stone hitting her heart. “I wish you every success in your future endeavors.” Ducking around him, she rushed to the door. “And I hope-” Pausing with her hand on the knob, she looked back.

He’d spun around and now stared at her, an absolutely stunned, totally incredulous look on his face.

She stared back for an instant, drinking in her last sight of his dramatic male beauty, then hauled in a quick breath. “I hope you have a fulfilling life.”

Without me.

His expression changed; she didn’t wait to see to what. Opening the door, she rushed out; shutting it behind her, she picked up her skirts and ran toward the ballroom.

Behind her, she heard a bellow, then he opened the door-called “Pris! Damn it-come back!”-but then she turned a corner, and heard no more.

In the doorway to the parlor, Dillon stared down the corridor, but she didn’t reappear. For a long moment, he just stood there. It was the-what? third time?-she’d left him feeling like she’d taken a plank to his head.

Turning back into the room, he shut the door. Frowning, he crossed to the well-padded sofa and slumped down on it. And tried to sort out his feelings.

That she didn’t want him feeling forced to marry her was all well and good, but that she’d never at any time thought of marrying him…

He wasn’t sure what to do with that-couldn’t see how it fitted with what he’d thought was going on, with what he’d thought had grown between them. Until she’d said that, he would have sworn that she was…as emotionally enmeshed with him as he was with her.

Yet when he’d tried to correct her view that marriage hadn’t been any part of their arrangement, she’d been adamant. Clearly, it hadn’t been in her mind, even if it had, from the first, been in his. And she’d just as clearly been planning to bid him a fond farewell-affectionate, perhaps, but she’d made it clear her heart wasn’t involved. Hadn’t been touched.

Unlike his.

He was suddenly very aware of that organ constricting. Leaning his head against the sofa back, he looked up at the ceiling, and swore.

And heard a rustle behind him, and a familiar little “Humph!”

Swinging around, up on one knee, he peered over the back of the sofa. And goggled. “Prue!”

She looked up at him; not one whit discomposed, she wrinkled her nose, and got to her feet.

“What the devil are you doing there?”

Calmly smoothing down her robe, she cinched it tight. “My bedchamber is above the ballroom. Mama and Papa said if it got too loud, I could come down here and read or sleep.”

Sinking back onto the sofa, Dillon realized all the lamps had been lit.

“I was reading.” A book in her hand, Prue climbed into one of the armchairs by the fire. “Then I heard someone coming, so I hid.”

Rapidly reviewing all she must have heard, Dillon narrowed his eyes at her. “You hid so you could eavesdrop.”

She looked superior. “I thought it might be instructive.” Her blue eyes-bluer than her father’s, sharper than her mother’s-fixed on his face. “It was. That will probably be the poorest attempt at a proposal I’ll ever hear.” She frowned. “At least, I hope it will be.”

He spoke through his teeth in his most menacing voice, “You will forget everything you heard.”

She sniffed. “All that gammon about you offering for her hand because you’d found out she was an earl’s daughter. I can’t see what else you expected. She was quite restrained, I thought, at least for her. She has a fabulous temper, hasn’t she?”

Dillon ground his teeth. He remembered the emotions lighting Pris’s eyes-temper, yes, but also something else, something that had bothered him, distracted him, and slowed him down. “That wasn’t why I proposed.”

The words had slipped out, a statement of fact, more to himself than anyone else. Realizing he’d spoken aloud, he glanced up and found Prue watching him, a pitying light in her eyes.

“It’s what she thinks that matters, and she thinks you offered because you feel obliged to. She asked why, and you let her think that, more fool you.”

“It wasn’t only that.”

“No, indeed. One minute you’re roaring at her-you did realize you were roaring, didn’t you? Then you don’t ask, but tell her-order her-to marry you. Huh! In her shoes, I would have sent you to the right about, too.”

Dillon stared at Prue, at her direct, scathingly unimpressed expression, for a full minute, then, jaw setting, he hauled himself to his feet and headed for the door.

“Where are you going?”

Hand on the door knob, he looked back to see Prue opening her book. She looked at him inquiringly. He met her gaze, and smiled dangerously. “I’m going to find her, drag her off somewhere where there will be no one listening, and explain the truth to her in simple language impossible to misconstrue.”

Hauling open the door, he went out and shut it with a definite click.