Colin sat up a little straighter, though it wasn’t as though his boots were on the table or anything. And really, so what if they were? The man had no say in how Colin lived.
“The Lady Beatrice is here to see you, sir.”
Colin came to his feet in one motion. “Lady Beatrice?” An incredibly bold move, if that was the case. Either she missed his private company as much as he did hers, or her family had finally driven her mad. He hoped it was the former, but could understand if it was the latter.
“Indeed. I’ve put her in the green room, and due to the highly unusual nature of the visit,” he said, the disapproval dripping from his tone like tar, “I have notified her ladyship. Lady Churly is with her now.”
Two things were immediately apparent to Colin. First, he really didn’t care why she had decided to come see him. He was simply damn glad for it. The second was that Simmons was a bit of an arse.
Without bothering to acknowledge the man, Colin brushed past him, heading for the green room with long, swift strides. He strode into the room, immediately seeking Beatrice, anxious to see her face. She looked up at him, her bearing as regal as a queen, despite the simple and sweet white muslin gown she wore.
Something wasn’t right.
He slowed, taking care to temper his expression with his aunt’s keen eyes observing them both. Everything about Beatrice just seemed a little bit off. Her lips were turned down, her shoulders unusually taut. Either his aunt had said something in offense, or his betrothed was here for a reason far less pleasant than he imagined.
“There you are, Colin,” Aunt Constance said, her lips tipped up in a knowing smile. “Your lovely betrothed and I were just discussing how delightful the exhibit was last month. I’m ever so glad she decided to pay us a visit.”
Aunt was in full form, her fingers lined with a rainbow of gems, her heavy burgundy gown draped elegantly from her tall, willowy form, and her hair pulled back in glossy braids, which were piled on her head like a silvery crown. She looked as though she had been expecting the queen, not the young future bride of her nephew. Still, nothing about her demeanor suggested that she was anything but polite to their guest.
Colin took his time making his way to the sofa to have a seat beside Beatrice, evaluating her as a barrister would a witness during an examination. Her hands were clenched tightly in her lap, her breaths shallow. Her chin was tipped up in the way it always was when she wished she were taller. Her cheeks were flushed, rosy against the alabaster white of the rest of her skin.
But it was her eyes that gave him the greatest concern. The ever-present sparkle that always lit her eyes from within, that gorgeous fire that called to him with its life and vitality, was gone. Completely. What remained was the dull, deep blue of dried paint, flat and dimensionless.
“It was indeed a great success,” he said, sliding his gaze toward his aunt. “I wonder, Aunt, if you would indulge us with a few minutes alone. With the door open, of course, but I find I’d like nothing more than a few private words with my betrothed.”
It was a bold, almost rude request, but Aunt Constance was no fool. With the wealth and status of Beatrice’s family, she was more than happy to indulge the two young lovers in a few minutes of time alone. She smiled and came to her feet. “I believe I have a few things to attend to. I shall return in ten minutes. And mind, the door shall stay open. We are nothing if not proper in this household.”
Colin smiled his thanks, all the while clenching his jaw against the growing impatience to know what was going on. When she swept through the door, he waited until the sound of her footsteps died before he turned to Beatrice. “Tell me what’s wrong.”
She looked up at him, her face nearly angelic in its sweetness, framed so prettily by her golden curls. She looked at home in the green room, the emerald hues accentuating the subtle color in the center of her eyes. She didn’t say anything, just looked.
A weight formed in his chest, growing larger with each tick of the tall clock behind him. He sank down onto the sofa beside her, the cushions giving beneath his weight and shifting her further toward him. “Did you know that you have the prettiest hint of green in your eyes?”
The words seemed to break the spell, and she averted her eyes to her lap. “I don’t think I should have come.”
“Why? I’m happy to have you here.”
She half snorted, half laughed. “Of that, I have no doubt.”
Colin narrowed his eyes, working to decipher the odd mood that had taken hold of his betrothed. “As you never should. I’d rather be with you above all people.”
“Is that a fact? Above all people?”
“Beatrice, what has gotten hold of you? If I dinna wish to be with you more than any other person on earth, I wouldn’a have asked you to marry me.”
For the first time since he’d entered the room, a spark flared in her eyes. “Well, how convenient. What a serendipitous moment to realize that you actually have some amount of affection for the woman attached to the dowry you seek.”
It all came together with utter clarity in that moment. Hellfire and damnation. She knew.
“Beatrice, it’s not what you think—”
“You have no idea what I’m thinking,” she said, the words pushed from behind clenched teeth. “How dare you even presume—”
“I know exactly what you are thinking. You think I am marrying you for your dowry.” He didn’t even know how to begin to fix this. He could already see the resentment burning in her eyes, branding him a liar and a coward.
“And why,” she said, her voice dangerously low, “would I think such a thing?”
Bloody hell. To say the words out loud would be to cement whatever bitterness she had ever felt for men like him. He could never recover. “I doona know, but clearly something has transpired.”
“No. You do not get to take the easy way out of this. Tell me why I might ever come to the conclusion that you wished to marry me only for my money.”
The future depended on what he said next. He could see it in her every shaky breath, in her flared nostrils and fisted hands. He didn’t give a damn just then what her brother would say if Colin broke his promise. All he cared about was Beatrice, and not breaking her heart.
As if it weren’t already too late.
“Because my family is in debt. Because it is up to me to correct the problem. Because you canna believe that a man in need of money can have a heart.”
She came to her feet as if spring-loaded, staring down on him as if he were an insect on the street. “Don’t you dare turn this back on me. You are the one who lied. You are the one who represented yourself as something you are not. You are the exact fortune hunter I have spent the past year trying desperately to avoid.”
“Why? Because I’m not some wealthy highborn aristocrat, sitting on piles of old money? Because I have a family who depends on me to see to its well-being and I happened to be lucky enough to fall in love with the woman who has the power to correct the sins of my father?”
She jerked back as if he had slapped her. “Love? For love of money, I should think.”
A rattle from outside stopped her cold, and her eyes darted to the doorway. A servant carried a tray laden with Aunt’s best tea set, steam rising from the spout of the fine bone pot. Setting the tray onto the sofa table, he turned to address them, but one look at Colin’s fierce expression and he promptly retreated, leaving them in icy silence.
The clock continued its relentless ticking behind him as they watched each other. “For love of
“Oh, so you’d like to talk about feelings, would you? Well, there is a subject about which I can speak with great authority. Let’s talk about what it feels like to have a passing acquaintance tell me about my own betrothed’s father’s business failure. Let’s talk about the denial, and the shock, and the inability to believe the truth of it. Let’s discuss what it feels like to go to a trusted source and have him use his contacts to investigate these horrible accusations, all the while desperately hoping they’ll be disproved.”
Her hand went to her chest, as if she could hold together the broken pieces. “And then we can delve into exactly what it feels like to learn that, if anything, the truth was even worse than feared.” She swallowed, the pain in her eyes ripping at his heart. “On second thought, I don’t want to discuss anything. A fortune hunter will say
