She did love him. She always would. He didn"t love her. He couldn"t even bear to touch her. But nothing changed the ineluctable truth of what she"d said.
Gideon recoiled and stared at her with what she could only interpret as horror. "h.e.l.l," he breathed.
Blindly, he fumbled toward a leather armchair and dropped into it, burying his head in his hands.
Charis felt like she suffocated. At best, she might expect her impulsive declaration to evoke understanding, at worst pity. But this broken desolation was beyond comprehension.
"h.e.l.l, h.e.l.l, h.e.l.l." His quiet despair reached far inside her like a hand closing around her heart and crushing it.
She was paralyzed with embarra.s.sment. She had to keep reminding herself to breathe. Remorse, concern, self-castigation, all tangled like hissing snakes in her breast.
If he hadn"t seemed so lost and tormented when he claimed his essential unworthiness, she"d never have made the reckless declaration. But the sight of him looking as if he didn"t have a friend in the world had made her want to die. "I shouldn"t have spoken," she said in a raw voice.
His shoulders tensed, and he raised dull eyes to look at her. "Your honesty does you credit."
Her mouth compressed as she fought not to cry. Tears wouldn"t help her through this agonizing moment. "Well, I suppose that"s one response to a declaration of love." Her tone was flat with control.
A muscle flickered in his cheek. "I can"t give you what you want. I"m sorry."
The lump in her throat was like a great, jagged boulder. It hurt to force words past it. ""Sorry" doesn"t help."
As compa.s.sion filled his eyes, she realized she"d been right to fear his pity. She loathed the way he looked at her right now. It made her want to curl up in a dark corner and never emerge into the light again.
"You"ll hate hearing this. And I know you won"t believe me. At least now." The kindness in his voice made her cringe. This was even worse than she"d expected. She guessed what he meant to tell her before he spoke.
"Charis..." He paused and closed his eyes as if struggling to find the words. "I"m touched and flattered by what you"ve said. Any man would be. You"re a remarkable girl. You"re..."
She felt sick. He lied to spare her feelings, and every false word flayed another strip from her soul. She took a step back and raised her hands to fend off his words. Why, oh, why had she let her foolish tongue run away with her? "Please, don"t say any more."
Gideon"s jaw firmed, and he leaned forward. Pain flared in his dark eyes and his voice was urgent. "I must. I hate to see you hurt. But what you feel, it will pa.s.s. You hardly know me. You can"t love me. Not really. The way we met, it"s given you a false impression. You"ve barely had a chance to catch breath since. When you return to a normal life, you"ll..."
"What? Forget you?" Resentment at the futility of her dreams frayed the question.
"No." Drawing an unsteady breath, he made one of his familiar truncated gestures. "But you"ll see more clearly. Right now you imagine I"m some sort of hero, but you"re wrong."
"You are a hero." Her rubbery knees threatened to collapse under her as she ventured closer. She knew he hated that she argued, but she had to make him see himself as she saw him. "You"re the famous Hero of Rangapindhi. Even my stepbrothers know who you are."
He flinched against the chair as if she struck him. "The reality of Rangapindhi was far from heroic, Sarah." He paused. "Charis. I"m sorry. You"ve always been Sarah to me."
She swallowed more useless tears. Her response emerged as a cracked whisper even as she knew nothing she said would convince him she wasn"t victim to a childish fancy. "Call me what you like. But don"t mistake my sincerity. That"s cruel and unjust."
He rose, the muscle still dancing erratically in his cheek. "It"s cruel and unjust to let you eat your heart out over a cardboard imitation of a man."
"You"re not a cardboard imitation of a man," she said in a low, shaking voice. "And I love you."
He curled his gloved hands tightly around the back of the chair. Grief ravaged his black gaze. "Never say that again, Charis. For both our sakes."
"That won"t make it less true." She brushed stinging moisture from her eyes. She refused to break down in front of him. He already thought she was immature and impulsive. A loss of control would only prove that beyond all doubt. He didn"t believe her love, and she was fatalistically aware that nothing she said would change his mind.
"I know this is painful." The aching pity in his voice made her want to die. "But one day you"ll see..."
She glared at him from burning eyes. At this moment, she hated him almost as much as she loved him. "Don"t!"
He drew himself up to his full impressive height, and his hands flexed on the chair. She read his withdrawal as though he wrote it on the air in letters of fire. "Very well."
A turbulent silence fell. He released the chair and began to pace, settling near the desk, where he picked up the bust of Plato and pretended to examine it. Eventually, she couldn"t bear to look at him anymore. She turned to stare at the bookcases, although her blurry eyes couldn"t read the gilt t.i.tles on the leather spines. She raised shaking hands to catch her tears before they fell.
She could no longer tolerate the tension. "I"ll go upstairs. I"m not...not hungry tonight."
He sighed with a heaviness she felt in her bones. "I know you wish me to the devil right now. But before you go, there"s something we need to discuss."
Still, she didn"t look at him. If she didn"t escape soon, she"d start bawling and make more of a fool of herself than she had already. "Can"t it wait?"
"No."
The uncompromising negative made her turn in surprise. He leaned against the front of the desk, his hands curled over the rim on either side. Strain tautened his body, and his face was more serious than she"d ever seen it. Foreboding clanged like a tocsin, overwhelmed even her embarra.s.sment and chagrin.
"What is it?" She thought she"d clawed back a measure of calm until she met his fathomless black gaze, and hurt and humiliation washed over her again.
"Please sit down."
He gestured to the chair he"d vacated. Silently she obeyed, trying not to notice the trace of warmth lingering from his body.
"I saw immediately what your stepbrothers are," he said heavily. "Swine in fine clothing."
She wanted to tell him how wonderful he"d been this afternoon but he wouldn"t welcome her praise. Instead, she raised her chin and spoke in a hard voice. "We can beat swine."
"Yes." He paused. "But I"m afraid the measures will be more drastic than either of us imagined."
She tilted forward, her hands fisting on the chair arms. "Do you intend to kill them?"
In spite of the fraught atmosphere, that startled a soft laugh from him. "What a bloodthirsty wench you are. No, I don"t intend to kill them. Or only as a last resort. I have no wish to dangle from the hangman"s rope when this is over."
She spoke from the quaking depths of her heart. "Will it ever be over?"
"Yes." He paused again, sending her an unreadable glance. "And no."
She frowned. She didn"t know where he went with this. His expression told her nothing. "You speak in riddles."
With sudden restless energy, Gideon swung away from the desk. A few long strides, and he reached the windows. The night outside was dark, haunted by the sea"s eternal thunder. Although they no longer spoke of it, her declaration of love lay heavily in the air between them. She supposed it always would. Again, she cursed herself for her impulsiveness.
After a few taut moments, he turned to her, his face terrifyingly grave. "There"s only one way I can keep you safe."
She straightened against the chair. One hand clutched her mother"s locket like a talisman against evil. "Are you going to take me away?"
"If they tracked you to the wild edge of England, they"ll find you wherever we go. We can run if that"s your choice, but I don"t fancy our chances if every magistrate in the country is after us." He watched her steadily, and she caught the ghost of his earlier devastation beneath his purposeful manner.
"And people will recognize you." Her voice was husky, although for his sake, she tried to sound practical, unemotional.
"My celebrity is a blasted nuisance."
"Your celebrity saved us from a house search today."
"True."
"If we can"t outrun them, what can we do? I could go alone." She paused and spoke with difficulty. She hated to beg. Worse, she hated to contemplate leaving Gideon. "If I had some money, I could find a room somewhere-London even. It"s only a couple of weeks."
His face darkened in swift rejection. "Over my dead body."
She swallowed the dread that clogged her throat. For all her seething unhappiness, his statement filled her with relieved grat.i.tude. "I can"t see an alternative. Apart from the smugglers" hole."
"There is one alternative." His tone was neutral, artificially so, she thought. His eyes didn"t waver from her face. "We could get married.
For one radiant moment, joy flared inside her.
Married...
She rose and took an unsteady step toward him. "Gideon..." she began as wild happiness exploded in her breast.
His troubled expression halted her in her tracks and reminded her of his pain when she"d told him she loved him. She sucked in a tremulous breath and looked at him properly.
Her glittering palace of hope disintegrated. The hands that had risen toward him fell back to her sides and formed fists of anguish.
"What"s this about?" she asked in a flinty voice.
He shifted away from the windows, back toward the fire. He stopped before her, still too far away to touch. Of course.
"It"s the obvious solution, Charis." An unexpected moment to realize he"d started to use her real name naturally. He spread his gloved hands as if appealing to her to see things his way. "If we"re wed, I have a husband"s legal rights."
Since she"d met him, becoming his wife had been a hopeless dream. Now he proposed, and she wanted to run away and cry her eyes out. Because he married her to save her, not because he wanted her as his life companion, the woman in his bed, the mother of his children.
"You said you"d never marry. Never have a family." Her lips felt as if they were made of wood. "That"s changed?"
"No." He held himself rigid as a soldier on parade. His voice was implacable. "It will be a marriage in name only."
She shook her head. "That"s not what I want." Then flinched as she saw pity seep back into his eyes.
"It"s all I can give you. That and a chance to lead your own life once we see your stepbrothers off."
"I want to spend my life with you."
It was the cry of the spoilt girl, her father"s darling, the indulged aristocrat. As she spoke, she cringed. He offered so much for her sake. She had no right to carp at the price she paid in return.
Even if she knew that price would destroy her.
He sighed again and ran his hand through his hair in a gesture of despair. "Perhaps the scheme is doomed after all. I can"t bear to hurt you."
Sightlessly, she stared into the grate while her fantasies of a fulfilled life with Gideon scorched away to ash. She"d have a life with Gideon, but they"d be two polite strangers. Duty would sustain them, not mutual love. She wanted to scream her denial to the skies.
Now she understood his appalled reaction to her declaration of love. Marriage to a woman eating her heart out for him promised him eternal torment.
She forced herself to answer. "You said we have no option."
"We could run."
"I"ll be safer as your wife."
"This is your whole life we"re talking about."
"And yours." He sounded like he cherished no hopes of happiness for himself. The thought cut her like a razor. "I can"t ask this sacrifice of you. It"s too much."
His face was pale, set, as if he contemplated a death sentence. "Charis, there"s no sacrifice on my part. My life is over. In any meaningful sense. Let me help you."
He spoke with such a complete absence of self-pity, it stole her breath. How could he say such things? Yet again, she realized so much here was beyond her comprehension.
Before she could summon a protest at his brutal a.s.sessment of his future, he went on, his tone abruptly becoming cool and businesslike. She guessed he resented how much he"d revealed in that last dour statement.
"One of the local men will sail us to Jersey. We can"t board the packet in case your stepbrothers have people watching the ports. We"ll marry as soon as we can. Certainly within a day of arrival. Two of the villagers will dress as you and me and take the road to Scotland. They"ll leave in a fast carriage the moment I have your agreement."
"So Felix and Hubert will think we"ve eloped to Gretna," she said dully. The extent of Gideon"s planning indicated he a.s.sumed she"d fall in with his scheme. Of course she would. What choice did she have?
She stiffened her spine. He did this for her. She owed it to him to make everything as smooth as she could.
"It"s the more usual route, and the ruse should give us breathing s.p.a.ce." He paused, studying her reaction. "We won"t return from Jersey until you"re twenty-one. Then what happens is up to you. For the sake of appearances, I suggest we live under the same roof for at least a year."
"As you wish." She had no right to resent his generosity. She should be on her knees in grat.i.tude.
He frowned at her lifeless response. "Are you worried I"m a fortune hunter?"
She hadn"t thought about the money. Odd when it had colored her relationship with every previous suitor. "No."
"Upon our marriage, your property becomes mine, but I swear I have no intention of keeping it. After the wedding, we"ll have papers drawn up returning your fortune to you after a time, I suggest three months, just in case your stepbrothers try something."
"You don"t know how much money you give up."
"I don"t care."
Strangely, she believed him. Yet again, she thought how remarkable he was. Why in the name of all that was holy couldn"t he see that?
"We can settle legalities before the wedding, if you insist. But the sooner you"re my wife, the safer you"ll be."
Gideon"s wife. That was all she wanted to be. But not like this. Never like this.
"I trust you," she said flatly.
He sent her a searching look, then crossed to fill two gla.s.ses from the decanter of claret on the coffered sideboard. Like most of the furniture at Penrhyn, it was old and beautiful and completely out of fashion with its heavy seventeenth-century carvings of satyrs and nymphs.
In a day or so, she"d be mistress of this house and all it contained. What a bizarre thought. She"d loved Penrhyn from the first moment she saw it. At the moment, she"d willingly consign it to the sea.