Page 111 of An Arranged Marriage
“With a child, without money?”
She smiled.“I have money.I took a leaf out of your book.I never spent much of your generous allowance.After all, you did say to send the bills to you, so I did, for everything I could.What do you think we have all been living on since you disappeared?”
He whooped and swept her up, whirling her around and around.“Eleanor, you’re a delight.I adore you madly!”
She fell gasping on his chest.“And I adore you.”She turned serious then and held his eyes.“Please, please don’t let me down, Nicholas.I doubt if I could survive.”
He buried his face in her loosened hair.“You terrify me, Eleanor.I’ve never had such responsibilities before.I can only vow that I will devote myself to your happiness.Which reminds me,” he said, looking seriously at her.“Do you want me to hunt down Therese and punish her?I have a shrewd idea where she has gone.”
“Lord, no!I hope you never set eyes on her again.”
He smiled at that.“I can assure you she leaves me very cold.”
“Good.What of my brother?Do you know where he is?”
“He went to Italy.I only hope someone sticks a stiletto into him before he exhausts the money from the pearls.”
Eleanor winced.“I’m very sorry about them.”
He shook his head.“They’re of no importance.”He threaded his hands through her hair, completing the dissolution of the elaborate coif.Pins scattered on the floor and were ignored.“If Arabel is fortunate, she will have your hair.”
“She has your eyes, I think.”
“Or Kit’s,” he said carefully.
“I choose to forget he might have had anything to do with her.”
“If you wish.It’s a question of honesty and expediency, I suppose.”
“You are the person who said one should live a lie.”
“Ah, but you’ve reformed me since then.”
Eleanor could not think of a witty reply.Through all this casual conversation his fingers had been stirring her senses.His eyes held hers, speaking of love and warmth, need and passion.There was a humming in her blood, a tingling in her nerve endings, that made her mind swim.
She wished he would take her to bed and yet was too shy to ask.Failing that, she didn’t know what to do, and so she opened a subject at random.
“Why did your brother not marry me?”
He veiled his eyes.“One taste of marriage was enough for him.He has never been very interested in women.”His hand had slipped once more to touch her breast.The dizziness increased…
“How did he come to rape me?It makes no sense.He would never do such a thing for a piece of jade.”
His hand stilled.He met her eyes rather helplessly.“It’s better to forget about it, Eleanor.It no longer affects us.”
She wanted him to continue with his magic.“I only thought it would help me to establish a good relationship with him if I understood things better.”
“I doubt that,” he said dryly.
Some of Eleanor’s wits were returning.She eyed him suspiciously.“This sounds remarkably like that conversation about erotica, which nobody ever explained to me.”
His eyes lit.“Now that is a much more interesting subject.”
“Then tell me all about it.”
“What I had in mind,” he said softly, as he led her all disheveled from the room, “was more in the line of a demonstration…”
The End
