Page 49 of Snowed In with the Runaway Bride

"I can make that decision for myself."

"You cannot, Penny. You don't understand what it's like. It's not safe."

"If it's not safe for me, it's not safe for you, either."

He ran a frustrated hand through his hair, making it stand on end. She tried not to let it soften her heart. Not when wanting to be with him was her reason for fighting for it.

"It's impossible. I'm sorry, Penny."

He reached for her, but she moved back, away from his grasp. "Then it's impossible for us to marry."

He gaped at her. "What? We must marry now. My honor requires it."

"My honor requires me to not tie myself to a man who doesn't have enough courage to live his life with me. I refuse to allow you to wrap me in cotton wool and leave me behind." Penny groped on the floor for her discarded chemise and pulled it over her head, needing that slight physical barrier between them now.

"But you're ruined now. You must marry me."

Penny shrugged with an insouciance she did not feel. "I have money of my own that Grandpapa left me. I can get a cottage somewhere, or live with Aunt Nelson if she allows it after this. I could even travel." The prospect cheered her even through her anger. “I could travel to Bermuda on my own. Or Turkey, like Lady Hester Stanhope. Or... or anywhere I pleased.”

Hugo blinked, his expression horrified, as though he was watching his dreams crumble with hers. "But⁠— "

"That is my final word, Hugo. You cannot force me to marry you, and I refuse to marry a man too cowardly to allow me to stay by his side."

"Cowardly?"

"Yes. Cowardly."

With a huff, she flopped down on her side, her back to him. When he tried to argue further, she pulled a pillow over her head to block him out.

If she had wanted a distant marriage, she would have stayed and married Kendal. She had no intention of allowing Hugo to keep her at arms' length.

She wanted all of him, or nothing at all.

14

Hugo stared at the ceiling, listening to Penny's gentle breathing beside him as she seemed to fall back asleep after their quarrel.

What she wanted was insanity. There were hundreds of dangers on his ship that could take her away from him. He needed her to stay on shore where she would be safe.

Would she be, though?

Hugo rolled over, his back to Penny, punching his pillow in frustration. Of course she would be safer at home in England.

She already nearly died simply attending a ball.

He tried to imagine her with him on the Helios, and it was... seductively easy to picture her there. Adding a few homely touches to the captain's cabin. Curled against him at night, together in the narrow bunk. Presiding over the officer's mess, charming the old salts, strolling on the deck with him, consoling the homesick young midshipmen, standing at the rail to gaze out at the sea...

He rolled over again to stare past her into the fireplace. He could just see her shape silhouetted against the banked coals.

The fact that he so desperately—so selfishly—wanted her with him was the precise reason he could not allow it. It would not be fair to his men to have the constant distraction of a wife take him away from his duties.

Better for her to remain on shore than to risk that.

Or…

There was another solution. If he could bear it.

He thought perhaps he could bear anything for Penny’s sake.