Page 90 of The Lyon Whisperer
“You would have to have been there. He made a convincing argument.”
“You believed him?”He spoke softly, but the simmering anger underlying his tone gave her pause.
“Not entirely.”
He pinched the bridge of his nose as if seeking patience. “I’ve already told you, I do not yet possess your dowry, and the idea I would pick you because you’d had two previous seasons—”
“Three, if you count the one I avoided,” she said as a morose feeling swept over her. Recalling her failed seasons also brought to mind how she’d disappointed her father, and made herself a near laughingstock in the eyes of theton.
His dark brows furrowed. In the moonlit chamber he looked thoroughly forbidding. “The idea I would choose a bride thanks to her so-called spinsterhood status is as ludicrous as any fool labeling you as such.”
It took a moment for the weight of what he’d said to sink in. A spark of hope lit her heart. “You’re saying you don’t agree I was a near spinster?”
He snorted. “No.”
“Why not? Because I’m an earl’s daughter?”
“Yes,” he growled. “Among other things.” He grasped her shoulders. “Now, is there anything else you need to tell me?”
Amelia hesitated. “No.”
He cursed softly. “What else did he say?”
She bit her lower lip and considered her chances of convincing him she’d revealed all of the regrettable conversation.
None whatsoever, she decided.
“He said the one thing he could not work out was why we married so swiftly. He told me he meant to discover what caused my father to agree to such a hasty wedding, and that he would share what he learned with me.”
“Did he?” His voice could have frozen the River Thames.
She nodded and lowered her head to stare at her hands, grasped in her lap. “Of course, I already know why. Father feared I’d worm my way out of yet another marriage.”
He crooked a finger under her chin and raised her face. He studied her as if he had preternatural vision and could make out her expression. “And would you have tried, given the chance?”
She tried to read his eyes in the darkness. It was no use. She shook her head. She thought she detected a slight smile curving his lips.
When he spoke, his tone was gentle. “Amelia, I distinctly recall us discussing this very subject not a week ago. Why did you give Tully’s words such credence? Not to mention we could have cleared matters up at the ball had you simply told me what he’d said, and avoided all this.”
His dexterous fingers had found their way to the front of her night shift to make quick work of unfastening the tiny buttons. He was nearly to her breastbone when she found her voice, breathless though it was.
“I did not want to be the cause of a scene. I’ve read enough books to know men can be rash. I didn’t want you to call him out.”
His teeth flashed white, and he huffed out a laugh. “I do not waste my time with such nonsense.”
For some reason, his words deflated her—but only for a moment.
His lips found her throat. He pressed soft kisses down the column working his way to her collarbone. The scrape of his whiskers was doing delicious things to her insides.
“As for that bit about me seducing you to…what did you call it?”
“Gain my wifely compliance,” she breathed.
He nibbled her shoulder, then nuzzled the cleavage between her breasts. “We are married. I have no need to seduce you into compliance or submission or any damn thing.”
“That’s true,” she admitted.
“Have we cleared up this business of the whys and wherefores of our marriage, once and for all?”
