Page 58 of Unmasked by the Marquess
She nearly laughed, but then realized he was serious. It wasn’t that he thought she needed her reputation protected, but that he didn’t want her to think that his proposal was a sop to convention. “Thank you,” she said.
“Besides, your reputation is unexceptionable. You’re a respectable widow as well as the future Lady Pembroke.”
“Alistair...” she cautioned. He had to be deranged to still believe that was possible.
“Well, you are.” He rolled over onto his side and propped himself up on his elbow. “We’re going to be married, as soon as I can figure out how.”
She shook her head. “I love you,” she said, and tried not to make it sound like an apology.
“I’ve never doubted it. Or, rather, I shouldn’t have. From the moment you rushed to see me when I asked for you.”
She knew he was talking about the day he summoned her to Pembroke House, only to accuse her of having lied about his father being Louisa’s godfather. He had been better off then—safer, less trusting, his heart wrapped up right and tight in layers of pride and dignity. She had ruined that, and he still didn’t know it. She winced at the pain he’d feel when she was gone. “I came to you because I thought you were in trouble,” she protested. “I thought you needed me.”
“I did need you.” He drew her against him.
“You needed nothing of the sort,” she murmured into his shoulder. “Your life was peaceful before you met me, and now look at you.”
“Happy, sated, and warm with the person I love?”
She pulled away and propped herself up on her elbow to look down at him. “Careening headlong into heartbreak. In a shabby inn, just having fornicated with a confidence artist. About to consent to your brother’s marrying a penniless nobody.”
He sighed. “I see that I’m going to have to spell this out for you. In order, then.” He was using his most aristocratic voice, the one he probably trotted out in the House of Lords. “I’m not concerned with heartbreak, since I take our eventual marriage as a foregone conclusion.” When she tried to look away, he took her chin in his hand and tipped her face towards his, planting a soft kiss on her mouth. “This inn is horrible, I’ll grant you that. I certainly would never have stayed anyplace half so shabby if not for its proximity to you. That’s only one of the many ways you’ve expanded my horizons.” Another kiss, this one more lingering. “As to your being a confidence artist, I think not. You’re not deceiving anyone for profit, except the cousin, and we’ll figure out a way to make things right for him. Lastly, Gilbert’s affairs are his own concern.”
She wasn’t convinced. She didn’t even think he was convinced. He’d wake up tomorrow, and if not tomorrow then one day next month or next year, and realize what a narrow escape he had made. He was quite mad with love, she understood. Someday she’d be able to look back and feel appropriately tender about this, she’d revel in what it meant to have been loved by such a man, such agoodman. But now she knew she had to think clearly enough for both of them, or they’d be shackled together for a lifetime of resentment.
He rolled on top of her, nudging her legs apart with his knee. “Have you no counterargument, then?” he said into her ear.
“Time is my counterargument,” she murmured as he kissed her neck.
“And this,” he said hoarsely, fitting himself into her, “is mine.”
She slipped out of his room as soon as he fell asleep, dressing as well as she could in the dark and taking care not to wake him. It was too dark to aspire to anything neater than mere decency, so she hoped that she wouldn’t attract any attention on her way out of the inn. One look at her disheveled state would give rise to too many questions about what she had been doing in Lord Pembroke’s room.
Her borrowed wool cap pulled low over her eyes, she made her way discreetly through the inn’s taproom. She had nearly made it to the door when she felt a hand on her arm.
“Mr. Selby, a moment of your time, please.”
It was Gilbert, and his expression was so solemn she was momentarily overwhelmed by his resemblance to his older brother.
“Of course,” she said. “Outside, perhaps. You can walk me back.”
He nodded, too much the gentleman to refuse a lady’s request for accompaniment, whatever she might be dressed like. Once there was nobody about to overhear them, he spoke again. “Are you going to marry him?”
“No.”
Gilbert didn’t bother hiding his groan of dismay. “I had my hopes up, you know. He’s always on his damned high horse and I thought that loving a woman who, if you’ll excuse my saying so, isn’t precisely who one would expect him to marry, would do him a great deal of good. Take him down a notch.”
She hid a smile. “Which might make him more accepting of you and Louisa, you mean?”
“Ah, maybe a little bit of that, too. But, you know, I did tell you a while ago that he’s a good deal more pleasant when you’re around. That was before I realized that the two of you were, ah...” He fumbled for words. “Before I realized precisely how things stood between the two of you, as it were.”
It was true. When they met, he had been so dour, so coldly respectable. His chief concern had been repairing and maintaining his family legacy and bank accounts. Two months ago he would no sooner have allowed his brother to marry Louisa than he would have let Gilbert go on stage. But tonight, in between lingering kisses, Alistair had simply stated that Gilbert’s affairs were his own.
She didn’t know if she had single-handedly worked this magic, but she did know that if she stayed around him he wouldn’t be happy for long. Even if, improbably, they managed to circumvent all the obstacles that lay in their path, he would soon enough realize that he was saddled with a wife who fell lamentably short of his own exacting standards.
They were approaching the Trout farm now. She touched Gilbert’s arm. “After this is all done, you’ll take care of him, won’t you? You and Louisa will be all he has.” Thank God it was dark and he couldn’t see the tears in her eyes.
Alistair woke to the sound of paper sliding across the bare wood floor. The sun was beginning to slant through the clouded windows. When he reached out for Robin, he found the bed empty and the covers cool. Of course. She would have left hours ago in order to return unobserved to the farm.
