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“Mama, nobody has to know…” she pleaded.

Her mother looked at her sharply. “But Scarlett,Iknow.”

Those two words cut her.I know.

Her mother’s cold gaze flicked to Hudson. “And for that matter, so doeshe.”

Even if they tried to bury it—and Scarlett was certain the Wolf could make anything disappear if he had the mind to—they would always know the truth. If she tried to returnto the ballroom now, they would be nothing more than liars. Charlatans.

They would take one look at her, and then they, too, would know.

“Lady Southford is right.” The Dowager Duchess pressed her lips together in a grim line. “You must marry, and quickly, before scandal breaks out.”

“A hasty marriage would only make it more obvious,” Hudson pointed out coldly. “Nothing screams ‘illicit relationship’ better than obtaining a special license for expedience.”

“Then what do you suggest?” The Dowager Duchess nailed him with a glare as cold as his own. “Do you honestly think that Lady Scarlett can walk back to the ballroom right now in the state she is in?”

Scarlett wrapped her arms around her middle and closed her eyes as humiliation washed over her.

Wrong. All of this is so wrong.

“You know Icannotmarry.”

Her eyes flew open. Pain tore through her chest as if she had just been slashed open with a knife.

Of course, he did not want to marry her. No man would appreciate being trapped in matrimony. It was the sort of scheme only desperate debutantes and their overly ambitious mamas resorted to.

“Then you should have thought of that before you laid your hands on her!” the Dowager Duchess snapped.

Hudson pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed. If their situation had not been so dire, Scarlett might have found the scene laughable.

Instead, she straightened up and lifted her chin. “His Grace is right—we cannot marry.”

All three gazes swiveled towards her. Hudson was looking at her with a dark frown that made her want to cry.

Did he honestly think she wanted to marry a man who was so vehemently against the idea?

“My dear Lady Scarlett,” the Dowager Duchess reasoned with her gently. “If my son refuses to see reason?—”

Scarlett shook her head and smiled despite the gaping hole she could feel in her chest.

“I will not marry a man who does not love me,” she declared firmly. “A man who does not evenlikeme.”

“I should say he likes you well enough,” she heard the Dowager Duchess mumble.

Scarlett fisted her hands in her skirts. She would not cry. Not now. Not before him and everyone else.

“That is all I have to say,” she told them. “There will be no special license or anything of the sort. There will be nowedding.”

A strangled gasp tore from her mama’s throat, but Scarlett did not stay long enough to deal with the aftermath. She hiked up her skirts and raced away from the gazebo and all discussions of marriage.

Hudson did not want her. Not enough to marry her, at least. Not even after everything they had been to each other.

Tears pricked her eyes, her breath coming out in struggling gasps. She had let him touch her so intimately. Had let him see her true nature, and it still was not enough. She would never be enough for a rapacious Wolf like him.

And she was nothing more than the fool who thought she could change his mind.

He had done it—he had caused her so much pain that she would much rather face ruination and the scorn of Society rather than be forced to marry him.