Page 46 of The Forbidden Lord (Lord Trilogy #2)

Emily sat stonily on the seat, facing forward. Apparently she’d given up on trying to convince the innkeeper and his customers that she was being kidnapped. Setting the basket on the other seat, he collapsed into the seat next to her and ordered Watkins to drive on.

As they rumbled out of the inn yard, he fought to compose himself. He wanted to throttle her and feared that if he looked at her, he might do so. But in his heart, he couldn’t blame her. He was kidnapping her, after all, even if it were for her own good.

He blamed himself more than anything. He should have realized when she’d acted so skittish at the inn that she wasn’t as resigned to the marriage as she’d pretended.

When he could trust himself to speak civilly, he said, “I hope you don’t intend to repeat this farce at every inn where we stop.”

“Would it do me any good?”

He glanced at her, but she was staring ahead as if in a trance. “I doubt it.”

A slight tremor in her face belied the seeming calm of her voice. He looked down to see that her hands were clenched into fists in her lap.

“I told the truth,” she said bitterly, “but they believed you. All you had to do was speak a few glib tales, and they were quite eager to let me be carried off.”

Her tone was so hurt he couldn’t help but feel a twinge of guilt.

It made him angry. “Did you really expect them to risk their livelihoods for you? Despite all those poets extolling the idea of the noble savage, the lower classes are no different than you and I. Survival is their first priority. Ideals like chivalry and generosity fall a far second.”

“What a cynic you are.”

She said it without rancor, as if merely making an observation, but it struck him to the heart. He wasn’t a cynic, but a realist. A cynic took a dim view of everything, whereas a realist merely viewed the world in practical terms. Couldn’t she see that?

No. Right now, she probably considered him second only to Satan Incarnate. And all because he was doing the right thing by her.

She ought to be grateful. This wasn’t how a woman should react when a man proposed marriage after ruining her. Here he was, breaking all his rules for the first time in his life, and she didn’t even appreciate it.

If she only knew how unusual this was. He’d never proposed marriage to anyone, and he’d certainly never expected to propose marriage to some wide-eyed innocent.

Strange how natural it had felt to proclaim her his wife in that inn yard.

The words should have tasted like ashes in his mouth.

But during his confrontation with that laborer, he’d never thought of her in any other terms. As far as he was concerned, she was already his wife.

They lacked only a piece of paper to sanctify it.

If he could get that far. “Tell me something, Emily,” he said, unable to keep silent any longer. “Why are you so reluctant to marry me that you would proclaim me a kidnapper to escape it? Do you find the idea of marriage to me that repellent?”

He held his breath for her answer, marveling that it should mean so much to him. When she didn’t answer at once, a hollow anxiety settled in the region of his heart that was more disquieting than her answer could possibly be. “Never mind,” he said tightly. “It doesn’t matter.”

She glanced at him, then sighed. “Of course I don’t find the idea of marriage to you repellent. Under other circumstances—”

“What other circumstances?”

Her gaze dropped to her hands. “The kind of circumstances most people marry under. You seem to forget I’m one of those foolish virgins you keep harping on.” She paused, as if afraid to say more. “I … I want love, Jordan. I know you think it’s silly, but it’s what I want all the same.”

It didn’t surprise him to hear her say it, but he found himself incapable of giving her the response she wanted. The thought of saying he loved her terrified him. And it wasn’t true. It couldn’t be. Besides, she hadn’t said a word about loving him.

The realization disturbed him more than he liked.

It was several moments before he could manage to speak at all. “And you don’t care that not marrying me would mean your ruin?”

“Marrying only to save one’s honor is ludicrous. You know too well that it leads to disaster. Your parents—”

“My parents? What do you know of my parents?”

She gave an uneasy shrug. “Lord St. Clair told me they were forced to marry. He said they were dreadfully unhappy together.”

“Oh, he did, did he?” Devil take Ian. If Jordan had wanted her to know all that, he deuced well would have told her himself.

“I don’t want you thinking I tried to trap you into marriage the way your mother did your father. I couldn’t bear to be in a marriage where you blamed me for ruining your life.”

“I don’t blame any of this on you,” he bit out.

Her gaze shot to him. “Yes, you do. You think all women are alike, that they’re all like your mother—trying to trap you into doing something you don’t want.”

A surge of anger made him scowl. “Do you really think I’m so narrow-minded as to distrust an entire gender because of something one woman did?

” When she merely stared at him, he ground out, “Except for that night in the carriage, when I made some admittedly unfounded accusations, have I ever implied that I thought you were trying to trap me into anything?”

A small frown creased her forehead. “Well, no, but—”

“For God’s sake, Emily, I don’t even blame my mother for what happened in my parents’ marriage, so I certainly can’t blame you for this.”

“What do you mean? Of course you blame your mother! That’s why you avoid young virgins!”

He shifted in his seat to face her. “I avoid young virgins because I don’t want to make the same mistake my father made.”

“Exactly. A woman tricked him into marriage, and you don’t—”

“No. Being tricked into marriage was not his mistake. Being so deeply in love that he lost his sense of perspective was.” He gazed steadily at her.

“Every man with money and power knows that some women will do anything to obtain it, just as some men will do anything to obtain an heiress. We put ourselves on our guard, and we learn to spot the signs. I assure you, my father couldn’t have reached the age of twenty-six unwed without developing such instincts. ”

When she looked at him uncomprehendingly, he sighed.

“My mother did set a trap for my father, and yes, they were forced to marry. But she’d been taught by her parents that snagging a husband with a grand title and even grander fortune was the most noble achievement to which any young lady could aspire.

She merely behaved as she’d been taught. I don’t blame her for that.”

He took Emily’s hand in his. Gazing down at the strong, capable fingers and the skin that had probably never seen an exotic lotion, he thought how utterly different she was from his vain, grasping mother.

“My father, too, had been taught. He knew to be wary of such attentions. But my mother was a beauty, and my father wasn’t the most handsome or charismatic man.

He was bookish and shy. So when a blazing beauty flirted with him, he forgot all his caution. ”

Jordan’s voice tightened. “His lovesick mind mistook shallowness for na?veté, a frivolous nature for youthful enthusiasm. Whatever she lacked, he supplied in his mind, for the simple reason that he let a blind emotion—and a not-so-blind cock—guide him.”

Instead of looking shocked at his deliberate crudity, Emily was watching him with complete absorption. With a scowl, he released her hand. He hadn’t intended to reveal so much; it had just come out.

But it was just as well. If they were to marry, it was best she know why he didn’t cater to such frivolities.

“Eventually,” he went on, “my father emerged from his fog to realize that she wasn’t what he’d made her to be in his mind.

But by then it was far too late. She was with child, and he had to do the honorable thing.

He woke up to find himself an intelligent, quiet man saddled with a stupid, selfish wife who didn’t share his deep feelings of love or his sensibilities. ”

He sucked in a harsh breath. It all came back to him so painfully—the constant fights, his father’s refusal to indulge his mother’s whims, her heavy drinking. And amidst it all, the knowledge that if it hadn’t been for his untimely birth …

With an iron force of will, he shoved away the memories.

“Marriage became a torment for him. He loved and was appalled by her at the same time, so he withdrew from the marriage to keep sane. And Mother, deprived of her fawning suitor, looked elsewhere for companionship. In a bottle.” He went on in a bitter voice.

“That’s what your foolish ‘love’ did to two sadly mismatched people.

In the end, Father’s dalliance with Cupid led to disaster.

Can you blame me for finding the emotion dangerous? ”

“But Jordan, that’s merely one instance. Your father married a second time, didn’t he? Or wasn’t he in love then?”

“Oh, he was in love, all right. Father never could learn his lesson.”

“So she wasn’t a good person either?” Emily whispered.

His expression softened as he thought of Maude. “She was an angel.” He cast Emily a half-smile. “Sometimes you remind me of her.”

She flushed, but didn’t look away. “There, you see? Love doesn’t always end in disaster.”

“You don’t understand. They had a few wonderful years together.

Then she contracted a horrible illness, and Father fell apart.

He put so much of himself into his love for her that losing her was more than he could bear.

” His voice grew somber. “At the end he was a ghost of a man, completely devoted to her, consumed by despair that nothing could be done to save her. He died shortly after she did, because he couldn’t live without her.

As far as I’m concerned, it was Cupid who shot the arrow that killed him, leaving his son and stepdaughter to grieve without either parent for comfort. ”