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“If you say one thing more about Aunt Gertrude I shall scream!” Anne shrieked. “No, more than that, I—I will bite you.”

She glared at him, astonished at her own feral snarl. She wasn’t angry at Daron, was she? She’d done this to herself. She’d gone to Hewitt Vaughn’s chamber of her own free will. And stayed there.

She’d thought she was springing herself from Calvin’s trap, and she’d walked straight into Hew’s.

“Nanny.” Daron dropped her hand and ran a hand through his hair. Her usually debonair brother looked untidy, cravat hastily tied, his coat unbrushed. “I am in need of funds,” he said with a groan.

“I have none to give you,” Anne snapped.

“Perhaps you might negotiate with my husband. I imagine there will be marriage settlements, and you will need to arrange them.” Since, as a woman, Anne had no say over her own contracts.

Over her own income or properties or person.

Over the commitments that would trap her for life with a man she barely knew.

Other than in the carnal sense. Oh, Lord have mercy, she must stop thinking about being in his bed.

“Anne.”

Hewitt caught up with her as she crossed the gallery that connected the side of the house with the reception rooms to the side of the house with the personal chambers. The sky outside, opening above the garden, above the river, above the grass-green hills, was as blue as the depths of his eyes.

Blast and damn him for a conniving liar.

“I was supposed to be ruined.” She balled her hands into fists so she didn’t do something appalling and unforgiveable, like strike him. “I should have been tossed out on my ear. Right this minute, I should be finding a coach to take me to Aunt Gertrude, and freedom ?—”

She caught the words on a sob. Tears? Now? She must not show weakness. But she hadn’t known until precisely this moment that her escape plan had entailed fleeing to her lovely, silly old Aunt Gertrude in Llandrindod Wells, and now she was denied that.

Denied everything.

His jaw tightened. “You don’t understand what it means to be ruined. It wouldn’t mean freedom. You’d be cut everywhere. Your old life?—”

“I don’t want my old life!” Anne wailed. “I want a new life.”

She pushed her fists against her mouth, appalled she’d said that. Ladies did not shriek. Ladies did not voice their desires in other but pleasant, modulated tones, and then they phrased them as requests, no harm done if they were ignored. Ladies did not insist on their own way.

Ladies also did not go to the rooms of unmarried gentlemen and asked to be ruined. So Anne had parted ways with ladyhood some time ago.

“Anne.” Hew put his hand over hers. He was warm and solid. She remembered the feel of that hand, the blaze on her skin as he swept his palm over her, the boiling pleasure when he put his finger?—

She focused on his mouth, on what he was saying. Now she recalled his mouth at her breast. The way she’d pushed herself against him, begging him to kiss her breasts. She burned with humiliation.

It must be humiliation. She could not stand here desiring him, longing for him to touch her again, when he’d ruined everything else.

“I see no other way,” he said quietly.

She grasped for the threads of thoughts in her mind. A way to what? She wanted to drop her head onto his shoulder. She wanted, outrageously, unfathomably, for him to put his arms around her and promise her everything was going to be all right.

She wanted him to comfort her, and she wanted to believe his promises.

“I know,” he said, watching her with insistent eyes. Pleading. “I saw in the church. You do not want to be married.”

“This cannot be what you want, either,” she said, and a dangerous dampness welled at her eyes. “To be forced into marriage. To wed a scandal.”

“What was the alternative?” he said softly. “And marriage ends the scandal. That is the point.”

“I thought the point was the money,” she said dully.

He brushed a thumb over her knuckles. “What money?”

She almost, almost believed him. Almost fell into that lucent blue gaze and let reason and sense be lost. Almost leaned into his touch, moving closer, seeking his warmth, inhaling the scent of him, outdoors and tobacco and the faintest hint of lime?—

“The money you get now.” To her astonishment and horror, her fist swung in his direction, landed on his chest. “The money your brother wants, and my brother wants, and everyone wants, except me —and you tricked me—and lied to me?—”

“I did not lie to you,” he said roughly, his voice edged with a flare of anger, though he didn’t stop her as she swatted again and again at his chest. As if she could hurt him anyway, hard as the man was. His coat must be padded, for him to not even flinch. And his heart harder still.

“You came to my room,” he reminded her, “and I warned you would be ruined.”

“You tricked me,” she cried. “You meant all along to marry me instead, but you didn’t—tell —me —that.” She emphasized each word with a blow.

Heavens above, she was going mad. She was actually striking a man, this man, the man she was supposed to wed. He caught her fists and held them, but gently, not with enough pressure to hurt.

“I didn’t see another way, Anne. You can’t expect I would leave you in shame, that I wouldn’t offer for a woman found in my bed. For God’s sake, who do you think I am?”

“I don’t know.” To her further humiliation, she sniffled. “I don’t know you at all.”

It was true. He was a complete and utter stranger. She’d known him for the span of a day, and she was going to wed him.

“But marriage,” she said, fighting back another sniff. She would not give into tears. “There’s no way out of it.”

“We could have it annulled, if that is your wish,” he said quietly.

“You can’t annul a marriage. It isn’t that simple.” It was rage causing her tears, yes, righteous wrath. Not the sense of smashed hopes, or the wish that something, anything could be different, that she could have a real husband, in truth?—

“If we prove I am impotent, or some such,” he said.

She blinked at him. What man would make such a claim?

What kind of man would submit to the examination that would be required?

What man, if it would free a wife who didn’t want to be wed to him, would claim impotence and go through the public humiliation of having it proven so, just to grant her liberty.

She’d seen his manhood last night. She’d watched, in the shadowy dark, as he found his own release by watching her touch herself. Dear God, that memory made her burn worse than anything else had. Sucking on her finger while he climaxed with a groan, as if all he needed was contact with her body.

She shivered. He would not be found impotent. No doubt he’d respond as readily to any woman set before him. He’d fail that test at the first.

“I would have to be caught in adultery,” she said. “Then you bring a suit for criminal conversation, and a bill of divorce to Parliament.” Which was expensive, and even more humiliating, and would lead to worse ruin than being found in Hewitt’s bed. Divorce would destroy them both.

“You will not .” He curled his hands around her wrists, as if he meant to physically restrain her from going to another man’s bed.

Jealous, was he? Well, most men were about their possessions. Just look at how Daron and Calvin were behaving over an inheritance that hadn’t even come to her yet, but which they already considered theirs.

And now it would be Hewitt Vaughn’s. It had taken him less than a day to clear the board of his competitors. Fearsomely capable, this man. Could she blame him for seducing her?

But he hadn’t. All he’d done was show up in his broad-shouldered coats with his clear, steady gaze and his strong hands and his competence in a crisis. Offered her a leaf of mint in a sunny garden while the sun teased out silver strands in his hair. Reproved his brother for insulting her at dinner.

Told her to leave when she knocked on his door in her dressing gown and slippers.

She’d thrown herself at his head. Come to his room begging for him to ruin her. No doubt many another woman had done the same, and that was why he was so accomplished at the ruining.

“We can live apart. Or file a bill of separation. You will have options, Anne.”

“Those aren’t options.” Those would simply leave her alone. And he was a man of action, a man full of sensuality. Surely he wanted more than a wife in name only.

Women didn’t have options? plural. A woman had one choice: find the most promising man she could to marry, one who would hopefully keep her economically secure and free from humiliation and public censure, and pray he did not die or turn into a sot or grow ill with disease.

Who could blame her for wanting her freedom?

“Then,” he said, his voice heavy, “you jilt me.”

Refuse to marry . She flicked her gaze up to his, her breath catching. “Now?”

“Not now.” He curled his hands around her fingers. His were warm and strong. She remembered the calluses on his palm skimming her skin, the way she’d?—

“Then when?”

“We pretend to move forward. We delay having the banns read at St. Woolos, draw out a long engagement. Say we are getting to know one another. And then—” His face tightened against a memory, that dent in his lip flattening, the scar deepening between his brows. “We find you a reason to cry off.”

It had worked before in Llanfyllin. Anne went about her life with her betrothed in the background, marriage a distant dream. She had the safety of an agreement, and none of the duties.

That would hardly work if she remained here . With this man ever before her.

And he could line up all the possibilities as if assembling weapons against a siege, but there was no surety he would keep to his promise. No guarantee he would not change his mind.

They stood in the gallery, staring at one another, he holding her hands while the sun bloomed in the summer sky as if it shone every day in Wales.

She’d come to him because she thought he would set aside honor. Surely that was scorn blazing in the eyes of the Earl of St. Vincent at the Penrydd wedding. You , he’d said to Hewitt, every part of his manner an accusation.

Me , Hewitt had agreed, as if he were guilty.

Yet if he were not a man of honor, why would he insist on offering for her? Why would he extend her the protection of marriage? None of this made sense.

He hadn’t even done the deed properly. All he’d done was fondle and kiss, when he’d promised to?—

She was not entertaining that thought. Anne brought her fists back to her own chest as if she could press her pounding heart into submission.

His eyes were so blue. He hadn’t shaved yet, and dark stubble clung to his lean cheeks, his bold jaw.

His facial bones stood out like that because the man had no extra flesh on him, nothing more than muscle and bone.

The silver hair above his temples said he’d been through something that had aged him before his time.

She knew virtually nothing of this man, of his history, his temperament, or his character. And, if she did not find a way to free herself from this new snare, she would belong to him for life.

“Do not tell Daron I intend to jilt you,” Anne said finally. “I will write my family and tell them I am betrothed. We can carry on the pretense, as you say.”

She would not examine why that thought made her feel hollow. Wasn’t he offering exactly what she wanted?

He unbent his fingers from around hers. “Of course. Whatever you need.”

She answered him with a humorless laugh. As if any of this were about what she needed.

“By the way.” Anne straightened her shoulders as she looked him in the eye. She might be trapped, she might be a twymfat, like Mathry said— idiot , she believed the Welsh word meant—but she refused to be a weepy, helpless mess.

“Congratulations on your forthcoming marriage, Captain Vaughn. You’ve won.”

She wasn’t used to delivering witticisms, or sallies, or even having the final word, really. But she was proud of herself for delivering this coup de grace before she turned on her heel and waltzed away.

She only wished she didn’t feel quite so pleased at the sense that Hew’s eyes lingered on her the entire length of the hall.