Chapter Ten
Thea knew Neal followed. She could feel his heavier steps behind her.
She began running for her room, her bare feet pounding the floor.
She almost mowed down a maid as she raced around the corner.
She didn’t stop to apologize. She ran to the haven of her room and slammed the door, throwing her back against it, her heart pounding in her chest.
Nessa had lit the bedside table lamp. The room, with its rumpled bed, looked so peaceful. She should never have left it. Who would have predicted such a strange chain of events would uproot her world?
She was ruined. Destroyed . . . unless she could think of something to say that would erase this terrible evening from the minds of some of the ton’s leading personages. She pushed away from the door and started pacing in an anxious circle—
“Thea,” Neal’s voice said from the other side of the door. “Let me in.”
She stared at the door as if she could burn a hole through it and set him on fire.
“Thea? Talk to me.”
She didn’t want to talk. He’d already said enough.
“Very well, then,” he said, “let me tell you what I’m going to do. Tomorrow, I will send a man to procure a special license from the bishop. That shouldn’t take long. We could probably marry the day after. Of course, if you wish to marry in London so that your sons could attend—”
Thea was across to the door in a blink. She threw it open. Neal stood there, handsome, relaxed, completely in control of his emotions.
She wasn’t.
“What do you believe you are doing?” she demanded.
“Marrying you,” he replied.
Thea slammed the door in his face.
She turned away, raising a hand to her forehead as if her head hurt. But it wasn’t her head that worried her, it was her whole life.
The door opened. “That wasn’t courteous,” he chastised as he walked in.
“Leave me,” she ground out.
His response was to shut the door, with him inside the room. “Thea, no one will believe we want to marry if you continue these dramatics.”
His calmness threw her into hysterics. “Do you not know what you’ve done? You’ve ruined me.”
Neal shook his head. “I don’t agree. I think I saved you.”
“And how is that?” she demanded wildly.
“No one will speak against you with me to protect you,” he said, as if he was being quite noble.
“How little you know of women,” Thea answered.
“Protect me by marrying me? I’ll be surprised if any door will be open to me.
This story will fly through London. They may behave one way to your face, but they will let me know what they think behind your back.
I’m destroyed. And what of my sons? What will happen to them?
” She collapsed onto the tufted bench in front of her dressing table.
He knelt in front of her. “I don’t care what those women think. They don’t matter—”
“How naive you are!”
“Fine. Women control the world,” he conceded without conviction. “They are all going to eat us alive—”
“They will. Lady Carpsley—”
“Is a bully. All of London knows she leads her husband around by his boll—” He paused, catching himself before he said bollocks, and finished, “Nose. She leads him around by his nose. In fact most of those women handle their husbands that way. You don’t think I know Lady Montvale can be a terror?
” Neal shrugged. “I’ve managed this far in my life without her approval. ”
“That’s because she has always approved of you, my lord. And she probably will continue the pretense of doing so, although one day you may need to speak to the Prince Regent about a matter of some urgency and find your request denied—”
“No, that won’t happen. He owes me money,” Neal countered, but then he frowned. “Then again, because he owes me money, he has already been avoiding me—”
“You are not listening to what I’m saying.” Thea raised her hands in frustration and let them go before adding, “And you sound as if you think this is a lark.”
“It is, Thea. And perhaps you are the one not listening to me. Marriage between us makes good sense. We’ve known each other a long time. You won’t fall in love with me, and I won’t fall in love with you.”
“How can you say that? Didn’t you toss aside our friendship because of fear we would grow too close?” And they would. She could sense it. And then what would he do?
“We are older and wiser now,” he replied dismissively. “Together we can beat the curse—”
Thea interrupted him with a cry of irritation. “The curse, the curse, the curse.” She swooped off the chair and away from him, taking a good two angry steps before turning. “That’s all you think about.”
His brows came together in an angry V. “I don’t have a choice. I must consider it.”
She wanted to groan but stifled the sound. Did he know how mad he sounded? Taking a second to collect herself, she said, “Neal, have you ever wondered why I was so offended that day in Sir James’s office? Why I stormed out of the place?”
“You were upset with me,” he said, giving a small shrug as if it didn’t matter.
“Are all men thickheaded?” Thea demanded of the room-at-large.
“Are all women so temperamental?” Neal shot back.
He came to his feet. “No, Thea, I don’t know why you left except that you don’t believe in the curse and for some reason it made you angry that I do.
All right. So be it. We have a difference.
But there are many things we agree upon. In fact, we kissed rather well.”
She brought her hands up as if to ward him off. “Oh, no, you didn’t just say that. I thought your purpose was to marry a woman who didn’t kiss well.”
“When did I make that claim?”
“You want to marry someone you can’t like,” Thea pointed out.
“Yes, but I don’t want to dislike kissing her.”
Thea pounced. “Oh, so because you want to marry me, that means you don’t like me.”
“No, Thea, don’t even jump to that conclusion.”
“What conclusion am I jumping to, my lord? I’m merely restating what you said.”
“But that’s not what I said.”
“Yes, it is. You said—”
Now it was Neal’s turn to roar with disapproval. “Stop twisting my words.”
It felt good to make him angry. It meant he was paying attention now.
“And you need to think about what you are saying,” Thea countered.
“As to that day in the office, yes, I found the talk of curse unbelievable and a bit ridiculous. But the reason I really left, Neal, is because I didn’t want to help you on this quest for a wife, not with the demand you don’t like her.
I felt it was wrong, and I still do. Neal, I believe in love. ”
There, she’d said it, and she was a bit unnerved by her statement. But once foolish, twice damned. She couldn’t stop herself from plunging on.
“I think it is important,” she said, pacing the distance between the bed and the doorway as she reasoned out her words.
“I know I shouldn’t. If anyone should not believe in love, it is me.
” She had to give a small, brittle laugh at herself for having been such a fool.
“I know how hard it is to find love. You think you have it, you believe you have found someone you can trust, who will stand beside you and protect you and make you feel as if you finally have a place in this world where you belong—and then you find out you are wrong. People aren’t to be trusted, and no one person can give anyone everything she thinks she needs.
So I didn’t believe in love, but then here you are in Sir James’s office saying you are deliberately seeking someone you can’t and won’t and refuse to love, and that’s when something so deep inside me that I didn’t know it was there rose up and said, You are wrong .
. . because love is important, Neal. When I think of my sons, I know it is all that ever matters. ”
“You loved Martin?”
His question took a moment to penetrate her mind. She was thinking about this all-encompassing emotion called love . . . and he was asking about her late husband?
What’s more, he was waiting for an answer.
Thea shook her head. “Of course I did—” That wasn’t completely right either. “I thought I did,” she amended. “Yes, I did at one time.”
“What happened?”
“What do you mean, ‘what happened?’ ” she challenged.
Neal shifted his weight. He wasn’t as overzealous as he had been a few moments ago. “You left your family and everything you knew for him. So, what happened? I gathered you were not completely happy in your marriage. What changed your affections?”
She crossed her arms, wanting to refuse an answer, then deciding it made no difference if she was candid with Neal. After all, there had been a time when he’d known all of her confidences.
“Boyd was difficult,” she said. The words sounded so simple, but there was a wealth of the unspoken in each of them.
She slid her gaze toward the cold hearth, remembering, and feeling disloyal.
“I loved him enough to defy everyone and elope. But I don’t think I knew him.
No, wait,” she said correcting herself, “I don’t think I trusted him. ”
“You can trust me.”
She had to laugh at his conviction. “My lord, I will never trust another man. Now, if you please, leave my room.” She started toward the door to open it. “I am tired. Worn thin. We can discuss this night on the morrow—”
He caught her arm, swung her around and kissed her. His embrace was commanding, and she had no choice but to kiss him back.
One minute she was rational and tired, and in the next, she was suddenly vital and alive. It was that simple and the decision that quick.
Their lips did fit together well. Her body warmed to his, became warm in the places where he was hard—
He was hard.
Thea could feel the length and heat of him exactly where it should be against her, and she was undone.
There had been a time when Thea had wanted Boyd’s attentions, and a time when she’d avoided all contact with him. She understood her body’s signals. Hers was not a prudish nature, although she had long ago made the decision to place her needs and wants far below those of her children.
However here and now, desire burst into life with a vehemence that was all encompassing.