Chapter 7 #2
The two words were lost beneath the chiming in her ears. They stole the oxygen from her lungs and set her pulse pounding.
“You cannot be serious,” Cassie said, breathless.
“I know it is a rare occurrence, but yes, I am,” Grant replied.
“You…” She stopped to even out her breathing. “You wish to court me?”
He lifted both his palms, a signal to slow down. “Just pretend to for a short while. A fortnight. Two at the most.”
She snapped back, appalled. And oddly insulted. “You want to pretend to court me?”
The handsome, fair-faced Lord Renfry bloomed in her memory with such vivid detail that she hitched her breath again.
He’d pretended. He’d led her to believe what he felt was real and lasting.
Alongside his charming smile, and the way he’d looked at her with what she’d thought was open admiration, was the memory of the pearl ring he’d shown her the first afternoon they had been alone together, at his house in Knightsbridge.
She had managed to slip away from her chaperone, Miss Stinton, and they’d entered his residence through the back door. Much the same as Grant had just done.
“This will grace your finger in public as soon as the duke gives his permission,” Renfry had said, holding up the three pearls, twisted together in a swirled setting of gold.
Cassie had been so happy, so full of excitement.
He’d placed it onto her finger, then tugged her to him.
His kisses had turned fevered, his hands brazen.
She’d known what it was he wanted to do.
And because he’d chosen her, she had allowed him to lead her to his bedchamber, that ring still gracing her finger.
She regretted that day more than any other in the whole of her life so far. Even more than she did the one that came nine months later, when her heart tore in two. It never would have happened had she not trusted Renfry and taken him at his word.
“Get out,” Cassie said to Grant as she shoved down the memory.
“If you would listen—”
“No! How dare you ask me to pretend at something like that?” She crossed the room, to the one piece of furniture she’d replaced in the study when she moved in.
The desk her brother had kept had been too large and formidable.
This one was slim and elegant, though she kept a decanter of brandy on it just as Michael had.
She took out the stopper with a shaking hand and splashed some into a snifter.
“If you would hear me out, I think we could both benefit from this courtship,” Grant said as he followed her across the study.
The shivers and nausea that usually accompanied any errant thoughts of Lord Renfry settled as she held the snifter to her lips.
She didn’t sip, only inhaled the sweet and woody fumes.
“You have one minute to explain yourself.”
Grant clasped his hands behind his back and swallowed a bemused grin. Why did he always look at her like she’d said something slightly funny?
“In short, the marquess wants a grandson to carry on the Lindstrom title. He is determined that it stay within his direct line, but as my brothers have issued nothing but girls thus far, he has now hinged his hopes on me. To his discontent, I refuse to re-marry.”
Cassie lowered her brandy. It was no secret that Grant was a widower.
But she knew nothing of his previous marriage and had never sought out the information.
Years ago, after they first met, when she’d thought of him far too often, she’d thought that the less she knew of him, the less she could be tempted to care.
And the less envious she could be of his dead wife, as ridiculous as that now seemed to her.
“The marquess has threatened to cut you off,” she guessed, recalling what he’d said in the carriage earlier.
He twitched his cheek. “He has.”
“You work for a living, don’t you? Maybe you don’t need your income from him.”
“Being a physician isn’t as lucrative as one might think. Especially when you work for free half of the time.”
Cassie sighed and sipped her brandy. “I don’t see how a fake courtship will help you. Why don’t you just marry someone?”
The muscles along his jaw rippled. “It isn’t as simple as that.”
“Isn’t it?” she challenged, still unclear on what it was he wanted from her. A pretend courtship could not go on indefinitely. “Men do it all the time.”
Cold silence rushed in on the wake of her flippant comment. All warmth and civility leached from Grant’s expression, and when he took a single, long stride toward her, she felt like a small animal that had suddenly become prey.
“Once you marry for love, it’s a little difficult to lower your standards.” Grant sealed his lips, his square jaw clenching again. He let out an exhalation and turned away from her, fingers combing through his hair.
Stunned, Cassie’s fingers squeezed her glass. He’d married for love. A streak of something unpleasant twisted through her. She chose to ignore it.
“Her name was Sarah?”
Audrey had mentioned her name once.
Grant nodded. “Yes.”
She would not ask how she died. That, too, was no secret. As was the stillborn child he’d buried alongside his wife.
“You’ve not explained how pretending to court would benefit either of us,” she reminded him, lest he start to think she was softening toward him.
“Within a month, my brother’s wife will bear a child. If it is a boy, the marquess will be appeased. I’m confident he will retract his latest edict.”
“And until then, you will pretend to set your cap toward me?”
The haunted look in his eyes while speaking of his late wife dissipated, and the glib, devil-may-care one returned. “And you will revel in my attention, giving my father every reason to believe I’ve made my selection.”
Cassie began to shake her head, but he cut her off before she could speak.
“Trust me, I don’t want to marry any more than you do.
There will be no contracts, no banns posted, no official anything.
But it will get my father off my back for these next few fortnights, and I imagine it will also give you a respite from the duke’s attempts to fob you off on some unsuspecting buffoon. ”
Cassie balked. “You are forgetting that you, sir, are a rake. A rogue. A man of ill-repute. Not to mention that you work. The duke will not be happy in the least to believe I have accepted your suit!”
A slick grin twisted his lips.
“Which do you think he will be angrier about? His sister, falling for a cad, or his sister, operating an East End safe house filled with ruined women?”
Cassie slammed her snifter onto the desk so hard she heard the glass crack. “Are you threatening to expose Hope House if I don’t agree to this scheme of yours?”
Grant shrugged insouciantly. “We both have secrets we don’t want getting out. We both have endeavors we wish to protect.”
She could not believe this man! How could she have ever thought him at all charming? “Your father would merely cut you off. You would be the furthest thing from destitute. While my entire reputation would be ruined! One of us has significantly more to lose than the other.”
Grant hitched his chin and took a deep breath, his sooty eyes narrowing on her.
For the barest moment, she believed he would retract his disgusting ultimatum.
That he still possessed a single shred of dignity.
But he only exhaled and waved a hand through the air.
“Then I suggest you take me up on my offer.”
The rapid boiling of her blood overtook her so swiftly, Cassie wasn’t even fully aware of her hand reaching for her brandy. But then, it was hurtling through the air, toward Grant Thornton’s head. He barely sidestepped it, gawking at her as the snifter crashed to the floor behind him.
“Christ, woman! You could have put out my eye!”
Her chest heaved as she suppressed the urge to scream. “You ought to leave before the whole the decanter comes at your head!”
He held out his arms, as if to say, As you wish. He strode from the study without another word. But he wasn’t a man to give in easily. This wasn’t over. Not by a long shot.