A Dangerous Love by Sabrina Jeffries (17)

Griff braced himself for her anger. At least now everything was out in the open. He’d always believed in plunging right in, and this was a matter he could no longer avoid, especially if they were to marry.

He would marry her, no matter what her reaction. Making love to her had sealed his determination. He’d never experienced such a joining with any woman—never. It still struck him with awe, with untrammeled wonder.

And with a fierce desire to make sure he didn’t lose this precious connection with her.

He rose and jerked on his drawers, watching her warily. She’d already sat up, twisting herself into a tangle of limbs that hid the private areas of her body. Looking dazed, she drew the blanket up around her. With a twinge of guilt, he saw that it was stained with her virgin blood.

“Rosalind, say something,” he growled as she stared sightlessly past him. “Call me a bastard, rage at me, anything.”

“How can I call you a bastard?” she said in a small voice. “If…you’re…telling me the truth, then you aren’t one, are you?”

If ever he’d needed proof that she knew nothing of her father’s plans, this was it. And she’d given him the perfect opening to spill out the rest of the tale.

He couldn’t, though, not yet. How could he when she sat there so still and quiet, her silence putting the death knell to all his plans?

“Oh, but I am a bastard,” he said hoarsely. “I should never have lied to you about who I was.”

She shook her head as if to clear it. “You really are Marsden Knighton? My cousin?”

“Distant cousin,” he reminded her.

A groan rolled from her. “I’ve been such an idiot. I should have seen it all along. The way you acted, the way you talked. I always wondered how Mr. Kni—How your man of affairs could put up with your insolence. It wasn’t insolence, was it? You’ve always given him orders. You were merely acting as his employer.”

Gratified that she finally understood that at least, he nodded.

She rose as if in a trance, tucking the blanket about her. “And his coarse manner—” Her gaze shot to Griff. “He is the son of the highwayman, not you. He’s the one who lived in the workhouse for a time.” A look of horror spread over her face. “Or was that a lie, too?”

“The only thing I lied about was my identity.” Though I haven’t yet told you a hundred other things. “I gave myself Daniel’s past and he took mine, but the details of our backgrounds are all true and they all match the names. It’s only that what I said about myself belongs to Daniel and what I said about him belongs to me.”

He could see her working it out in her mind, which alarmed him. Rosalind operated on emotion. She attacked with swords, she impetuously offered herself in marriage to save her sister…she threw herself passionately into lovemaking. To see her thinking the matter through instead of hurling the picnic basket at him worried him.

“So you’re the one who went to Eton?” she asked.

He nodded curtly.

“You’re our cousin.” She scrutinized his features. “Yes, of course you are. I only saw the miniature of your father once, but from what I recall you look much like him. I don’t know why I didn’t see it before.”

“Because people see what they’ve been told to see. You didn’t know us—you had no reason to suspect I wasn’t Mr. Brennan.”

At the sound of the name, her eyes went wide. “That means you’re not even half-Irish. That’s why he said…Ohhh…” She groaned and closed her eyes, obviously remembering something.

“What did he say?”

She shook her head. “Nothing. We just talked about the Irish and…It was nothing.” She mused a moment. “So of course you’re the one who made Knighton Trading such a success. How could I have been so stupid? I kept thinking you were the brains behind the company, but I couldn’t understand how you’d hidden that from his investors so long or why you’d let him take credit for your efforts.”

He laughed bitterly. “You know me too well to believe I’d let anyone take credit for my efforts. As for Daniel—don’t let his rough exterior deceive you. He’s good at what he does, so good that his shrewdness about investments has enabled me to double my personal income in the past few years. He advises other men besides me. Indeed, he’s soon planning to open his own concern.”

He knew he was rambling, that she had no reason for wanting to know about Daniel, but he blindly sought to wipe away her look of betrayal.

She turned her face from him. It was dark enough now that he could barely see her, but he still hated having her turn from him.

“You asked me to marry you,” she whispered, “knowing that I thought you were someone else. Didn’t you think it significant enough to tell me?”

“Damnation, Rosalind, I’m telling you now!”

“Oh? Explain to me why you would even begin such a masquerade. And why, after you supposedly decided you wanted to marry me, you would continue it.”

“Supposedly? Goddamn it, woman, there was no supposedly about it. The minute I saw you in your father’s study, I wanted you. And after that day in my bedchamber, I knew I had to have you.”

“You mean…in your bed.”

“No! As my wife. I never lied about that.”

“Yes, but that day in your bedchamber, you didn’t offer for me. Why not? You could have just told me the truth then, told me I had nothing to fear, that you’d marry me yourself. Why did you wait until after I went to Mr.…to…”

“Daniel. His Christian name is Daniel. This will be easier if you call him that.”

“Nothing about this is easy!” she cried.

Her shoulders shook violently, and he prayed she wouldn’t weep. He couldn’t stand it if she wept.

“I thought I was in…I thought I cared for you,” she whispered, her features etched with hurt, “but whom did I care for? Not Griff Knighton, obviously. Certainly not Daniel Brennan. It was some…creation, a blend of you and your man of affairs.”

“That’s not true!” Why did she speak of caring for him as if it were in the past? He couldn’t lose her now, not over this. He must make her understand. “It wasn’t Daniel you accompanied about the estate. It wasn’t Daniel you played billiards with or discussed Shakespeare with.” Walking to where she stood enveloped in her blanket, looking lost, he reached up to caress the darling curve of her cheek. “It wasn’t Daniel who made love to you.”

At least she didn’t recoil from his touch. “You still haven’t told me why you would even begin such a deception. Or why you let it go on for so long.”

His hand froze, and a sudden terror seized him. Damnation, he couldn’t tell her the rest of it. How could he? She already felt betrayed and hurt. How much more would she suffer if he told her he’d come here on a search for something that would ruin her father and drag her sisters through scandal? How could he tell her he still planned to regain what was rightfully his?

He couldn’t, not now. Once they were married, he’d tell her. By then, he’d know exactly what he intended to do. As matters stood, he didn’t even know if she would marry him. So first he must secure her, then sort out the rest after they married.

It took him only a moment to think of a plausible reason. “When your father invited me here, he mentioned the possibility of my marrying one of you. To be truthful, I wasn’t interested. I had no reason to marry, or so I thought.”

“And you didn’t need to marry to gain the estate,” she put in tartly.

He merely nodded, incapable of lying to her so blatantly. “Nonetheless, I wanted to see Swan Park. My father spoke often of it, I knew I’d inherit it, and I was curious. So I devised a way of looking at it without being plagued by a group of women throwing themselves at me.” He managed a faint smile. “Believe me, if I’d ever guessed you were all so violently opposed to marrying me, I would never have considered the masquerade. But I’d been told that you were…well…”

“The Swanlea Spinsters,” she said, tipping her chin up with an amazing dignity for a woman in a blanket standing barefoot in the middle of a glade.

“Exactly. I thought Daniel could keep all of you occupied while I…surveyed the estate at my leisure. Of course, the longer the masquerade continued, the harder it became to admit to it.”

He brushed her hair away from her face. By God, she’d never looked so fetching as she did in that blanket. It completed his image of her as Athena the battle goddess, except that she needed to drape it lower, to reveal her lovely breasts in all their glory.

He forced down his randy cock and continued. “By the time I realized I wanted you, I didn’t know how to stop it. I wasn’t even sure you were interested in me as Griff Brennan, much less as Griff Knighton. You were spouting all that bloody nonsense about marrying ‘Mr. Knighton’ to save your sister, and I didn’t want you marrying me for that.”

“So you kept lying, to make sure I’d marry you for yourself and not for your property? Is that it? You manipulated me and—”

“Now see here,” he interrupted, his temper pricked by her outrage, “I wasn’t the only one manipulating people. You weren’t even really planning to marry Daniel…I mean, me. Knighton. You were no more honest with me than I was with you, damn it.”

Her chin quivered. “I was fighting for my family. What were you fighting for?”

My company, my future, he nearly said, but didn’t dare. “Rosalind,” he said, mustering a reasonable tone, “I know I should never have engaged in such a reckless scheme, but it’s done now, and I’ve told you about it. Can’t you forgive me? Can’t we put it behind us?”

Rosalind stared at him, not sure how to take his revelations. She wanted to hate him for masquerading and then continuing it so long, for making love to her while pretending to be someone else.

Yet how could she? His being the real Mr. Knighton made everything so much easier. She hadn’t looked forward to telling her family she was running off to marry the wrong man, the one who could not save Swan Park. She’d dreaded dealing with Juliet’s renewal of attentions to the man she believed to be their cousin.

Still, Griff had lied to her. Repeatedly. Egregiously.

In her heart she knew she could forgive him that…if she were certain it was all she had to forgive. But though his explanation seemed plausible enough, she couldn’t quite believe it. This had all been merely to keep the Swanlea Spinsters from bothering him while he looked over the estate? How could it be that simple?

She thought of Papa’s strongbox and stiffened. “And what of all your sneaking about the estate? What of that?”

He glanced away, a muscle tensing in his jaw. “I told you. I wanted to assess the place. I don’t work well with somebody hovering around, that’s all.” His gaze swung back to her, raking her boldly, making her blush. “Especially when the somebody is a fetching female who makes me burn. Who’s making me burn right now, truth be told.”

An irresistible need drew her gaze inexorably to his drawers. She swallowed to see that he didn’t lie about that at least, for the stockingette clearly outlined his arousal. He seemed to grow even more as she stared.

“I find myself in this state nearly all the time when I’m around you, my darling,” he said hoarsely. “Until now, I didn’t think I’d ever find a woman I wanted so badly. It makes no sense, I know, but the minute I met you…well…something altered inside me. It’s as if I was missing a part of me that I found when you entered my life.”

His heart, she thought, remembering what Daniel had told her. He doesn’t know it’s his heart.

Other things Daniel said sprang into her mind: His brain’s trying to figure you out, his St. Peter is crying out for attention, and worst of all, his heart is clamoring to be heard for the first time in the poor sod’s life. All that clamoring is confusing the man.

The thought warmed her. Surely he loved her a little if he could speak so haltingly, so sweetly of his need for her. He might not know it was his heart speaking, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t.

“I want to marry you, now more than ever,” he said in a low, urgent voice. “The question is—can you forgive me, will you forgive me enough to marry me?”

Blast him, he had a talent for reducing situations to their most basic. She even knew the answer she wanted to make. How could she not forgive him when she loved him so much?

After all, it was entirely possible the situation was exactly as he’d claimed. She could easily imagine Griff wanting to avoid being plagued by three spinsters. And she could see how his pride would have prevented him from offering for her sooner.

So why did she feel this uncertainty, this sense he wasn’t being entirely truthful with her? Certain things remained odd. Why had Griff gone to such extraordinary lengths to secure his privacy in the past few days? His story didn’t seem to warrant it. And what about Papa’s bloody strongbox? Papa insisted it contained only papers, but why hide them? That made no sense.

She thought about actually mentioning the strongbox to Griff, but some instinct made her hold back. If he were lying about it, her mentioning it would make matters worse, for then he’d know of it. If he were telling the truth, then it was of no importance.

“Rosalind, darling,” he bit out, “if you’re trying to punish me with this silence, you’re doing a good job of it.”

His worry touched her. “I’m not trying to punish you. It’s just that…this is so wholly unexpected. I’m still trying to take it all in.” I’m still trying to determine who you really are. And if I can trust you.

“What is there to take in? I’m the same man you cared for, only with a different name and a less disreputable past. That shouldn’t affect whether you care for me enough to marry me.” When she remained silent, torn, he added in a rigid tone, “And if my blunders have destroyed your feelings for me, you could still marry me for practical reasons. I would accept even that from you.”

“Practical reasons? I suppose you mean the advantages to my family.”

He stiffened the merest fraction. “Yes. But more particularly the advantages to you. I’m rich, remember?”

“I ought to,” she said coldly. “You reminded me of it repeatedly that day in the deer park. As I recall, it influenced me as little then as it does now.”

“You’re a stubborn woman, Lady Rosalind.”

“In fact, I believe I told you that I had so little interest in money I was willing to throw it all aside to go on the stage.”

He sighed. “Then I’ll have to find other enticements to tempt you from the lure of the theater, won’t I?” Taking her by surprise, he caught her to him with an arm about her waist. The blanket slipped a little, but she didn’t resist his embrace. She couldn’t.

Brushing her cheek with his lips, he lowered his voice seductively. “For one thing, you and I are very well matched. You must admit it.”

“Well matched in bed, you mean,” she choked out. Curse him for his ability to fog her mind with passion.

“Everywhere.” Clasping her chin, he forced it up so she’d look into his eyes, his beautiful, devious eyes. “What do you think are your chances of finding a husband who can match your knowledge of Shakespeare quote for quote?”

Another piece of the puzzle fell into place. Of course he knew Shakespeare. He’d been educated at Eton. Still, of all the things he might have said to convince her, that wasn’t one she’d expected. It was rather crafty of him to use it, and Griff was nothing if not crafty.

She lifted an eyebrow. “We haven’t yet established that you can match me quote for quote, sir.”

He smiled at her taunt. “Then perhaps we should. Think of all the enjoyment we’ll have doing so.” He pressed a heated kiss to her cheekbone. “Think of the hours we can spend—” he kissed a path to her ear and nipped the lobe—“discussing all of Shakespeare’s euphemisms for cock.”

An unwanted thrill coursed through her. The man certainly knew how to use naughty words to his advantage.

Laving her too-sensitive ear with his tongue, he flattened her against his body. His decidedly aroused body. “There will be other advantages, too. You can redecorate my town house from top to bottom. You’ll have two estates full of servants to order about.”

“Why should I want that?” She was finding it hard to breathe, hard to think. She angled her head away, fighting down the surge of excitement that always deluged her when he started his blasted seductions. “I don’t like running this estate, remember?”

“You said you only disliked the tedious details. Well, my darling, I have plenty of employees to take care of the tedious details, leaving you free to order everyone about.” He kissed her neck. “And warm my bed.”

She swallowed. Hard. “I suppose you consider warming your bed one of those ‘advantages’ in favor of my marrying you.”

“Contentious woman,” he muttered. “Shall I demonstrate again that we both consider it an advantage?”

He kissed her on the mouth then and stole the very soul from her body. Every sense stood to attention, her very skin came alive with heat. For a moment, she reveled in it, responding to his kiss with all the love in her heart.

But when he tugged at her blanket, she came to her senses. With a feverish burst of will, she wriggled from his arms to go stand a few feet away, clutching the blanket close like a shield.

“Rosalind?” he queried in concern.

“All right.”

“‘All right’ what?”

“I’ll marry you.”

His ragged sigh of relief echoed unmistakably in the clearing. “Good. Now come here so we can celebrate.”

Only Griff could imbue the word celebrate with sheer carnality. She shivered at his delicious temptation, but resisted it. She couldn’t lie with him again until she determined if all her fears were nothing. She’d nearly admitted she loved him before; if he took her again, she’d never keep from saying it. And her pride wouldn’t let her lay her heart before him until she was more sure of him.

“No,” she protested, “we’ll be missed if we don’t go in soon.”

He stepped toward her. “Daniel will see to it that no one disturbs us.”

“No,” she said firmly. “I’m…a bit…” What? Tired? Sleepy? At shortly after sunset? What reason could she give?

To her surprise, he supplied the reason for her. “Sore. Of course.” He flashed her an apologetic look. “I wasn’t thinking. You were a virgin, and we were rather…vigorous in our lovemaking. You need time to recover.”

She pounced on his reason at once, though she wasn’t nearly as sore as he seemed to think. “Yes, precisely. I-I’m sorry—”

“You’ve no reason to apologize. I’m the one who should apologize. I should have realized you wouldn’t be ready again so soon.” He stepped up close to caress her cheek. “I’m sailing in uncharted waters, my sweet, since you’re my first virgin.”

“I’d better be the last, as well,” she warned. “No matter what I promised Daniel, I won’t play the accommodating wife for you. If you take a mistress after we’re married, I swear I’ll cut off your St. Peter, or whatever you call it.”

He laughed. “Spoken like a true Amazon. But don’t worry, darling, I don’t want that sort of accommodating wife. Nor do I want a mistress. I want you and no one else, for the rest of our lives.”

It sounded so good, so perfect. Too perfect, she thought as he bent to kiss her.

There was only way to be sure of his intentions and lay all her fears to rest. Tonight she must go to Papa with that blasted strongbox and make him open it, make him tell her what it contained. It had to be nothing—she was nearly sure it was nothing.

She prayed it was nothing.

Because if Griff proved to be lying about his reasons for marrying her, it just might kill her.