When Gran merely blinked, then steadied her shoulders and smoothed her features into nonchalance, it took all Oliver’s self-control not to roar his frustration. Minerva and Celia looked more upset than she did, for God’s sake!
And why were they upset, anyway? What had they thought he meant, when he’d said he would betroth himself to someone patently unsuitable in order to bring Gran to her senses? Subtlety never worked on Gran.
Suddenly he became aware of the fingers digging painfully into his arm.
“Excuse me,” Maria bit out from beside him. “I need a word with my fiancé. Is there somewhere we can be private?”
Blast it to hell. He’d forgotten about Maria. Now he’d have to deal with her, too, and she wasn’t going to take kindly to his pronouncement since she was decidedly not a whore.
When Minerva pointed toward the library, Maria stalked off, leaving Oliver no choice but to make his excuses and follow her.
The minute they were on the other side of the door, she whirled on him. “How dare you! You said nothing about making me out to be a whore. That was not our bargain.”
“Would you rather I call you a thief?” he shot back, determined not to let her get the upper hand.
Her eyes blazed with indignation. “You know perfectly well I’m no thief. And I refuse to play a whore for you.”
“Even if such a refusal means facing the authorities in London?”
Though she paled, she didn’t waver. “Yes. Clap us in the gaol, if you wish, but I’m not playing your mad game one minute more.”
To his shock, she headed for the door. Deuce take her, the chit actually meant to leave!
He swiftly blocked her exit, grabbing her by the arm to stay her. “We made a bargain, and you’re not getting out of it that easily.”
“This was your plan from the beginning, wasn’t it? Dress me as a whore and use my situation for your own purposes. Did you think once you got me here, I would just go along because of your threats?” When he didn’t answer immediately, she scowled. “That is what you intended. I knew it! You’re a low, deceitful—”
A knock sounded on the door. “Oliver, is everything all right?” Gran asked.
“It’s fine,” he snapped, wanting Gran away from the door before Maria got loud enough for her to hear. “We’ll be there in a moment.”
“I should be part of this discussion, I believe,” Gran said.
At the sound of the heavy knob turning, he cursed under his breath. She was coming in, damn it!
To stop Maria before she ruined everything, he grabbed her about the waist, hauled her against him, and sealed his mouth to hers.
At first she seemed too stunned to do anything. When after a moment, he felt her trying to draw back from him, he caught her behind the neck with an iron grip.
“Oh,” Gran said in a stiff voice. “Beg pardon.”
Dimly he heard the door close and footsteps retreating, but before he could let Maria go, a searing pain shot through his groin, making him see stars. Blast her, the woman had kneed him in the ballocks!
As he doubled over, fighting to keep from passing out, she snapped, “That was for making me look like a whore, too!”
When she turned for the door, he choked out, “Wait!”
“Why should I?” she said, heading inexorably forward. “You’ve done nothing but insult and humiliate me before your family.”
Still reeling, he presented his only ace in the hole. “If you return to town,” he called after her, “what will you do about your Nathan?”
That halted her, thank God.
He forced himself to straighten, though the room spun a little. “You still need my help, you know.”
Slowly, she faced him. “So far you haven’t demonstrated any genuine intent to offer help,” she said icily.
“But I will.” He gulped down air, struggling for mastery over his pain. “Tomorrow we’ll return to town and hire a runner. I know one who’s very adept. You can tell him everything you’ve learned so far about your fiancé’s disappearance, and I’ll make sure he pursues it.”
“And in exchange, all I have to do is pretend to be a whore.”
He grimaced. Christ, she felt strongly about this. He should have known that any woman who would thrust a sword at him wouldn’t be easily bullied.
“No.”
“No, what?” she demanded.
“You needn’t pretend to be a whore. Just don’t leave. This can still work.”
“I don’t see how,” she shot back. “You’ve already said we met in a brothel. Telling them we’re thieves is no better. I won’t have them thinking that we’re about to steal you blind.”
“I’ll come up with some story, don’t worry,” he clipped out.
“Something else to make me sound like a low, grasping schemer?”
“No.” She had him cornered, and she knew it. “Trust me, your background alone is enough to alarm Gran. She pretends not to mind it right now, but she won’t let it go on. Just stay. I’ll make it right, I swear.”
She glanced away, her face troubled. “I don’t know if I can believe you. How can I trust a man who has all this at his command?” She swept her hand to encompass the library. “You’re used to demanding what you want, to ordering everyone around.”
Sheer frustration caught him in the chest. Though that was true, the excesses of Halstead Hall or his title had never before been considered a deficit in his character. Any other woman would have thrown herself at his feet for them.
Any English woman. Americans were a different breed entirely. The irony was that the house and its trappings were nothing without the money to support it, and she was too unfamiliar with the workings of the aristocracy to realize it. She saw only its ancient charms.
“Look,” he said, “we both know you don’t want to travel back to London at this hour. Stay tonight. Eat dinner, sleep in a comfortable bed.” When her pugnacious chin rose, he added swiftly, “Make a good try at playing my fiancée, and in the morning we’ll go to town. If anything else happens tonight to displease you and you want to part ways tomorrow, we’ll call everything even.”
An uncertain look passed over her features. “You won’t try to kiss me again?”
“Given your method for handling that problem? No. I don’t particularly like pain.”
She narrowed her gaze. “And if I say I don’t want to keep up the masquerade tomorrow, you won’t try to throw me and Freddy in the gaol?”
“No. But neither will I hire a runner to find your fiancé. It’ll be your choice tomorrow.” He hardened his voice. “Whereas if you try to leave tonight, I swear I’ll have you both charged with theft.”
He had half a mind to do it, too, if only to repay her for that knee in the groin. But even he had too much conscience for that.
If he could get her to stay tonight, the others would sway her. His siblings could be very charming when they wanted, especially once he told them she was not a whore. And once she realized that Gran expected Minerva and Celia to marry no matter what their wishes in the matter, she might sympathize with their situation enough to help him. Even if she couldn’t sympathize with his.
“One night,” she said. “That’s all.”
“Unless you decide that the bargain suits your needs after all.”
She glanced toward the door, and he knew she was thinking of her hapless cousin. Then she crossed her arms over her chest. “Very well. We’ll stay tonight. Then I’ll see.”
Thank God. He nodded, then moved rather stiffly to her side.
She hesitated. “I’m sorry I had to be so . . . firm.”
“Liar,” he grumbled. “You’re not the least bit sorry.”
A faint smile touched her lips. “All right, so I’m not.”
He offered her his arm. “Where did you learn that, anyway?”
“One of my older male cousins showed me what to do if some man ever tried anything.”
At least her zealousness in protecting herself would keep him from letting his attraction to her run away with him. Any woman who was willing to do that to a man was trouble, and he wasn’t about to give her a second crack at the family jewels.
Outside the room they found his family standing in the Great Hall, discussing something in heated whispers as Freddy nervously paced the other end.
Oliver cleared his throat, and they all jumped. “My fiancée has made it clear that she doesn’t appreciate my attempt at a joke.”
“Oliver enjoys shocking people,” Maria said calmly. When he looked at her, surprised that she had noticed, she arched one eyebrow at him. “I’m sure you know that about him by now. I find it a great flaw in his character.”
She seemed to consider many things as flaws in his character. Not that he could blame her.
Gran glanced from Maria to him. “So the two of you didn’t meet in a brothel?”
“We did,” he said, “but only because poor Freddy got lost and wandered into one by mistake. I was trying to determine what he was looking for when Maria rushed in, mad with worry over where he might have gone off to. With two such Americans lost in the wicked city, hopelessly innocent of its dangers, I felt compelled to help them. I’ve been squiring them about town the last week. Isn’t that right, sweetheart?”
She cast him a sugary and thoroughly false smile. “Oh, yes, dearest. And you were a very informative guide, too.”
Jarret arched one eyebrow. “Astonishing that after finding you in a brothel, Oliver, Miss Butterfield wasn’t put off of marrying you.”
“I ought to have been,” Maria said. “But he swore those days were behind him when he pledged his undying love to me on bended knee.”
When Gabriel and Jarret barely managed to stifle their laughter, Oliver gritted his teeth. Bended knee, indeed. She was determined to prick his pride at every opportunity. She probably felt he deserved it. He could only pray that Gran backed down from the fight before he had to bring the chit around any of his friends, or Maria would have them taunting him unmercifully for the next decade.
“I’m afraid, my dear,” he said tersely, “that my brothers have trouble envisioning me bending a knee to anyone.”
She affected a look of wide-eyed shock. “Have they no idea what a romantic you are? I’ll have to show them the sonnets you wrote praising my beauty. I believe I left them in my redingote pocket.” The teasing wench actually looked back toward the entrance. “I could go fetch them if you like.”
“Not now,” he said, torn between a powerful urge to laugh and an equally powerful urge to strangle her. “It’s time for dinner, and I’m starved.”
“So am I,” Freddy put in. At a frown from Maria, he mumbled, “Not that it matters, mind you.”
“Of course it matters,” Gran said graciously. “We don’t like our guests to be uncomfortable. Come along then, Mr. Dunse. You may take me in to dinner, since my grandson is otherwise occupied.”
As they trooped toward the dining room, Oliver bent his head to whisper, “I see you’re enjoying making me out to be a besotted idiot.”
A minxish smile tipped up her fetching lips. “Oh, yes. It’s great fun.”
“Then my explanation of how you ended up in a brothel met with your approval?”
“It’ll do for now.” She cast him a glance from beneath her long lashes. “You’re by no means out of the woods yet, sir.”
But I will be by the time the night is over. No matter what it took, he would get her to stay and do this, so help him God.