Chapter 12
“He despises me,” Pru told her mother flatly.
The countess, reclining on a couch in her private sitting room, now looked up from the book she was reading. “Who does, darling?”
“Titus. Viscount Romney,” she added heavily as she dropped down onto the second couch.
She and Titus had parted badly, something which seemed to happen on a regular basis when it came to the two of them. She had behaved badly and had made accusations that could never be taken back. Not only that, but she had turned their lovemaking into something ugly instead of the most exciting and beautiful experience of her life.
Quickly making her excuses, before Titus could voice his disgust with her behavior, she had left Romney House and instructed her groom to take the carriage about the park in order that she might attempt to clear her head before returning to Germaine House. Searching but not succeeding in trying to find a way in which she might salvage her relationship with Titus.
Her mother now placed the closed book on the table beside her before sitting up. “I believe I know who Titus is, my darling.”
“Yes. Well.” Pru avoided looking at her mother directly. “I made a complete idiot of myself when I was with him earlier.”
“And now he despises you?”
“Oh yes.” Pru sprang restlessly back to her feet with the intention of pacing the room. Something she then decided against as she immediately became aware of the soreness between her legs from lovemaking with Titus. “I made dreadful accusations and then—and then I learned that another of his friends has been killed.”
A frowned creased her mother’s brow. “Another of The Sinners?”
She shook her head. “Someone he served with in the army.”
“What sort of accusations did you make, darling?”
Pru could not explain all to her mother without betraying Titus’s confidence, something she would never do. She had already caused enough harm without adding indiscretion to her crimes. “Dreadful ones,” she repeated dully. “Titus will never forgive me.”
“Oh I think that he will,” her mother mused.
A frowned creased Pru’s brow. “You are not taking this seriously, Mama.”
“Of course I am.”
“Then why are you smiling?” she accused indignantly. “I have told you I wronged Titus dreadfully earlier today. That he can never forgive me for the things I said to him. That my heart is breaking—”
“You said nothing of your heart breaking,” her mother gently reproved.
“Well, it is.” Pru’s cheeks burned. “I love him, Mama. I love him so much, my heart hurts at the thought of not seeing and being with him again.”
“And I have a feeling you will be seeing much more of him in future rather than less.”
Pru glared her frustration with her mother’s calm. “I am not in the mood for riddles, Mama!”
The countess rose gracefully to her feet. “Your viscount is even now downstairs with your father in his study.”
“What?” Pru gaped at her mother.
She nodded. “I believe, from the wording of the letter your father received requesting the appointment, that Romney is currently asking for your hand in marriage— Pru?”
Pru ignored her mother’s puzzled cry as she hurried from the sitting room and down the stairs to where her father’s study was situated.
If Titus was offering to marry her, then he was doing so out of a sense of obligation and duty because of their lovemaking earlier. Much as just the thought of becoming Titus’s wife might thrill her, Pru could not allow him to make such a sacrifice because of her own forwardness in going to his home and seducing him.
Titus raised his brows as Pru burst into her father’s study without knocking. “Your daughter seems to have developed a habit of doing this,” he drawled as Winchester rose to his feet at the intrusion. “Pru, you will apologize to your father for your rudeness,” he added sternly.
“Sorry, Papa,” she dismissed distractedly as she strode across the room. “I came to tell you that you must not accept the viscount’s proposal of marriage on my behalf.”
“But—”
“He already did,” Titus informed her evenly.
She gave him a startled glance before shaking her head. “Then he can take it back again.”
Titus rose to his feet, in no mood to deal with Pru’s rebelliousness again today. Indeed, if her father was not in the room, he would not have hesitated to spank her bare backside to emphasize that point. “It is for your father and I to decide—”
“Not when I am the one who seduced you!”
“Prudence!” The earl was obviously shocked by his daughter’s admission. “This is your mother’s doing,” he continued agitatedly. “I warned her of the repercussions of talking to you girls so frankly regarding— Well, regarding the delicate matters.” He was clearly less comfortable discussing those subjects than his wife. “I shall have words with Cynthia on the matter at the earliest opportunity—”
“Will you, darling?” An unconcerned countess strolled into the study to link her arm with her husband’s. “Perhaps we should go upstairs and discuss it right now and leave these young people to decide whether or not they wish to marry each other.”
“Prudence has admitted she seduced the fellow—”
“Then it is for Prudence and Romney to decide whether or not that merits the two of them entering into marriage together.” She guided her slightly dazed husband toward the open doorway. “We shall talk in my bedchamber, Bryan, and revisit the subject of how twenty-five years ago, I seduced you into marriage,” she added enticingly as the older couple left the room.
Enlightening Titus as to exactly where Pru had got her seductive and managing nature.
Not that there was much of the seductress about Pru right now. Her hair was disheveled, she was still wearing the crumpled blue gown from earlier, and her cheeks were flushed. Whether from temper or embarrassment, Titus was unsure, although knowing Pru, it was probably the former.
Titus had been too stunned by Pru’s abrupt departure from Romney House earlier to prevent her from leaving. Once he realized she had truly gone, it had taken him only a few minutes to decide what he should do next.
He had tried protecting Pru by keeping his distance. Something she refused to allow by visiting him at his home.
Which left him one other alternative.
Writing and having a letter delivered to her father, requesting an urgent need to speak with the older man, had resulted in the earl sending word straight back that he was available this afternoon.
Their conversation had been progressing nicely before Pru burst into the room. “Why did I not realize long ago what a hoyden you are?” he muttered.
“Because until this summer, you did not spare me so much as a second glance, and you did so then only because you are investigating a traitor to England,” she dismissed impatiently.
“Then that was my loss.”
She shook her head. “I am not going to marry you, Titus.”
His lips thinned. “I believe you will find you are.”
“No.” She gave a definitive shake of her head. “I acknowledge you believe you are doing the honorable thing in offering marriage, but I shall not marry you.”
He ran a hand through the dark thickness of his hair. “You might even now be carrying my child.”
“And if I am not, you will have married me for nothing.”
For nothing? Titus did not think of his obsession with this woman as being nothing. Indeed, it consumed his every waking hour and filled his dreams with such vivid images of her that they had caused him to wake these past four nights, despite having pleasured himself before falling asleep, covered in his own cum. Their lovemaking earlier today had surpassed every one of those dreams and imaginings. Pru was a siren, and he had no will or desire left to resist her call.
“There is no need for us to rush into a marriage,” she continued in her determined manner. “And if it does transpire I am with child, then we will discuss the matter again then.”
Titus did not wish to discuss the matter again, at a later date or otherwise. He had known the minute Pru left Romney House earlier that he wanted her back again. As his wife and mistress of the house. If Pru chose to think he was making this offer of marriage because of their lovemaking earlier today, then she had it the wrong way about completely. Titus was determined to marry her and make her his, and he was using their lovemaking as a means of achieving that objective.
Something Pru was refusing absolutely.
Because she did not feel the same need to be with him as he did her?
Maybe he should have waited before calling upon her father. Given Pru time to calm down from whatever had been troubling her earlier that caused her to leave him so abruptly, before broaching the subject with her of the two of them marrying? Unfortunately, patience had never been one of his virtues.
He had thought only of protecting Pru four days ago by leaving Germaine House and remaining apart from her, but after so many days of not seeing and being with her, he was tired of their separation and the misunderstandings which had arisen because of it. If Pru was his wife, he could keep her safe. Safer than she was here at Germaine House or gadding about the city unaccompanied as she had done before and again today.
His lids narrowed. “Where have you been since you left Romney House?” If Pru had been in the house, either when his letter to her father was delivered or when Titus arrived half an hour or so ago, then he had no doubt he would have seen her before this.
“It is unimportant where I have been,” Pru dismissed.
“Not to me.” Titus stepped close enough to be able to discern her seductive womanly perfume and the underlying aroma of his earlier release. Proof positive that she had not returned to Germaine House until a few minutes ago; otherwise, she would have bathed by now. “Where did you go, Pru?”
She shot him a frowning glance. “It seems to me that you still harbor doubt as to my innocence in the matter of treason.”
He reared back at the accusation. “Why on earth should you think that?”
She breathed deeply through her nose. “Is it not obvious?”
“Not to me,” he answered again.
“You are suspicious of my movements. No doubt you still have men watching me—”
“The men watching you are for your protection.”
“Then I suggest you ask them where I have been since we parted earlier.”
“We did not part, Pru, you walked out of my house in the middle of a disagreement.” A nerve pulsed in his clenched cheek. “Do you have another lover beside me?”
She gasped. “How can you even suggest such a thing after our lovemaking earlier? Or do you suspect me of taking another lover in the few hours we have been apart?”
What Titus suspected, knew, was that he was behaving like a jealous fool. Because Pru belonged to him, damn it. “You will marry me,” he thundered.
“Only if you intend to tie and gag me, and then carry me to the altar!”
“Your ass needs another good spanking!”
“You are an ass if you think that will solve anything!”
Titus drew in several deep breaths, knowing that once he had placed his hand on Pru’s bare bottom he would be carrying her up the stairs to her bedchamber, not to finish this discussion but to show her once and for all to whom she belonged. “I think it for the best if I leave now,” he bit out instead. “Your father has invited me to dinner this evening—”
“In that case, I shall be indisposed.”
“You will get your delectable ass down to dinner this evening or face the consequences!”
She scowled. “I believe you to be obsessed with spanking me.”
He was obsessed with a lot more about her than that, but now, when Pru was so bristly and uncooperative, was not the time to discuss it. “Only if you allow it,” he reminded.
“Which I shan’t.”
Titus pulled her fiercely into his arms. “I suggest you bathe and change your clothes before this evening.” He claimed her mouth in a long and punishing kiss before lifting his head. “At the moment, you bear the distinct odor of spring flowers, lemons, and eau de Titus’s cum!”
Her cheeks blazed with color. “You—you—”
He raised his gaze to the ceiling. “At last you are rendered speechless.”
“Bastard.”
“Witch.”
“I hate you!”
“All evidence to the contrary, my dear.” Titus released her abruptly. “Do not test my patience any more today, Pru,” he warned as she would have spoken again. “Nor imagine that your parents’ presence at dinner this evening will save you from my retribution if you should continue with this rude and unreasonable behavior.” He turned abruptly on his booted heel and strode from the room.
Before he gave in to the temptation to take that retribution out on her backside right now.