Blake knew she had been kissing Ruary.
For a second, panic threatened to overwhelm Tara, but then pride took over. Pride in the man she loved.
Years ago she had denied Ruary. She would not do so any longer. She would not feel embarrassment or shame.
Only moments ago, she’d been so absorbed with finally being able to hold Ruary and be held by him that she had not registered they’d not been alone. She’d even lost track of time.
Now she found herself less than ten feet away from the man who would be her husband, and she knew she looked as if there had been intimacies, but she didn’t care.
She loved Ruary. He was important to her. Their passionate meeting in the stall had served to convince her that she’d been right to run away. No other man had ever kissed her so fully or completely, and no other man ever would.
In truth, she’d been willing to offer all she had to him. Right there on the floor of the stall in the hay. Her desire, her need for him was that strong, and his response to her kisses had proven to her that he still cared. He would always care.
But Ruary had been the one to refuse to consummate their love. He had explained that he had to respect his betrothal to Jane. He must. At least until he and Tara had made a decision about their future. But first, he wanted to speak to Jane.
And his words, full of honor, had made Tara admire him all the more . . . especially when, for all his fine protestations, he’d not been able to resist kissing her again. And again.
With each kiss came hope. A love like theirs could not be denied.
A cold hardness came to Blake’s eye as his gaze rested on her lips. They were still swollen from Ruary’s kisses, and for a moment she had doubt. Blake was not a man to insult.
She braced herself for a confrontation, certain Ruary would step forward. He’d come up to stand beside her.
Blake looked from one to the other. “What was going on in the stall?” he asked.
Ruary answered, “The horse in that stall threw a shoe. Lady Tara could not go riding until it was replaced.”
That was true . . . although Tara had hoped for a more impassioned response from Ruary.
“I would imagine a farrier’s duties beneath you, horse master,” Blake said, his tone low, dangerous.
A tight muscle worked in Ruary’s jaw. Tara held her breath.
“We don’t stand on much ceremony here,” Ruary answered. “The horse needed the shoe tacked on, and I was here to do it.”
“The earl is fortunate to have your services,” Blake responded, but there was an undercurrent of meaning in his words.
Ruary squared his shoulders, and suddenly Tara feared this confrontation. Too much was at stake. What if Blake went to her father? Ruary could be hurt, and Aileen’s comment about the horse master needing a way to earn his living echoed in Tara’s mind.
“I’m ready to walk back to the house now,” she said, interjecting herself between them. She kept her voice light, innocent, with just the touch of warmth that pleased men.
Contrary to character, Blake turned away from her. “I need to untack my new friend Thomas Aquinas.”
“Oh, Mr. Jamerson can see to that, won’t you, sir?”
A cloud darkened Ruary’s face, an expression that said groom’s duties truly were beneath him.
She smiled, pleading with her eyes for him to just continue the ruse a bit longer. After all, he expected her to do the same for him over Jane.
Ruary stretched his muscles, as if unwinding tension. “Yes, of course I will. I’m glad you like Thomas, sir,” he continued, walking up to the horse. “He’s one of the best in this stable. A grand personality.”
“And another task outside your duties,” Blake prodded. There was still an edge to his tone. “You Scots are a humble lot.”
Ruary reached for the saddle. Blake had already unfastened the girth. “The stable lad went down the lane for his supper. I told him I would see to things while he was gone. I started off in these stables performing the exact same duties. In truth, there are times I miss it. Nothing like the day-to-day handling of a horse that tells you what you need to know about an animal. Makes them respect you.”
Tara assumed that last was directed at Blake, and she decided to separate her men. “Come, Blake,” she coaxed, pulling on his arm. “Let us go to the house.”
“But of course, my lady. Lead the way,” Blake answered.
She did not have to be asked twice. As she and Blake walked to the entryway, she could feel Ruary watching them, and she knew he was not pleased. She wanted him certain of her. She owed him that much, but still—a little jealousy was not a bad thing.
Tara began babbling to Blake about plans for the wedding day. She really didn’t know what she was saying. As was so often the situation when she was with him, she just wanted to fill the silence and ease the tension. Here was a topic that she felt must interest him. Besides, it was easier to talk about menus and schedules than something of true substance—
Blake grabbed her arm and pulled her to a halt. They were halfway to the house, guarded by the line of beeches that separated the garden from the stable path.
“I am not a fool, Tara,” he said.
“I would never call you such,” she answered, sounding convincing to her own ears. If he wanted a scene, well, this was as good a place as any. She braced herself.
He did not disappoint. “Why did you run away?” he asked. “And don’t offer that nonsense of a maidenly fear of matrimony. I won’t buy it—”
“It isn’t nonsense,” Tara said. “It was very real—”
He placed a hand on each arm as if he would give her a shake. “You went to great extremes and a good deal of danger to avoid marrying me, and then you turn around and act as if you are happy with our wedding? Then I catch you flirting with the horse master, and now you are on pins and needles as if daring me to make an accusation. What is this? What game are you playing? Why did you bolt? Is there someone else?”
A few moments ago, with Ruary beside her, she’d been ready to declare to the world her love for him.
But now, she found she couldn’t. Blake’s directness was unnerving.
At her silence, he said, “I’m not some callow youth, Tara. Things can be complicated between men and women. What I ask for, what I trust, is honesty.”
She searched his eyes. He appeared serious, but she had heard these declarations before. People always claimed to want honesty, but when they had it, they were not pleased.
And sometimes she didn’t know what the truth was.
She experienced that confusion now, because Blake was a good man, one who would be an excellent husband. She’d not been foolish in choosing him over her other suitors in London. Many a man had been willing to pay the price her father had wanted for her hand.
“Kiss me,” she said.
“What?”
“Kiss me.” Tara lifted herself toward him. “Is that such an outrageous request?”
He appeared baffled by her demand, and it was Tara’s turn to become surly. “Blake, you’ve kissed me before. I mean, you’ve kissed my hand and my cheek, but they were pecks, a mere brush of the lips. I don’t think any one of them has ever qualified as a true kiss, do you?”
“Such as what Jamerson offered?” he countered.
Tara was not truly devious by nature, and she’d vowed never to deny Ruary, but for the briefest moment, her heart seemed to stop. Was she making the right decision?
And then she heard herself challenge him. “Why are you so insistent upon marrying me?”
His hands dropped from her arms. “Because—,” he started and then stopped, as if there were no words to follow.
“Because why?”
“Because . . . I need a wife.”
“Well, then, any woman would have suited your purpose. But why did you choose me?”
“I admire you?” he hazarded.
She almost laughed. “You don’t sound certain.”
“Is that terrible?” he said.
“It’s not loverlike. Can you imagine Romeo doing all he did for Juliet simply because he admired her?”
“So I am to be tested?” he snapped. “You want to measure my kisses against a servant’s?”
Ah, there it was. “Ruary is not a servant. He is a good and noble man—”
“And you wish to compare lovers,” he shot back.
“He is not my lover,” she said, heat rising to her cheeks. “And since you raise the question, let me say I am untouched. I am as you expect . . . but is it wrong, Blake, to start wondering if there isn’t more to the idea of marrying than matching bloodlines or being sold off to the highest bidder?”
“There were others who would have bid more for you. You turned them down, remember?”
“Such as your brother Arthur?”
“My half brother Arthur, and, no, I was not referring to him. He could never have afforded the price your father put on you.”
“But it gave you great pleasure to spite him and claim me,” she answered, as clear-eyed as he himself. “But shouldn’t marriage mean something more than a chance to prove yourself better than the duke’s legitimate sons?”
“You know nothing of it,” he muttered. He took a step toward the house, but Tara was not going to let him run from that statement.
She grabbed his arm and held on. She might be female and several stone lighter than he, but she did have strength, especially when she dug in her heels.
He whipped around. “What?”
“Why did you make an offer to me?” she pressed. “Say it. I’m asking for your honesty, Blake. Admit it, you don’t care about me. You never did.”
“Then why did you accept my offer?” he answered, true anger lighting his eyes.
“That is a fair question,” she replied. She struggled to sort through her feelings, feelings she hadn’t recognized having until that awful moment in London when she’d realized she had to find Ruary. Even after a week of considering the matter, many of her reasons seemed jumbled in her mind . . . but some things were clear to her.
Tara lifted her gaze to meet his. “I was flattered. They all wanted you, you know, all the women. You are handsome, but you are also aloof and perhaps a bit dangerous because of your past. And then there is your role as the duke of Penevey’s black sheep. That he recognized you, that he might even prefer you over his legitimate sons, makes you very intriguing.”
“I’m no rake.”
“You don’t have to be,” she said. “Everyone knows the only gambling you do is the occasional wager, although your friends are out and outers. You aren’t known for dueling or imbibing, although the one duel you fought, you won.”
“That is no advantage to losing.”
Tara had to smile. Blake had a quick wit. “What interested me most of all,” she continued, “is that you don’t need your father. Yes, Penevey played an important role in your life, but you are the sort of man who would have succeeded at whatever endeavor he chose. You can’t imagine how jealous I am. I have so few choices.”
“No, Tara, you can’t blame your decisions on your father.”
“I’m not,” she replied, stung by his verdict. “I mean, Father is a trial. I recognized his vices and that he will never be a doting parent. But my choices are limited because I’m female. Perhaps if I was as bold as you or male, I could make my own way in the world.”
“We all make our own way,” he said, “but only the successful brag about it.”
“Oh, please,” she said with irritation. “You criticize me for not conforming to how I’m expected to behave, then chide me for not being more independent?”
“I chide you for wanting me to believe you are defenseless. There are mother wolves more defenseless than you, Tara. You always take care of yourself—”
“I have a heart—”
“And a reputation for playing fast and loose with it—”
“Are you going to claim your heart is involved now?” Tara demanded, stung by his accusation.
“I don’t even know if I have a heart,” Blake returned. “Certainly it has never been attached. A combination of luck and good sense has made me very wealthy, but I’ve had to work bloody hard, my lady, for everything I have. You asked why I courted you?” He laughed softly, a self-deprecating sound. “Of course it was because Arthur and all three of my ‘brothers’ don’t consider me good enough to clean their boots. And because my father, a man who didn’t claim me until I was ten, but claim me he did, advised me that I could change the future of my children with a good wife.”
“Or Penevey wished me removed from the danger of becoming Arthur’s wife.”
“That as well,” Blake agreed without missing a beat. “And don’t think I didn’t understand that fact when I offered for you.”
“He needn’t have feared. As you pointed out, Arthur is not wealthy, but also, I do have standards.”
He shrugged his shoulders. “Then we have the same opinion of Arthur.”
“But is that enough, Blake?”
“Enough for what?” he answered, his annoyance plain.
“On which to build a marriage?”
Blake backed away from her. “I don’t know anything any longer.” Again, there was a tone of self-criticism.
“Tell me what you are thinking,” she asked, softening her voice.
“You wish to know what I think? I believe you consider me a fool. You left London without a care about what your jilting would cost me. If you jilted Arthur, a duke’s heir and a marquis in his own right, he would have survived. But myself?” His eyes narrowed into hard glints. “If it was known that you’d bolted on me, I would have been a laughingstock. I would have lost respect. Do you know how hard I’ve had to work for every single thing I own? And that you would undo it all because of your flightiness?”
“But what if I love someone else?”
The words had just flowed out of her. A question that perhaps had not been wise to speak aloud, yet there it was: her very soul before him.
The set of his mouth turned grim. “I will not be cuckolded, Tara. I will not have a wife who shows no discretion. I may not be able to control you, but I can certainly make any other man think twice before he takes you.”
“Even if it means we are both unhappy?”
“What does happiness have to do with honor?”
“Perhaps not very much,” she admitted. “But it has much to do about love.”
“And what do you know about love, my lady? What do any of us know? Love is a ‘feeling.’ A piece of nonsense to make us believe there is a deeper importance to our actions than what there is.”
“Am I important, Blake?”
“Are you asking if I am as besotted over you as half your suitors? In a word, no.”
“That wasn’t what I meant,” Tara countered, softly, stung by his bluntness. “I’m talking about love.”
“And what is love then?” he challenged.
Tara thought of Ruary, of how she felt when she was with him—the racing of her pulse, the desire, no, the need to be as close to him as possible. “Love,” she said, raising her gaze to meet his, “means doing whatever I must for the person I love. Even if my heart is hurt in the process.”
He considered her a moment, then answered, “You are lovely, Tara. I mean no insult when I confess I do not love you.”
“And yet you would object to my finding someone I genuinely love?”
“First, my lady, I can’t imagine you being selfless. And secondly, I keep what is mine,” he said.
“You are a bastard,” she whispered.
“You force me to be,” he countered.
Her response was to pick up her skirts and go flying for the house.
Blake watched Tara run as if she feared he would give chase.
She was wrong, of course. He didn’t chase women. And Penevey was the only man to whom he had ever conceded his pride.
He was his own person. An island in a teeming sea of opportunists, charlatans and other selfish creatures. The only person he could trust was himself. To the devil with the rest of them.
Except now he was shackled to Tara Davidson. Damn her to holy hell.
She had taken what should have been a simple matter, a marriage, and turned it into a fight for his very self-respect.
Blake turned, looking in the direction of the stables, and discovered the horse master standing by the entrance, the reins of his horse in his hand. Chances were that he’d had a view of Blake and Tara arguing.
For a long moment, the two men took each other’s silent measure.
If the horse master thought he would best Blake, he was wrong.
For a second, Blake toyed with the idea of calling the man out. However, there was no honor in dueling with a man beneath one’s station in life.
Of course, the problem was, Blake didn’t truly know what his station was.
The marriage was to solve that, he realized. The marriage would give him roots.
But if he didn’t marry Tara, then what?
There were people who would adore a story of his fall from grace.
He could not let that happen. He would not.
It was a devil of a fix . . . especially since the woman he realized he wanted was not Tara at all but her sister.