but anyone who’s seen her at close quarters would see that she doesn’t have your beauty. And that’s the first thing she’d see. I shall not be taking you to meet her. That would be asking for trouble.’
‘That’s as roundabout a compliment as ever I heard,’ she said, beginning to walk away. ‘You paint a harsh picture of her, my lord, and a fulsome one of me. I refuse to believe she and I are so very different.’
Again, his hand caught a fistful of her fur cloak, pulling her back to him. ‘You have a lot to learn then,’ he said, ‘and one is that I don’t flatter women as other men do to soften them up. The second is that your obstinacy and wilfulness are on a par with hers and that when I said it could be tamed, I meant it. You would do well to take my advice, Henrietta, if only to keep out of trouble.’
Etta glared at him with all the indignation of a thwarted young woman seeing for the first time that she would have to deal with a man as obdurate as herself. ‘Tamed, my lord? You would prefer a pliant and obedient wife, then?’
‘Yes, woman,’ he said, holding her still by her elbows. ‘I would prefer a pliant and obedient wife to a shrew. What man would not?’ He bent his head to hers, looking deeply into her eyes with a piercing glare that made her blink. ‘But you will not be twisting me round your little finger as you have been used to doing with your father. Your relationship to the Queen will not help you as much as you think. In fact, you may discover that you’d rather not be related. And, yes, you may glare at me like a tigress, Henrietta, but with me you’ve met your match. And tomorrow, we shall discuss our wedding plans.’
‘No need to wait for tomorrow for that, my lord,’ she said sharply, shaking his hands off her arms. ‘That can be arranged in one word. Simple! The shortest possible ceremony with the fewest possible witnesses. There, how does that sound?’
She did not fully expect to be taken at her word on this, when everything she had said so far had been countered with some argument, and she had anticipated that publicity, grand guests and a show of his good fortune would be essential requirements for a man of his considerable standing and wealth. So when he agreed with her that a simple ceremony was very much to his taste, she realised with a nasty thud under her ribs that her retaliation had rebounded on herself instead of him.
‘Excellent,’ he said. ‘I shall go ahead and buy a special licence to avoid all that time-wasting, if that’s what you prefer. It’s not cheap, but probably cheaper than feasts and dresses and all the trimmings. Worth it, to get things over and done with.’
Etta tried out what she hoped might be an impediment. ‘But what about the Queen?’ she said, frowning at his eagerness to comply. ‘As a relative, surely I shall need her permission?’
‘I don’t see that that will be necessary, mistress, when she has not yet recognised you as her relative. Has she?’
‘No. Not yet.’
‘Well then, the sooner we get the formalities out of the way, the better. She’s very unlikely to go searching for beautiful young female relatives, is she? In fact, quite the opposite, I’d say.’
This was not at all what she had wanted, or expected, but to say so was now impossible. By pretending to oblige her, he must know that he was acting to the contrary. And whose fault was that? ‘It will take a while for you and Father to complete the formalities,’ she said. ‘There’s the matter of dowries and jointures.’
‘That’s already in hand,’ he said, setting off towards the house. ‘Our lawyers are already drawing up draft agreements. I’m not difficult to please.’
‘Already? What do you mean, already? When?’ she yelled.
Ahead of her, he stopped and turned, his face a picture of merriment. Shaking his head with laughter, he came back to her. ‘When?’ he repeated. ‘As soon as I saw you, Henrietta. At the Mercers’ banquet. I spoke to your father the very next day. I know my own mind, too, you see.’
‘And you had the audacity, my lord, to flirt with me at only our second meeting? Because you thought you were on safe ground? I find that behaviour disgraceful. Does my father know you went so far?’
‘What, that I might have stolen a kiss, had I tried?’
‘Enough!’ she yelped. ‘You are a knave and I neither desire you nor do I wish to marry you. I want nothing you can offer me. Nothing!’ She would have dodged round him to walk away, but the pathway was narrow between hedges of box and, with one sidestep, he barred her way. Goaded beyond endurance by his trickery and his unyielding bulk, she pummelled his chest with her fists as she had not done since childhood fights with her brothers. ‘Nothing!’ she yelled. ‘Nothing!’
Easily, he caught her wrists and held them together on his chest, obliging her to stand close to him. ‘Yes, you do,’ he said, softly. ‘Oh, yes, you do, mistress, though I know you’ll not admit it. If you’d truly not liked the look of me, even a mere mercer, you’d not have returned for a second look, would you? You came to see me, not the fabrics, little schemer. And I have quite a lot to offer you. Now calm down, or do you want me to kiss you here, where we’re being watched from the house?’
‘No, I do not. Neither here nor anywhere else.’
Smiling, he let her go, retaining one of her hands in his. ‘Good. Now walk with me up the path and show me the rest of the gardens, if you please.’
Like her royal half-sister, Etta had a pragmatic streak strong enough to influence those decisions and emotions that might have looked to the uninitiated like the perversity of an indulged and beautiful woman. Being aware of this, her step-parents intended to overrule their wayward daughter in the matter of marriage to Lord Somerville, once the peacock feather had signalled her interest. But for Etta, even through the humiliation of defeat, the bitter pill was made easier to swallow by knowing that this handsome creature was not to be compared to other young noblemen she had met, neither in manner, ability, intelligence or success in business. Nor would he easily be deterred from having his way, once he had decided on it. And in this particular, Etta was determined to test him to the limit, for he had deceived her, whatever excuse he gave, and he would not be allowed to forget. As for making love in the future, she was angry enough to hold out against him for as long as she could, for they had spoken neither of affection nor love and, as far as she was concerned, he had forfeited any right to expect it.
Her body, however, told her a different story, now she had tasted his kiss and felt the hard power of his arms. The man was despicable, unprincipled and arrogant, yet her conscience told her that, as his wife, she would have to call on all her reserves of will-power not to let him dent her armour. Or was it already too late for that?
* * *
With her parents and Aphra, Baron Somerville was totally at ease, showing no signs of the opposition that would have daunted men of lesser confidence. But as she sat in dignified silence, Etta was able to discover, through their interest in him, how much of the world he had seen. As a man of Flemish origin, a ship-owning merchant, he had travelled far and wide, even up to the ice-cold northern lands where waterfalls fell from the sky, animals swam beneath the sea, where lights danced in the night and jets of hot water spurted from the ground. In any other circumstances, she would have asked questions and shown an interest in the man she was to marry, but pride forbade this now and her eyes found other answers in their surreptitious examination of his thick, silky hair, his eloquent hands and the zest for life that shone from his eyes. As she watched, it became clear why he had packed so much into his thirty years, why he had won the admiration of his guild and why his business ventures had flourished on the back of his ambition.
