style="font-size:15px;"> “Thirty at most,” he said gravely, but she saw the gleam in those gunmetal-gray depths, and imagined this was his version of laughing. She felt an answering sort of tightness in her chest. As if they were connected, or ought to be. “What will you do with the rest of your time?”
She considered him for a moment, and then decided she might as well go for it. No false advertising, she reminded herself. Bold as brass. Start as you mean to go on.
“As a matter of fact,” she confessed, leaning in closer as if what she had to say was salacious gossip instead of simply embarrassing. And of course he would draw the worst conclusions—who wouldn’t? “I am in some debt.”
“Some?” His brow arched again, while his gaze seemed to pry into her. Any further, she thought in a mixture of that same dizziness and something far darker and more dangerous, and he’d be able to see the number itself like a tattoo inside her head.
“A great deal of debt,” she amended. He only looked at her, and she smiled, though it felt strained. “A vast, impossible sum, as a matter of fact. Do they still have debtor’s prison in England?”
“Not since the nineteenth century,” Rafe said in that dry, not-quite-amused voice. “I think you’re safe.”
“From debtor’s prison, perhaps,” Angel said sadly. She was only partially faking the sadness. “But not from the appalling interest rates.”
His gaze moved over her again, testing. Measuring. Once again, she felt like a show horse. She had the insane urge to show him her teeth, as must surely be expected in cases like these, but refrained at the last second.
“How do you imagine a marriage based on a transaction like this would work?” he asked then, as if, she thought in a potent mix of excitement and terror, he was actually considering it. Was he considering it? “For example, what do you have to bring to the table?”
“My spectacular beauty, of course,” she said in very nearly the same matter-of-fact tone he’d used before. She might have been discussing show horses herself, she thought. Teeth to hooves. “I’d be an excellent trophy. And as we all know, rich men do love their trophies.”
“Indeed.” Again, that wicked brow. Arrogant. Powerful. He was not, she thought belatedly, a man to be trifled with. “But as we all also know, even the greatest beauty fades in time while wise investments only multiply and grow. What then?”
Angel had not anticipated actually having this conversation, she realized then. She certainly had not imagined being quizzed on her potential contribution to the marriage of convenience that was meant to save her. Possibly because she hadn’t really expected that her brilliant plan, dreamed up in coach class over an insipid plastic cup of vodka orange, would go this far, she admitted to herself. Had she been kidding herself all along?
But no, she thought firmly. What, exactly, were her options? She might be enjoying this conversation with Rafe McFarland, Lord Pembroke, Earl of Great Wealth, far more than she’d imagined she might when she’d first seen him—but whatever the outcome, she was fifty thousand pounds in debt. And while her unreliable mother was the one who had got her into this, Chantelle was unlikely to be any help in getting her out. Sadly, she knew Chantelle entirely too well.
This was up to her to solve. On her own. Like everything else in her life.
“I am delightful company,” she continued then, emboldened by her own panic.
She forced herself to smile as if she was perfectly at ease—as if she routinely rattled off her résumé to strange men as if she was up for auction. Which she supposed she was, actually. Not a cheering thought.
“I’m very open-minded and won’t care at all if you have a sea of mistresses,” she told him.
She meant it. She’d seen that in action with Bobby and her own mother, hadn’t she? And it certainly seemed to work for them, as they’d been married for years now. Who was Angel to judge the way they conducted themselves and that marriage if they themselves professed to be happy?
“In fact,” she continued, trying to pretend her mother’s marriage didn’t make her feel dirty by association, somehow, “I’d expect it. Rich man’s prerogative and all that. I have very little family, so there will be no tedious holiday functions to suffer through and you won’t have to lay eyes on them at all, should that be your preference.”
She thought of the great, raucous Christmases with loving if careless Bobby and all the Jacksons with a sharp twinge of guilt. She thought of her stepbrother Ben’s quiet concern and determination to be there for her whether she liked it or not, just as a brother would, she imagined, with another searing pang. Allegra’s unobtrusive but steadfast support. Even Izzy. But she cast it all aside.
“I have a great many opinions and enjoy a good debate,” she said, trying to think of the things an earl might want in a wife, and able only to picture those endless period dramas on the BBC, all petticoats and bodices and everyone falling all over their titles in and out of horse-drawn carriages, none of which seemed to apply to this situation. “But I’m also perfectly happy to keep my own counsel if that’s what you’d like. I can be endlessly agreeable.”
“You make yourself sound like some kind of marionette,” Rafe observed. Not particularly kindly.
“If by that you mean the perfect companion and wife,” Angel replied sweetly, “then I agree. I am.”
She searched his face again, but saw nothing new. Nothing that told her if she was swaying him one way or another. Nothing that explained why she was suddenly so very determined that she should succeed in this. Only that strange, curiously him mixture of violent ruin and male beauty, so striking and imposing and impossible to look away from. Only that cool, measuring gleam in his dark gray eyes. She pulled in a breath, prepared to launch into another list of all she had to offer, whatever that might be, but he reached over and put a finger on her lips.
Bold. Hot. Shocking.
Something kicked deep inside of her, hot and low. She felt his touch like flame. Like a blazing light that seared through the darkness and made her shine too. Her head spun around and around, even after he dropped his hand back to his side.
“You can stop,” he said mildly. Almost casually. “I’ll marry you.”
He didn’t know what he expected her to do. Squeal with joy? Weep with gratitude? Naturally, Angel did neither. She only watched him for a beat, then another, and he had the distinct impression that she was shocked. Stunned?
While he simply wanted her. Any way he could have her. If it would take a healthy application of his money, well, he had plenty of it, and he needed a wife besides. He told himself it was purely practical. And yet that want pulsed in him.
Still she gazed at him, as if trying to work something out.
Perhaps, he thought darkly, his money was not quite dirty enough to ensure her blindness to his scars after all. It hadn’t yet prevented him from seeing the truth of himself either, and he knew more of that truth than she ever would. He could hardly blame her.
“Come,” she said then, surrendering her empty champagne glass to a passing waiter and then holding out her hands. She did not smile, though her too-blue eyes began to gleam. “Dance with me.”
Rafe
