was so unattractive.
‘I have arranged for my father to stay in London for the next week so that you can settle in.’ Aaron might have told the old man to stay away, but there was no guarantee that he would comply. ‘As the new mistress of Ardleigh Manor, some of the staff will expect to take instructions from you. Mrs Poole will introduce you to the cook and the staff tomorrow.’ He could not help noticing that her green eyes were hard emeralds again and her mouth had begun to curl into what appeared to be a snarl. ‘Unless, of course, you would prefer to postpone that until you feel more comfortable.’ Despite the fire, the temperature of the room felt as if it had dropped several degrees since she entered it.
‘Through here is the bedchamber.’ Aaron opened the internal doors for her self-consciously, aware that he was rambling to fill the excruciatingly painful silence, and then his voice trailed off as he saw that the servants had already turned down the bed. Both sides of the bed. They barely knew each other and now they were stood alone in a bedchamber. The big, canopied mattress mocked him from the centre of the room. It was designed for two people to share, yet he had no idea if they would be sharing the thing tonight. A wedding night was the expected conclusion of a wedding day, he supposed, but as theirs had been so acrimoniously arranged with such speed he would not blame her if she wanted to wait a bit. They were little more than strangers.
‘You have your own bedchamber,’ she asked abruptly, staring at the bed as well.
‘It is down the hallway.’ Good grief—was a conversation ever more uncomfortable and stilted as this one?
‘Good.’ She turned her face towards his and he saw the venom in her pretty face. ‘You are not welcome in this one.’
Aaron slowly nodded in sympathy, oddly relieved that he would be spared the ordeal tonight. They were both still so shocked to find themselves married, they hardly needed the added burden of enforced intimacy now. ‘I did not think you would want me here just yet. I believe we should get to know each other a little bit first, before we...ah...’
‘I will never want you here. Be under no illusion that those feelings will ever change. They won’t. The thought of your hands on my body makes me feel ill. The only way it will happen is if you force me and even then I will not lie meekly under you like a dutiful wife is supposed to. I will scratch and claw and scream my hatred for you so loudly that all of the servants will hear it!’
Well, that certainly left his position in doubt, Aaron thought, reeling, although he supposed he deserved it. He had a particular talent for ruining lives. ‘I am sorry for the way things turned out, Connie. I never meant for this to happen.’
Her hands fisted and for a moment he thought that she might strike him, so vivid was her anger. ‘How dare you lie to me? Do you seriously expect me to believe that a vile Wincanton would not seize the opportunity to ruin the only daughter of his sworn enemy? You planned it, Aaron Wincanton! You came to the library intent on compromising me. Intent on revenge.’
The woman clearly had a penchant for the fanciful if she could think that, although she was overwrought, so he replied calmly in the hope she would see reason, ‘I most certainly did not. I will admit I went into the library because you were there, and with hindsight I realise that was a reckless and stupid thing to do, but I never intended anyone to know about it.’
Her hands went to her hips. ‘Oh, really? And I suppose you expect me to believe that your seduction, followed by the convenient arrival of my fiancé and both of our fathers, was also accidental? I am not a fool, Aaron.’
He could understand that it looked bad. ‘I did not go to the library with plans to seduce you, Connie.’
‘Then why did you?’
It was a fair question and one he was not sure he could properly answer without admitting how precarious his financial situation was. He ran a hand roughly through his dark hair in frustration. ‘I suppose I kept seeking you out because I hoped that it would eventually lead to a conversation with your brother. I want to build some bridges between our families. I thought that, in time, as the next generation we might find a way to end this petty feud. I never meant for anything more than that.’
‘Of course you didn’t.’ She was flouncing around, her long legs making short work of the distance from one wall to the next, and dramatically gesticulating as her mouth dripped sarcasm. ‘You spouted all of that Romeo and Juliet rubbish and it inadvertently gave you romantic ideas. Then you kissed me, because you were so caught up in the magic of the moment and so dazzled by my obvious beauty—and then invited an audience to witness it, you snake!’
His own temper was roused now. Likening him to a snake was uncalled for. ‘You kissed me back, as I recall, and with a great deal of enthusiasm, too. You are not completely without blame in this. My waistcoat did not undo itself, Connie. As for the audience, I was as shocked as you were when they all turned up.’ It was then that he had realised that his own carefully laid plans for the future had been shattered as well. Now they were destined to be penniless and miserable together.
She planted her hands on her hips and gave him one of her imperious glances. ‘How very convenient for you.’
Aaron saw red. Literally. He had never understood that expression until that moment. But to see her stood there so piously, as if she had not kissed him back with so much fervour that they had both lost their heads, while throwing ludicrous accusations at him, then sarcastically discounting every explanation he tried to make—well, it was too much. That ill-timed kiss had ruined much more than Constance Stuart’s reputation, it had ruined the lives of every impoverished tenant on the Wincanton land.
‘Convenient? Have you gone quite mad?’ He found himself marching towards her and looming over her in a way he had never, ever done to another woman in his life. His hands were fisted tightly at his sides to stop him from grabbing her by the shoulders and shaking her until her teeth ratted inside that smart mouth of hers. ‘You think that this marriage is convenient for me? Of course it isn’t. This is a marriage of great inconvenience to me, Connie. In fact, it is an unmitigated disaster. I was about to propose to Violet Garfield! Now I am stuck with you instead.’ Violet might well be as dense as a suet pudding, but at least she had a cheerful disposition and looked at him with glowing admiration. Constance Stuart was tart as a lemon and looked at everyone as if they were beneath her. Especially him. Well, he was quite done with it.
‘Answer me this, Miss Sanctimonious: if I constructed this whole ruse, in an attempt to bring about your ruin in petty revenge against your awful family, then why the hell did I not leave you to suffer it alone? Surely that would have been the greatest revenge possible for a vile Wincanton? Leave you compromised and doomed to endure the censure of everyone alone. Yet I did not. Against my father’s wishes, and against my own better judgement I might add, I left that ballroom straight away and procured a special licence. And then I married you. I gave you my name and my protection. I gave you a home. A truly vile Wincanton would have seen you thrown on the streets, as your own father planned to, and laughed at you in the gutter!’
She gaped at him then, lost for words, but he was not done and she had it coming. He could not remember the last time he had unleashed his temper with such unchecked fury. He had long ago stopped feeling personally aggrieved at anything, instead he accepted everything thrown at him as just punishment for all that he had done. But in this instance, although he knew he was largely to blame as he was in everything, she had to take her share of it. Yet she was still staring daggers back at him, completely unrepentant and totally aggrieved. Her self-righteous martyrdom enraged him further. Again he seriously considered shaking some sense into the woman or putting her over his knee and spanking her like the spoiled child she was.
In an attempt to calm his
