dozens of simpering misses infesting her father’s house. Though being rude was the only way he’d found of fending them off. If he was polite, they kept on cooing over him. And batting their eyelashes at him. And sighing over his supposed heroic exploits, which they claimed to have heard all about.
And trying to manoeuvre him underneath one of the kissing boughs.
Julia alone had turned her nose up at him. He’d assumed it had been because she was too high in the instep to look twice at an impoverished sea captain, no matter how heroic the newspapers made him out to be. Instead, all the time, she must have been planning a far more effective stratagem than the others.
‘Though what kind of marriage you think we’re going to have when we come from such different worlds I cannot imagine.’ Alec turned from her and ran his fingers through his hair, before turning back on her. ‘You know nothing about me at all. So what on earth possessed you to make a play for me like this? I can only think it some kind of attempt to prove you could triumph where all the others had failed.’
‘You arrogant oaf,’ she hissed. ‘I didn’t make a play for you at all. I detest you.’
‘Then what the hell was all that...fondling about? You cannot deny you got me all primed up before leading me out here.’
‘No, but I didn’t know it was you under that wig!’ She pointed wildly at the heap of horsehair lying on the floor. ‘I thought it was Sir Isaac Newton!’
‘You were attempting to seduce a man who’s been dead two hundred years?’
‘Oh, don’t be so stupid. I mean the man who came to the masquerade disguised as Sir Isaac Newton, of course!’
Of course. That made sense. She wouldn’t have looked so dejected if he had been the man she was trying to compromise.
But, what kind of man came to a Christmas masquerade dressed as Sir Isaac Newton? What did Sir Isaac look like anyway? And then he realised.
‘That man who found us. He was wearing a full-skirted coat like this.’ Though he’d discarded his wig, and tricorne hat—had he ever been wearing one. ‘You mean to tell me he was the one you intended to seduce?’
‘I never intended to seduce him,’ she protested, clenching her fists as she squared up to him. ‘I thought we would just kiss a bit. And then Marianne and Nellie would find us, and because Nellie is an outsider, Father would agree David and I would have to get married.’
‘If kissing was all that had happened, it’s more likely your father would have paid the singer to keep her mouth shut and have taken a horsewhip to that David.’ Actually, he felt like taking a horsewhip to the man himself. The pompous bag of wind had marched out and left her lying in the arms of what any gentleman would have assumed was her seducer. What kind of man abandoned a girl, a sheltered, pampered innocent, just when she needed help the most?
‘He isn’t worthy of you,’ he growled, incensed now that, after the lengths she’d gone to in order to strong-arm him into marriage, all the ungrateful oaf had done was look at her as though she was something nasty he’d stepped in.
‘How dare you say that! Just because his parents have no title, and only modest means, it doesn’t mean he’s a nobody.’
He hadn’t said the man was a nobody. So she must be reacting to arguments she’d heard from someone else about the pompous bladder of wind’s unsuitability.
‘He is the son of a gentleman,’ she carried on, indignantly.
Though her anger was completely misdirected, at least she’d cast off that pitiful, dejected air that made him feel like a clumsy great gowk.
‘And one day, he will be somebody. He’s studying medicine. He’s going to make great discoveries and become famous! So I wouldn’t be throwing myself away on him. And anyway, I love him.’
‘Well, he doesn’t love you.’
‘How can you possibly know anything of the sort? Of course he does.’
‘No, he doesn’t. Or he wouldn’t have looked at you that way.’
‘What way? I mean—naturally, he was very shocked. And...and disappointed.’
‘But not devastated. Any real man who was in love would have attempted to strangle the man who’d got there first, not turn his nose up as if he’d smelled something bad.’
She reeled as if he’d struck her. He firmed his jaw. Better to get her to face facts now, than have her mooning over the man for months. He’d far rather have her angry and spitting fire when he marched her down the aisle, than drooping on the verge of tears.
‘Come on,’ he said, gripping her arm and towing her towards the window. ‘We need to go find your father and make the best of this.’
* * *
‘Wait,’ Julia gasped, struggling ineffectually to shake off his hand. He had to let go of it eventually, to throw up the sash. Once he’d done so, he held his hand out again, imperiously.
Instead of taking it, she backed away. They couldn’t go and tell her father what they’d done! She couldn’t bear his disappointment, on top of her own. Or worse, his disapproval. So far, he’d never subjected her to the chilling antipathy he invariably displayed towards her older half-brothers. She’d been prepared to brave it for David’s sake. But for this man? This stranger? No.
‘Look...’ He sighed. ‘I know I shouted. And, yes, I’m angry, very angry, but I promise, you don’t need to be afraid of me.’
‘I’m not afraid of you.’
‘Then what is the matter? You’ve got to face the facts, woman. You cannot very well pretend this never happened. I ken well it wasn’t with the man you intended, but the end must be the same.’
‘No. No, there must be some other way...’
‘There isn’t. The only way to make this right is to marry.’
‘You think marrying a stranger could ever make anything right?’
‘It will make it the rightest it can be.’ He stepped over the sill, leaned back inside, and hauled her out after him.
She’d already discovered he was too strong to make struggling with him anything but undignified. So, she simply trotted along behind him, though her mind was racing as fast as he was obliging her legs to go.
* * *
Thank goodness she’d stopped trying to resist. There was no time to waste. Alec didn’t trust any of those three to keep their mouths shut. Not for very long, anyway. And he needed to get this mess straightened out before they had a chance to do any damage. The very last thing he needed right now was a rumour going round that would blacken his reputation. He’d had to work twice as hard to gain his present rank, as men with family sponsors greased their way into promotions and fat prizes. He wasn’t going to let this silly girl bring it all crashing down round his ears.
‘Weeping and wailing isn’t going to make this go away,’ he said harshly, when he heard what sounded suspiciously like a stifled sob. Alec clasped
