Impulse. Candace Camp
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together. “A willing wife is certainly easier,” he said, as unconcerned as if they were talking about the weather. “However, it is not one of my conditions.”
“What are your conditions?”
“Then you are ready to negotiate?”
“I did not say that,” she replied carefully.
“You have let me know what a low and filthy soul I am, and I have acknowledged it. Now we can get down to bargaining. My condition is that you marry me as soon as possible. In return, I will tear up your brother’s personal notes. I will invest money in the mines and the land so that both can be restored to their former profitability. I will take over their running—only in actuality, of course, not in title. For the time being, we will live here, as I will have some work to do to bring the mine and lands back into shape. The castle will need restoring, as well. There is dry rot in the Elizabethan gallery, I understand.”
“And what about the report on my brother? What about the threat you hold over his head?”
“I would have little reason to besmirch the reputation of my own brother-in-law, now, would I? I will toss the report on the fire, and I have paid the investigators enough to ensure their silence. No one will know of it.” He paused, then added, “You shall have your own fund, of course, for your pocket money. Jeremy should be all right without the interest of all his debts weighing him down and without the expenses of this house. But if it’s necessary, I shall give him an allowance until the farm and mines start to yield better profits.”
“So … on the one hand, destruction—on the other, beneficence. How easily you play God.”
“Not God. Merely a man who knows what he wants.”
“I see. And what other people want does not matter.”
He shrugged. “We are negotiating, are we not? If you want something, say so.”
Angela started to remind him that she was not negotiating terms with him, that she had no intention of accepting his offer, but it seemed too much effort at the moment.
“Come, come, Angela, surely there is something you want from me.”
“All I want is my freedom.”
“You shall have plenty of freedom—more freedom than you have now, in fact, since you will be a married woman, and one with money. Money creates a great deal of freedom. I have proven that.”
“No wife is free,” Angela replied flatly. “She is always subject to her husband’s whims.”
“I am a man of few whims.” The faint smile on his face goaded her.
“I do not wish to share your bed,” she told him bluntly.
Her words seemed to hang in the air. Angela flushed. Suddenly she was very aware of the fact that she wore only a nightgown and robe and that Cam was very casually dressed, his coat and tie off, his sleeves rolled up to his elbows and the top two buttons of his shirt undone, exposing a vee of browned chest, lightly dotted with black hairs. Angela swallowed and looked away. There was a strange sensation in her stomach, the flicker of some long-ago feeling. She remembered how it had been when she and Cam were in love, the way they had rushed together at every opportunity. They would ride out behind the ruins of an old shepherd’s hut, to a copse of trees there, and she would dismount, sliding down into Cam’s arms.
Angela knew that she would never forget the look in his eyes, so dark they were almost black, yet leaping with a flame, or the way his mouth widened sensually as he smiled up at her. He would let her slide slowly down through his strong hands, and then he would pull her to him and kiss her. Angela shifted and cleared her throat. Her stomach was jumping wildly around.
“Indeed?” Cam said coolly. “An odd request, coming from you.”
Angela stiffened at the implied insult and whirled to stalk out of the room. Cam was up and after her in an instant. His hand lashed out and curled around her wrist, pulling her to a stop.
“Why?” he growled. “Just tell me that! Why did you sleep with those others, yet you would rather let your brother sink into ruin than sleep with me? Is it because of who I am? Because the blood in my veins isn’t pure enough? Is my skin too dirty to touch yours?”
Angela started to deny his words hotly, but reason stopped her. Let him think what he would, as long as it gave him a disgust of her. Then he would no longer desire to marry her. She raised her chin a little and stared straight back into his face, forcing herself to hold her gaze steady.
“I am a Stanhope,” she told him proudly. “Perhaps when I was young I was foolish enough to think birth did not matter, but I know better now. Money will never make you a gentleman. I cannot lie with a man who is anything else.”
Ostentatiously Cam dropped her wrist and walked away. Angela braced herself, prepared for a loud and angry condemnation of her shallowness. She was surprised when, after a moment, he turned and said in a clipped voice, “Are those your terms? Not to sleep in my bed? If I agree to that, you are willing to marry me?”
Angela stared at him, flabbergasted. “What? You still want to marry me? Knowing how I feel about you?”
His face was as impassive as stone. “I told you, I expect no love match. ‘Tis more a … a business arrangement on both sides. I did not ask to marry you in order to get between your sheets. If you think that I could live with a cold wife and not keep a warm and willing mistress stashed away for comfort, then you are very much mistaken.”
Angela’s lip curled. “Of course. You would have to have a mistress.”
“What do you think? That I should live a celibate because you are too fine a lady to let a common man into your bed?”
“No. I think only that you should leave me in peace.”
“However, if I agreed to such terms, it would eliminate the possibility of heirs, now, wouldn’t it? I had wanted to have children with the Stanhope blood, the Stanhope place in Society. I had wanted to see my children acknowledged by families such as yours.”
“You think that our children would have any place in Society?” Angela retorted sarcastically. “The offspring of a servant and a divorcée? There isn’t a chance in hell. You would do better if you married a genteel maiden, even if her parentage were lower. Better yet, go back to the United States. It is where you belong.”
“No.” His voice was quiet. “I have found that I do not belong anywhere.” He paused, then went on, “Again I ask, what if I agree to your terms? If I agreed that sharing a bed would not be part of our arrangement, would you marry me then?”
She gazed at him stormily, hating the roil of emotions inside her, hating his unflappable calm. Jeremy desperately needed her help, and she owed him for the way he had helped her during and after her divorce. She felt very guilty about refusing to do what was necessary to save him; it seemed horribly selfish. If Cam remained true to his word, perhaps it would not be so bad. Cam had never been mean or violent with her when they were young, and he seemed not to have enough emotions about her now to get enraged enough to hit her. If he kept to his promise not to make her sleep with him.
“I don’t know,” she said honestly. “I would have no way of being sure that the terms would be fulfilled. ‘Twould be easy to say that you would not take me, but after we were married, my body would be yours, not mine.”
Cam’s eyes darkened at her words, and his mouth softened subtly. “A curious way to put it,” he murmured.
“A truthful way.”
“If I gave you my word, you must realize that I would not break it. Surely you know me well enough to know that.”
“I don’t know you at all anymore.” Angela took a step back, glancing around her uncertainly. “I don’t know what to do.” She turned and ran from the room.
Angela sat on the bench in the arbor, sketching a stand of irises