“Free rein? I think not. While he was alive to watch over you, you had your supposed freedom. But he knew, full well, that you and the estates needed protection after his death. And you must have known, too, that your father would choose a husband for you.”
She shook her head. “He tried once or twice, of course, but I refused.” She shrugged. “I have no interest in men.”
“Now that, I do not believe. Maybe you were put off men for one reason or another, but I do not believe you had no interest.” His eyes narrowed. “You have passion in your eyes. I can feel it, I can see it. What went wrong?”
How could he have guessed so accurately? A vision of the young man who had stolen her heart and her virginity flashed into her mind. She’d been fifteen—too young, too impetuous and too easily fooled by a few flirtatious words and flattery. Another woman—older and wealthier than she—had beckoned to him and he’d gone. Sold to the highest bidder. She’d decided there and then that she would never again fall prey to the appetites of her body, appetites that had also been her mother’s downfall.
She shrugged in what she hoped was a casual manner. “My past is none of your business.”
“True. But I’d always found understanding people helped greatly in everything I do.”
“Everything? You are a mercenary, are you not? So understanding people helped you to murder them?”
“Was a mercenary.”
“You still are sir. You’ve sold your services to the highest bidder, as before. My lord father must have thought it a great joke, to match me up with you.” She didn’t even try to keep the bitterness out of her voice.
“He knew that I could guard and protect you and his lands like no other man could.”
“Strange form of protection—gifting my life to a stranger.”
“Better than gifting to you a life of certain defeat and ignominy.”
She placed her wine goblet carefully on the table, trying not to spill the ruby liquid, trying not to reveal the fact that she feared he spoke the truth. “Nothing is certain, my lord. Not defeat, not ignominy. Only death.”
“Come now. You are too young and beautiful to contemplate death.”
She glanced at the rapidly reducing wine flagon. “The wine is obviously addling your eyes and brains. I am too old to be considered young.”
“You consider twenty-one years of age, old?”
“You know it is. All my friends were married by the time they were eighteen, or earlier. And, as to your other point, I have too healthy a complexion and body to be considered beautiful.”
His eyes travelled leisurely down her curves. She met his gaze with a narrowed one of her own. “I see nought to complain about.”
She leaned toward him, as if to speak confidentially. “How ill you are at the gentle art of wooing, my lord. Because, even to me, unused to such talk, ‘nought to complain about’ is seldom used to flatter a lady.”
“Indeed, you have me there.” Even under the intermittent flicker of the torchlight, Rowena could see the unmistakable flare of interest in his eyes. Eyes that had grown darker with each passing moment. “While I hardly think I need to woo my wife, all this talk of beauty makes me think that you desire me to court you.”
“That’s…” she spluttered, “that’s utterly ridiculous. I have no wish to be courted.”
“Just bedded and married then?”
“Certainly no wish for either of these.”
“The last of these has been accomplished but I can add in some wooing if it sweetens the idea of being bedded. You are obviously acquainted with the art of wooing for you to criticize my efforts—”
“Not at all—”
“Tell me, what words should I be using?”
“I have no interest in such matters. You purposely misunderstand.”
“Your protestations simply convince me further of my rightness.”
“So… if I speak, you disbelieve me, and if I say nothing, I cannot defend myself.”
“That is about the sum of it.”
“Then I shall save myself the bother of conversing.” Rowena rose. “I’ll bid you goodnight, sir. Do not even think to disturb me.”
“You seem to forget, lady, that we share the same solar.”
“You touch me and—”
“You would enjoy it, believe me.”
“You would not force me?”
“You’re right. I would not. I never have, and I never will, force a woman into my bed—the thought is abhorrent to me. But I will lie close to you, watching you, but not touching you. And then there’s tomorrow. Tomorrow, ’twill be different.” He looked at her thoughtfully. “Tomorrow we will begin our courtship.”