The Man Behind the Scars(15)

How would he look at her if she admitted that she wished that this was romantic after all?

She was such an idiot. She felt the truth of that snake through her,  making her stomach clench. And then she looked at him, this husband who  would never see anything when he looked at her save what she cost him.

His guard had dropped into place again, that quiet curve of his mouth no  more than a memory-she could see it as plainly as if he'd pulled a  helmet of hammered armor over his face. Once again, he stood stiff and  ready, that cold bleakness in his gaze. It was the same way he'd looked  at her as she'd approached him in the Palazzo Santina.

Waiting, she realized in dawning understanding, and something else that  made her chest feel dangerously hollowed out from the inside. He was  waiting. For the harsh rejection he must have learned to expect. For her  to prove to him once again that he was the monster he believed himself  to be-that he'd told her he was.

You will soon be trapped with little hope of escape, he'd said, because  he thought that he was the thing that went bump in the night. That he  was what she feared, instead of the trappings of this bargain they'd  made, and what she knew it made her that she'd suggested it in the first  place. And then taken it. And then, worse by far, gone and started to  feel things she never should have let herself feel.                       
       
           



       

And Angel could not bear it. She could not add to this man's pain. They  were only scars, she thought, and yet he'd clearly been treated terribly  because of them. And whatever else he was, or would be to her-and her  mind skittered away from examining that too closely-she simply couldn't  be part of the great weight he carried around and wore like a badge of  fierce pride, as if he expected nothing less.

She simply could not bear it, no matter the cost to herself.

So she smiled, and it was easy this time. Easy and bright, and she  reached over and took his hand again, as if she had every right-which,  she supposed, she did now. And would, for as long as this devil's pact  between them lasted. She ignored the darkness in his gaze. She ignored  the rush of panic that threatened to tip her over where she stood,  because none of this was what she'd wanted once, and she knew that what  she did now would seal this marriage-would trap her just as he'd  warned-more surely than any kiss ever could.

Even a kiss like his.

Beneath the panic there was something else, something hot and dark and  his, and while she had no idea what would become of her, that part  didn't care. It only wanted more.

She smiled down at their signatures, then at him. And she laughed.

"Well, look at that," she said, and she found she was carried away in  her own merriment, suddenly. As if she'd made it real. As if it was  true, this sudden light feeling that could, in other circumstances, have  been some distant cousin to joy. Or perhaps not so distant after all.  "I'm a bloody countess."





CHAPTER FIVE

"YOUR belongings have been packed up and moved out of your flat," Rafe  said in his gruff way, breaking the silence that had grown thick between  them. "As planned."

The wide and plush back of the sleek silver sedan seemed significantly  less roomy with Rafe in it. He sprawled on his side of the seat, his  long legs eating up the space before them, the heft of his big body-that  wide, hard chest and those strong arms-seeming to encroach upon her  when Angel knew, rationally, that he wasn't moving. He didn't have to  move to take up all the space, all the air. He simply did. As if he  exuded too much power to be contained in his own body.

He watched her, those dark eyes moving over her face like a touch. Like  the touch she could still feel, that set her heart racing and made her  breath shorten in her throat.

The truth she didn't want to face seemed to expand inside of her, making her feel as if she might explode.

"Wonderful," she replied, forcing the appropriate smile, hoping it looked duly appreciative.

She made herself relax against the seat, then made herself look at him  too-as if nothing irrevocable had happened, as if nothing was sealed or  set in stone or any of the other overly dramatic and frightening things  she'd told herself during the actual ceremony. Anyone might get carried  away during a wedding. She wasn't a machine, after all. Of course she  had feelings-she'd married this man! She could wish that things were  different between them-that they were different people, who had gone  about this in a very different way-without acting upon that wish. Who  knew what she would actually feel, once the wedding day itself was over?  Once they made it through whatever their wedding night might hold? The  intensity of the occasion had simply got into her head, she reasoned.  That and the seriousness of it all, of what she'd agreed to as she'd  said those words. Understandable, really, that the enormity of this-of  the huge, extraordinary step she'd taken with this man-would take a bit  of processing. With or without her inconvenient desire for him.

Her smile felt less forced, suddenly. "I've never moved anywhere without  having to spend day and night packing up boxes and making endless  arrangements," she said then, her voice deliberately light to dispel the  tension in the very air between them, thick and treacherous. "It never  occurred to me that it could simply happen while I was off doing other  things. Wealth really does make everything so very convenient, doesn't  it?"

That ghost of something not quite a smile played with his hard mouth,  and seemed to call out shadows in the cold gray of his gaze.

"It has its uses," he agreed in that low voice that vibrated along the  length of her spine. That single brow of his rose, dark and  aristocratic. Demanding. "It has brought me you, has it not?"

"My goodness, Lord Pembroke," she said softly, keeping that easy  flirtatious tone in her voice. She found that she did not have to force  herself to relax against the seat then-that she did it without thought.  "Has the ceremony gone to your head? Do you think this is a romance?"                       
       
           



       

She took entirely too much pleasure in throwing his own words right back  to him. Especially given what she'd been feeling all morning.

His dark eyes lit with something appreciative and purely male, and the  way they met hers, so bold and knowing, made Angel's heart stutter in  her chest. She was sure he moved closer then, she was sure of it, and  she leaned toward him as if drawn by some dark compulsion she couldn't  even see-but then he turned away, dropping the dizzying force of his  attention to the mobile buzzing in his pocket.

Angel told herself she was relieved. She was. She wanted no part of  this … mad whirl of sensation she couldn't even name, much less begin to  understand. It all felt too big, too impossible. It was too dangerous by  far.

Liar, that little voice whispered. What was dangerous was her reaction  to him. What was impossible was this overwhelming urge to simply sink  into him and disappear. But this wasn't a romance. There would be no  happily ever after, not in the classic sense. If they were lucky, they  would manage this union      well, and get along with each other. Maybe  even become friendly. That was all she should hope for.

That was all she could allow herself to hope for.

Rafe spoke into his phone, his voice clipped and sure, and she tuned him  out, looking out at the passing London streets. Everything was going to  be fine. Of course it would.

Today, it was all real-that desperate scheme she'd cooked up in her  wildly uncomfortable coach class seat, on her way to see her favorite  stepsister become a real, live princess. Her wildest imaginings had come  true. She was married to an earl. She was a countess. She remembered  Rafe's dire warnings as they'd danced in the Palazzo Santina, Allegra's  engagement ball and the usual Jackson family antics no more than a blur  to her. That he was not modern. Or fashionable. Or, if she recalled  correctly, open-minded.

But what did that matter, really? He was an important man. A busy one,  if his current conversation was any indication. She could soon be busy  too, putting the generous monthly allowance he'd placed into an account  with her name on it to excellent use around London. No more waiting  around, cobbling together what paying gigs she could find, hoping she  made the rent this month. Those days were over. That life was finished.

She could make herself over completely into one of those Sloane Rangers  she'd never quite had the money to wholly emulate, flinging herself in  and out of Harvey Nicks with a charge card in her hand and nothing more  important on her mind than her next lunch date. She could even become  one of those fixtures on the London charity circuit, forever attending  this or that ball, draped in fabulous gowns and envy-inducing jewels,  mouthing platitudes to every reporter she encountered about the great  philanthropic work she was doing in all her couture. She was newly rich,  and had married a pedigree. She could choose any life she wanted,  surely. She could buy it, come to that.