He puffed up like an angry bird. “Who do you think you are to reject me?”
Her palm itched to slap the look of condescending hauteur from his face. She rose and graced him with a polite smile. “Good day.”
He rushed to her, grabbing her hands. He pressed a fervent kiss to her cheek, and she jerked from him. “Lord Jensen, please conduct yourself like a gentleman,” she snapped, thoroughly angered by his persistence.
“I cannot stay away from you, Payton, I ache for you.”
She narrowed her eyes in warning. “You are aching for a slap, my lord, one I will not hesitate to give.”
He placed his hands over his heart as if she had pierced him. “Why are you being so stubborn? You said yes to my offer last year, and we never called off our engagement.”
The depth of rage that surged through Payton rendered her speechless for precious seconds.
Seconds he used to tug her closer. “Your father has already given me his blessing.”
She yanked her hand away from him. “How dare you,” she whispered.
“Payton, I—”
“Be silent!”
He flushed, and awareness of her anger seeped into his eyes. A look of regret and possibly shame chased his features, but nothing softened inside of her.
“You abandoned me, you ignored my letters asking for explanation. You do not get to come here and pretend that you did not act abominably. I will not be forced where my heart does not lay. My father giving you permission to court me is irrelevant.”
“Is this about that blasted man you raced away with earlier? I made some inquiry, and the man is nobody, Payton. It is shocking that you rode with him without a chaperone and allowed him to kiss you.”
“Please excuse me.” She owed him no explanation, and she did not look back as she fled to the sanctuary of her chambers.
Several hours later, the door to the Rose Room swung open without a knock. Payton lifted her head in startled surprise. This was where she escaped to etch her drawings and to craft the stories. Hardly anyone ever intruded after Lady Calydon made it known the Rose Room was to be Payton’s sanctuary whenever she visited.
Aunt Florence stood in the doorway looking flustered.
Concern curled through Payton, and she closed the book with her drawings. “Yes, Aunt?”
“You are needed in the smaller drawing room, my dear. Your parents await you.”
“Mother and Father?”
“Yes.”
She’d tried to speak with her father after leaving Lord Jensen, but her father had indicated he was busy and would call for her at his earliest convenience. Payton had wanted to speak with him alone.
An audience with her mother and father was never a good thing. It meant they were in perfect agreement with whichever torturous command they would soon inflict. She stood and tucked the leather-bound volume under her arm.
Could it be Lord Jensen had taken his asinine demands again to her father? Dear God, she hoped not. More than two hours had passed since she rejected him, and from the windows in her chambers she had witnessed him walking on the lawns with Lady Ophelia Clayton, and Payton had hoped he’d accepted her rejection. She moved rapidly to keep pace with her aunt and arrived at the smaller drawing room in short order. Payton paused and took a deep breath, steadying her nerves, and then entered behind her aunt.
Her father stood by the fireplace, his hands clasped behind him. He turned at the closing of the door, and Payton’s heart jerked at his serious expression.
“You asked for me, Father?”
His gaze roamed over her, searchingly, but he did not speak. She glanced at her mother who sat stiffly on the chaise in the far left corner, her lips thinned with displeasure.
What is it?
She stepped farther into the room, while Aunt Florence went to sit beside her mother and clasped her hands.
Sudden fear jerked through Payton. “Are Phillipa and Phoebe well?”
“Your sisters are well,” her father said, his voice neutral.
Relief pulsed through Payton, and a heavy sigh escaped her lips. “Thank heavens.”
“You will marry Lord Jensen St. John within the fortnight.”
Surely she misheard.
“I was compelled to ask His Grace for his assistance in obtaining a special license. You will marry the honorable Jensen St. John.”
It was as she feared, and shock held her immobile. A dull roaring sounded in Payton’s ear. “A special license?”
Her father waved toward the corner, and it was then she noticed the duke standing by the mantel, his face carefully blank.
“Yes,” her father snapped, his face mottling.
She pressed her clasped fingers to her stomach, hoping to stop the churning nerves that would see her chucking up her light luncheon. “Forgive me, Father, I do not understand. I have no wish to marry Lord Jensen. He made an offer earlier, and I rejected it. I have expressly told Mother and Aunt Florence I am not—”