Along Came a Rogue (22 page)

Then her eyes raised slowly, and he heard her catch her breath when she noticed the ugly bruise at his eye. Her mouth fell open as she stated breathlessly, “But
you
had a talk with him about it.”

“Yes.”

She bit her bottom lip, her concern for him warming his chest. “He hit you?”

“
Oh
yes.” He crooked a chagrined brow.

“I'm so sorry.”

With an expression of concern darkening her face, she began to reach a trembling hand toward the bruise, then stopped suddenly and pulled back. As if she'd momentarily forgotten herself. Or was afraid of being burned.

She cleared her throat, her gaze returning to the floor, but not before he saw a flash of pain in her eyes. And guilt. The niggling voice inside his head that she wasn't behaving like herself grew louder.

“Have you seen him yet today?” She nervously twisted her hand in her skirt to prevent herself from reaching for him again. “I'm certain he'll apologize.”

He drew a deep breath, determined to ignore whatever was upsetting her—for now—and get through the proposal. Then, once he was certain of his place in her life, he would take her away from here and whatever had happened to make her so nervous, so…pained. “I'm not here to see Thomas.” His gut flip-flopped with fresh nervousness.
Dear Lord
—he was about to propose, something he'd never thought he'd do. “I'm here to see you.”

“Oh?” She'd forced a casual lightness into her voice, but nothing about the nervous way she stood there, trembling and pale, was at all casual. “I'm fine. A good night's sleep and some of Cook's delicious food did me wonders.”

His eyes narrowed, the bewilderment and nervousness pulsing through him turning to irritation. She was lying. Again.

“You were right.” She forced an unsteady smile. “Being home with my family is where I belong.”

Good Lord
, was she lying! But why?

He took a slow step toward her, tamping down his growing frustration. “I came to a decision yesterday,” he told her calmly, despite the hard tattoo of his pulse, “and I wanted to speak with you about it.”

She shifted away to move behind a chair, placing the piece of furniture between them as if she were afraid he might pounce on her. He smiled at that, knowing he just might.

“I'm glad you came by.” Yet her voice trembled with anything but gladness at seeing him. “I never had the chance to properly thank you for—”

“Emily,” he interrupted quietly. The time for games was over. “Marry me.”

Her wide eyes flew up to his, so full of raw emotion in their blue depths that he caught his breath. For a moment, all she did was stare back, her lips parted in stunned disbelief, her breathing coming in shallow, little pants…Then she began to shake, so hard he feared she might fall to the floor.

“Darling, sit.” In a single stride, he closed the distance to her and took her arm to help her sink down onto the chair. Then he knelt beside her and took both her hands in his. Lord, how she shook! Grinning up at her, he raised her trembling hands to his lips and kissed them. “Stunned you, did I?”

“More than you know,” she breathed, so softly he barely heard her.

He chuckled. Her eyes glistened, and his chest tugged at the sight of her tears. At least this time, they were tears of happiness.

She desperately searched his face. “Why?” She choked out the words in breathless astonishment. “Why would you want to marry me?”

He reached inside his jacket—dear God, his own hands were shaking now!—and withdrew the ring box. “I swore to protect you and the baby, and that's exactly what I plan to do.”

She remained perfectly still and silent as he opened the box and slipped onto her finger the sapphire and diamond ring he'd purchased because the stone was the same color as her eyes. Her hand trembled even more as she stared down at it, as if she couldn't believe it was real.

“Marry me, brat,” he repeated, his own voice catching on the words as a knot tightened in his throat. “Make an honest man of me.”

Instead of laughing at his teasing words as he'd hoped, she soberly shook her head. “But—but you were going to Spain—your promotion—”

“I'm going to decline it.” Even now, the decision tore at him. It was what he'd been working for since that day he left the orphanage when he was ten and set out to gnaw and claw his way into a better life. But he knew this choice was the right one. Because he would now have Emily. “You were right, brat. I can't protect you all the way from Spain.” Hell, he couldn't protect her from the other side of Mayfair. Which is why he needed to marry her, so he could keep her and the baby close.

“Is that why, then?” she whispered, her eyes never leaving the ring on her finger. “The reason you want to marry me—only to protect me?”

His smile faded. “I think it's a damned good reason.” Had she really expected love? Admitting he loved her was certainly not one of the speeches he'd practiced last night. He'd barely gotten used to the idea of getting married. To throw love into the mix…
Good Lord
. Yet he drew a deep breath, held it a moment, and admitted, “Emily, I lo—”

“No!” She shook her head and yanked the ring off her hand with fingers shaking so violently he wondered if she might drop it. She shoved it back at him. “I won't, Grey. I won't marry you!”

Her words stabbed like a knife into his heart. He stared at her, his breath gone from his lungs, utterly bewildered.

During their time together, he'd seen her affection for him—he
knew
it! No woman could fake the caring with which she touched him, the vulnerability when she gave herself to him so tenderly, or the passion when she seized her pleasure from him. Two days ago, lying in the bed still warm from their lovemaking, the little minx had wanted to marry him, he'd been certain of it.

But now…

“Emily.” Her whispered name was filled with pain and uncertainty.

His hand closed over hers as she pushed the ring against his chest, to keep her fingers wrapped securely around it. Because if she gave it back—
Christ!

Each beat of his heart pounded with the grim force of a death knell. Her rejection left him just as stunned as she had been when he'd proposed, just as shaken with disbelief. And filled with confusion. The world had tilted beneath him until he no longer knew which way was up.

He shook his head, not wanting to believe…“Don't you want to be with me?”

She stilled, and the anguished pain in her eyes answered truthfully even as she lied, “No, Grey—no, I don't.”

“Why the hell not?” he growled. He was angry—
furious!
—that she'd lie to him now, of all times, and the burning anger mixed with the pain of rejection in his chest. “I care about you, Emily, more than you know. Enough that I am willing to lay down my life to protect you and the baby.”

She shook her head. “That isn't—”

“Then what is it?” he demanded.

When she didn't answer, he cupped her face in his free hand. She closed her eyes as if his touch pained her. The sinking feeling seeped through him that she was once again keeping secrets from him. And that this secret might just destroy him.

“We're good together, brat,” he murmured, touching his lips to hers and feeling her inhale jerkily. “So very,
very
good…and not just intimately, you know that.” He kissed her again. If she wouldn't confess the truth on her own, then he'd seduce it from her if he had to, one torturous kiss at a time. He nibbled at the corner of her mouth, and his tongue slid over the seam of her lips to coax her to open to him. “I've never met another woman like you.”

When she parted her lips hesitantly beneath his soft cajoling, he swept his tongue tenderly inside, increasing the intimacy of the kiss until she trembled, until the hand at his chest stopped pushing him away and instead clung to him. A pang of victory pulsed through him, followed by an immense wave of relief. A heavy sigh heaved from him. She was his…
finally
.

“If I had known five years ago the woman you would become,” he whispered as he swept his mouth along her jaw to her ear, “I never would have let you go. Not even then.” He smiled against her ear as she shivered from the soft flick of his tongue against her earlobe. “Although my career would have definitely suffered.” He laughed at himself as he took her earlobe between his teeth and sucked gently. At the shivering response he elicited from her, warmth blossomed in his chest. The warmth of possession. “With you to distract me, I never would have become a major.”

She froze, her body stiffening against his with a catch of her breath. Then she shifted away. He leaned in, following her like the pull of a magnet, but she turned her head and pushed at his chest once more. Hard enough this time that she slid out from underneath him and out of the chair, putting half the room between them before his surprised mind thought to reach for her.

He looked down at his palm in utter bewilderment. A fresh wound ripped through his chest, and he flinched with pain. In his hand, she'd left the ring.

“You're wrong about us, Grey,” she told him, shaking her head adamantly. “What we shared was amazing. You made me feel so feminine, desirable…,” she admitted in a whisper. “You made me feel wanted.”

His eyes narrowed in white-hot anger as the niggling voice warning inside his head turned into a scream. This wasn't a list of the reasons for why she wanted him; it was a rationale for rejection.

“But we're not the same people we were five years ago. You have your career, your future plans—” She choked, and he thought he heard a sob in her voice. “We're from different worlds.”

His heart stopped, and in that moment's tiny death, he prayed he hadn't heard her correctly. Surely, she didn't mean…But she did. He wasn't stupid enough to lie to himself. And when his heart started again, the pain of it stole his breath away.

He knew this woman better than anyone else in the world, yet for Emily to be so cruel as to say something like that, and directly to his face—the warmth inside him vanished instantly, replaced by an icy bitterness.

“Please understand. I have to think of my baby now.” Her hands slid down to her belly, but her eyes never lifted to meet his. “And no matter how much we care for each other, no matter if there's love—” Another rasping choke as the words caught in her throat, another sob. She drew a deep breath and hurried on. “If we marry, you can't protect me and my child, not from society. I'll be cut direct at every opportunity, whispered and gossiped about in front of my face, no longer welcome anywhere in Mayfair…I've seen it happen to women for indiscretions far less serious than the lo—than the closeness you and I shared.”

Love.
She was going to say
love
. His chest burned with betrayal, with the same pain as if she'd slapped him.

She shook her head. “I can't allow that to happen, not when my baby's future is so important.”

His eyes hardened on her. “So that's it?” he drawled resentfully, his hands fisted at his sides to keep from shaking her. “You want me to believe that you're refusing marriage so that you can keep waltzing at balls.”

A blush of guilt colored her otherwise pale face. “This isn't as inconsequential as you make it out to be.”

“Damn you,” he said softly.

A soft gasp tore from her. “Grey!”

“Damn you for lying to me again.” He saw her flinch beneath his words—
Good
. She deserved to know the piercing pain she'd sent spiraling through him. “Even now, after all we've been through together.”

She swallowed. Hard enough that he could see the undulation of her throat even from so far away. “I-I'm not—”

“I know you, brat.” He took slow steps toward her, more to keep his own anger in check than from fear of chasing her away again. “You don't give a damn what society thinks of you.”

Through tear-blurred eyes, she stared at him silently, her lips falling open—every inch of her so blatantly showing that she knew he'd caught her in her lie yet still desperately clinging to it. But the tears were real, and so was the anguish behind them. He'd come here, engagement ring in hand, because he wanted to protect her and stop her from ever crying again, only to end up putting her into tears himself. But he had no intention of leaving her unprotected, even if he had to toss her over his shoulder and drive away to Gretna Green.

“Why are you refusing me—the
real
reason?” he demanded. He cupped her face in his hands so she couldn't retreat from him again. “What is it that you want? Tell me. I'll make it happen.”

“I want you to do what you planned all along,” she forced out through trembling lips, “what you told me you would do that first day in the carriage…love me and leave me.”

His heart tore at the anguish he saw on her face. When he'd told her that, he'd believed it of himself. But she'd changed him, and he no longer wanted that life. What he wanted now was her. “I am not leaving you, do you understand? Not now, not ever.”

“I want you to go to Spain.”

“I am
not
leaving—”

“Just go!” she cried, tears streaming down her face. “Please, just leave!”

Pain surged through him, mixing with anger and rising betrayal. To blatantly lie to him once again, and to offer
that
, of all reasons, as her excuse— “I'm not going anywhere,” he ground out through clenched teeth.

Her hand darted up to swipe at her eyes as she whispered, “Then I will.”

Without a glance backward, she fled from the room.

Grey angrily slammed shut the front door of his rented town house, stopping his man Hulston in his tracks in the foyer as he scrambled to open the door for him.