Lord Deverill's Heir by Catherine Coulter (best books to read all time .TXT) 📗

looked down at her. “Your father always spoke of you in such glowing terms, I expected a veritable sweet-voiced angel to greet me. I expected to feel exalted in your presence, to be overwhelmed in the warmth of your spirit. I expected my soul to glow in your brightness. He told me you were smarter than most men, that you could figure and calculate more quickly than he could, that he had taught you chess and you had bested him within two years. He told me you were as brave as he had found out that I was. In short, he told me that we would suit each other perfectly.

“However, after meeting you, cousin, I now understand what I didn’t understand before. He only wanted me to meet you at the very last minute, so to speak, when we were of marriageable age. He had an excellent point.

He knew you very well.”

“Marriageable age,” she said, looking straight ahead, saying the words slowly, thoughtfully. Then she looked up at him. “I would not marry you if you were the last toad on earth.”

“I suppose a toad is better than a bastard,” he said, and sighed. All of this was absurd and not at all to the point. She was staring at him now more in dawning shock. “Marriageable age is what my father wrote in his letter to me. I think it a strange coincidence, sir, that you use the very same words.”

“Not so strange. Your father and I spoke of you often. I did not read your letter. Your father wrote it to you only, not to anyone else. Surely you must realize that your father and I discussed the matter at great length.”

“You are saying then, that you would be willing to follow my father’s instructions?”

“You aren’t stupid, cousin—

“I am not your bloody cousin, don’t call me that.”

“What shall I call you then?”

“I will call you sir. You may call me ma’am.”

“Very well, ma’am. As I was saying, you aren’t particularly stupid. You must see that marriage with you would be to my great advantage. I have money, don’t mistake me on that. Don’t take me for a fortune hunter. Rest assured, if your father had scented anything of the villain in me, he would have kicked me as far away from you as possible. No, I have money, but not nearly enough to maintain Evesham Abbey and now that I am the Earl of Strafford, it is my responsibility. It is my duty not to let this pile of stone fall into rubble on my watch. Wedding you saves Evesham Abbey and, I daresay, it also saves you. Did you not carefully attend to the details of your father’s will?”

“You mean that you wish to wed me for the wealth I would bring to you?” Her voice was flat, deadened. He didn’t hear the wistful catch.

He shrugged his broad shoulders and nodded. “It is certainly a powerful motive, and not one to dismiss out of hand. But of course, you would gain also by such an alliance.” He saw her hands fisted at her sides again and it angered him. He was being honest with her, just as her father had been. Very well, he wouldn’t go gently with her. She didn’t deserve it.

“If you don’t wed me, ma’am, I’m afraid that you will find yourself quite penniless. As I imagine that the term ‘penniless’ has little or no meaning to you, let me tell you quite frankly that in spite of all the young lady’s accomplishments I am certain you possess, you would not survive in our proud and just land for more than a sennight.” He paused and looked down at her with cool appraisal. “Though with your looks and figure—once you are not so thin—and with some luck thrown in, you could perhaps become a rich man’s mistress.”

She laughed, actually laughed at him. “You and your man’s observations.

They are paltry. But I suppose you have nothing else. You know, sir, I didn’t like you when I saw you sleeping near the fishpond. I liked you even less when you grabbed my arm in the library and ripped my gown. At this precise moment in time, I think if I had a knife I would stick it between your ribs. My father was mistaken in you. You’re a bastard in every way that it counts. You sicken me. Go to hell.” A cynical note entered his level voice. “You disappoint me, ma’am. Your language was much more colorful this morning. Though you may heartily dislike me, though I may sicken you, though you wish me to go to hell, I speak the truth. If you do not wed me, you will leave Evesham Abbey in two months’ time. If you believe I will allow you to remain as a poor relation, you are mistaken. I will personally boot you out. After all, you have not given me a single reason to let you remain on my property.

And it is my property, ma’am. As of this morning, as of the reading of your father’s will. I am master here and you are nothing at all.” Arabella suddenly felt quite sick. Her stomach was tied into knots, and bile rose in her throat. Her well-ordered, quite satisfactory world as the favored daughter of the Earl of Strafford had crumbled, like the old abbey ruins. He was right about one thing—she had nothing left, nothing at all. He was the master and she was nothing. She fell to her knees in the soft grass lining the drive and retched. Since she had eaten very little during the day, the spasms were dry heaves, making her quake and shudder.

The earl drew up in astonishment, looked within himself, and saw a good deal lacking. He cursed himself in far more descriptive language than had ever made its way into Arabella’s vocabulary. He had mistakenly read her disdainful bravado as vain, prideful arrogance. Her father’s death, his own unexpected entry into her