I have heard.” He looked at her levelly.
“I will not make that mistake again. I will not sacrifice myself, even for Jeremy.”
“Would marrying me be such a sacrifice?” His face tightened, and he rose to face her. “Once you were willing enough to come to my bed.”
Angela gasped. “How dare you! I never—”
“No. But can you say that you stayed away of your own volition?” His voice was as hard as steel.
Angela could say nothing. He spoke no less than the truth. She had been like wax in his hands back then; he could have done anything with her that he wanted, and she would never have said him nay. When Cam kissed her, her body had thrummed with desire. Her skin had been like flame to his touch. Even now, remembering that time, she could almost feel a stirring of warmth.
“No,” she admitted in a low voice. “To my shame, I cannot say that it was my virtue that kept me from your bed.”
“Nor from any other man’s, apparently.”
Angela stiffened as if a red-hot poker had been laid against her skin. She struggled to keep her voice neutral. “You have heard, then, of the allegations of my divorce.”
“Yes. I read a report about the proceedings. I read on what grounds your husband sued for divorcement, and I read the testimony of the three men.”
Angela hated the surge of anger and hurt that poured through her, hated most of all that it should hurt for Cam to think her promiscuous. But she had endured worse things without showing the pain. She had borne the testimony of Dunstan’s friends, knowing that with it she got what she wanted, freedom from him. And now, in the same way, she would use it again to help herself.
She shrugged elaborately. “I should wonder, then, that you would want to marry a woman such as I am. Hardly the unblemished wife most men seek.”
“I am not looking for a virgin. There are an ample number of them around. I could have found many in the United States.”
“You do not care if your wife is unfaithful to you?”
“I know you married a man you did not love. ‘Tis not unusual to seek passion outside a loveless marriage. I also know that it would not happen in this marriage.”
“You are very sure of yourself.” Angela’s voice was laced with sarcasm.
Her tone cut him to the quick, and he moved forward so that he stood only inches from her, his coal-black eyes boring down into hers. He wrapped his hand around her wrist. “I am sure of one thing. You were a very passionate woman, and you responded to me. I don’t think you can have changed that much over the last few years.”
Suddenly, before she realized what was happening, Cam pulled her up against him, and his other arm went around her, holding her to him. He bent and took her mouth with his. His lips were warm and firm, moving insistently against hers. It had been many years, but his kiss sparked a memory of that earlier passion. For just an instant Angela was the girl she had been, felt again the desire and the eagerness, and she swayed against him. Then the much more familiar coldness rushed through her, driving out the momentary response, and she stiffened, pulling away from him.
He let her go easily, but the faint smile on his face let her know he thought he had proved his point.
“That is what you have returned for?” she asked. “You are forcing me to marry you because of lust?”
“Hardly. I could have sex with any number of women. At far less cost than what I have given for that mine and the land. Mr. Pettigrew is beginning to question my business judgment.”
“I question your sanity. Why are you so eager to marry me, a woman you have not seen in thirteen years?”
“It is part of a vow I made when I left this place. When your grandfather tossed me off the estate and you married a nobleman, a man of wealth, I vowed that someday I would have that wealth. I would move among your people as an equal. My children would have noble blood in their veins. I swore that I would return here, and I would own the Stanhopes. And I would have you.”
She stared at him. “That is at the bottom of this? The angry words of a twenty-year-old lad?”
“It was more than that. It was a vow, a promise to myself. It is what drove me, the reward I would have. I would live in this house, own this land, and you would be my wife. It would be bad luck, I think, to deviate from that plan now.”
“But surely you cannot claim to love me still, after all these years!”
His lip curled. “Hardly.” He moved away from her, saying, “I rid myself of the curse of loving you long ago. I am not seeking your love. Only the fact of marrying you.”
“But why?” Angela cried, exasperated. “What satisfaction does it give you now? What pleasure?”
“The pleasure of having proved myself to those who despised me. Of having won over my enemies. Of having conquered, finally, that old son of a bitch.”
“My grandfather?”
“Yes. That night, with every blow he dealt me, all the time telling me how you were playing with me, using me, how no Stanhope could truly love a mere stable boy, that was what I kept thinking. That I would prove him wrong. That I would marry you, that I would have more money than the Stanhopes ever dreamed of having, that I would make that blue-blooded bastard sorry.” He shrugged. “Unfortunately, he died before I could do it, so I had to use Jeremy as a substitute.”
“A little unfair to Jeremy, don’t you think?” Angela snapped. She looked at him, thinking about his words. After a moment, she went on, “What did you mean, ‘with every blow’? Did he—did Grandpapa hit you? He told me he did not.”
Cam let out a snort of disbelief. “And you believed him? Of course he beat me. What did you think happened after you left the stables? The other grooms held me, and the old Earl laid into me with his cane. The Earl of Bridbury could hardly let a groom go with a tongue-lashing after he had dared to touch a Stanhope. When the grooms threw me down on my mother’s doorstep, I had three broken ribs and a concussion. That is why I did not sneak into the castle and try to get you out that night, for I was still foolish enough that I thought you would want to leave with me.”
Angela’s stomach twisted as she thought of what he had endured. She swallowed. “I—I am sorry. I did not know.”
“It was hardly unexpected. I knew what would happen if we were caught. I took the risk. At the time, I thought it was worth it.”
Angela turned and walked away. It was strange how, after all this time and all the other things that had happened to her, his bitter words had the power to hurt her. She had thought herself numb to pain, as well as to joy, for years now. She was not sure she liked finding out that she was not.
She turned around resolutely. “I did not deal with you unfaithfully.” When his eyebrow rose sardonically, she raised her hand, saying, “No, there is no need to protest. I realize that you do not believe me. You did not even then, when you still loved me. I did what I thought was necessary, and it … pained me to hurt you. I wanted that least of all. My family wronged you. Because of me, you were dealt with cruelly. It would have been far better if we had never … felt what we did. But all that is in the past, and we cannot do anything to change it. You must see that. No matter what you force me to do now or how badly you ruin Jeremy, you cannot make the whole thing come out any better. You cannot change my grandfather’s words or wipe out his blows. The only thing you will accomplish is to tie yourself to a woman who does not wish to marry you, and that hardly seems the way to lead a happy life. Why don’t you find someone you love, someone who will love you back? Then you could have a good life.”
He grimaced. “Thank you for your concern, my lady, but I have no interest in this sugarcoated future you envision for me. You see, I did get something of value from my dealings with the Stanhopes. I learned exactly how useless ‘love’ is. We were in love, and it did