“Over my dead body!” Fury made the other man’s voice crack.
“It can be arranged,” Bourne called out.
“You send the girl down here. Immediately. She won’t marry you.”
“After last night, there’s little question she will, Needham.”
The rifle cocked below, and Bourne ducked away from the window, pressing Penelope back into the corner as the bullet flew through another pane of glass.
“Scoundrel!”
He wanted to rail at her father for the lack of caution he exhibited for his daughter. Instead, he turned to the window, affected a tone of utter disinterest, and called out, “I found her. I’m keeping her.”
There was a long pause, so long that Michael could not help but lift his head around the window frame to see if the marquess had left.
He had not.
A bullet lodged itself in the exterior wall, several inches from Michael’s head. “You’re not getting Falconwell, Bourne. Nor are you getting my daughter!”
“Well, I’ll be honest, Needham . . . I’ve already had your daughter—”
The words were cut off by Needham’s bellow. “Blighter!”
Penelope gasped. “You did not just tell my father you’ve had me.”
He should have seen this potential outcome. Should have known that it would not be so easy. The whole morning was spiraling out of control, and Bourne did not like being out of control. He took a long, slow breath, trying for patience. “Penelope, we are holed up inside a house as your irate father fires numerous rifles at my head. I should think you’d forgive me for doing what I can to ensure we both survive this event.”
“And our reputations? Were they to survive as well?”
“My reputation is rather shot to hell,” he said, pressing his back to the wall.
“Well, mine isn’t!” she cried. “Have you taken leave of your senses?” She paused. “And your language is atrocious.”
“You’ll have to get used to my language, darling. As for the rest, when we marry, your reputation will be shot to hell, as well. Your father may as well know it now.”
He couldn’t stop himself from turning to face her, to watch the way the words affected her . . . the way the light went out of her eyes . . . the way she stiffened as though he’d struck her. “You’re horrible,” she said, simply. Honestly.
In that moment, as she looked at him, all calm accusation, he hated himself enough for both of them. But he was a master at hiding his emotions. “It seems that way.” The words were flippant. Forced.
Her distaste showed. “Why would you do this?”
There was only one reason—only one thing that had ever guided his actions. Only one thing that had turned him into this cold, calculating man.
“Does Falconwell mean so much?”
Silence fell outside, and something dark and unpleasant settled in the pit of his stomach, the feeling all too familiar. For nine years, he’d taken every measure to regain his land. To restore his history. To secure his future. And he was not about to stop now.
“Of course it does,” she said with a little self-deprecating laugh. “I am a means to an end.”
In the hours that had passed since he’d stumbled upon Penelope at the lake, he’d heard her irritated and surprised and affronted and impassioned . . . but he had not heard her like this.
He’d not heard her resigned.
He did not like it.
For the first time in a very long time—in nine years—Bourne felt the urge to apologize to someone he’d used. He steeled himself against the inclination.
He turned his head toward her—not enough to meet her gaze—just enough to watch her from the corner of his eye. Enough to see her head bowed, her hands holding his greatcoat closed around her. “Come here,” he said, and a small part of him was surprised when she did.
She crossed the room, and he was consumed with the sound of her—the slide of her skirts, the soft fall of her footsteps, the way her breath came in little uneven spurts marking her nervousness and anticipation.
She stopped behind him, hovering, as he played out the next few moves of this chess match in his mind. He wondered, fleetingly, if he should let her go.
No.
What was done was done.
“Marry me, Penelope.”
“Just because you phrase it in such a way does not give me a choice, you know.”
He wanted to smile at the irritated way she said the words, but he didn’t. She watched him carefully for a long moment and he—a man who had made a fortune by reading the truth in the faces of those around him—could not say what she was thinking. For a long moment, he thought she might refuse him, and he prepared himself for her resistance, cataloging the number of clergymen who owed him and The Angel enough debt to marry an unwilling bride—preparing himself to do what needed to be done to secure her hand.
It would be one more wrongdoing to add to his ever-expanding list.
“You will keep your word from last night? My sisters will remain untouched by this marriage.”
Even now, even as she faced a lifetime with him, she thought of her sisters.
She was legions too good for him.
He ignored the thought. “I will keep my word.”
“I require proof.”
Smart girl. Of course, there wasn’t any proof. And she was right to doubt him.
He reached into his pocket and retrieved a guinea rubbed nearly bare over the nine years that he’d kept it with him. He held it out to her. “My marker.”
She took the coin. “What am I to do with this?”
“You return it when your sisters are married.”
“One guinea?”
“It’s been enough for men across Britain, darling.”
She raised her brows. “And they say men are the more intelligent sex.” She took a deep breath, slipping the coin into her pocket, making him long for the weight of it again. “I shall marry you.”
He nodded once. “And the fiancé?”
She hesitated, her gaze flickering past his shoulder as she considered the words. “He will find another bride,” she said softly, fondly. Too fondly. Instantly, Bourne felt a perverse anger at this man who had not protected her. Who had left her alone in the world. Who had made it too easy for Bourne to step in and claim her.
There was movement in the doorway over her shoulder. Her father. Needham had obviously grown tired of waiting for them to exit the building, and so he had come in to fetch them.
Bourne took it as his cue to hammer the final nail into this marital coffin, knowing even as he did it that he was using her. That she didn’t deserve it.
That it didn’t matter.
He lifted her chin and pressed a single, soft kiss to her lips, trying not to notice when she leaned into the touch, when she breathed a little sigh as he lifted his head a touch . . .
A rifle cocked in the doorway, punctuating the words of the Marquess of Needham and Dolby. “Dammit, Penelope, look what you’ve done now.”
* * *
Dear M—
My father thinks that we should stop writing. He’s certain that “boys like him” (meaning you) haven’t the time for “silly letters” from “silly girls” (meaning me). He says you’re only replying because you’re well-raised and you feel obligated. I realize you’re nearly sixteen, and you’ve likely got more interesting things to do than write to me, but remember: I have no such interesting things. I shall have to make do with your pity.