Scandal by Carolyn Jewel Read Free Book Online Page A

you, I have little to none. I can’t make her accept you if she doesn’t love you.”
    â€œShe’s a grown woman, not a girl. She can make her own decisions.”
    â€œYou will only cause her pain.” Mercer rocked on his heels. “I’m convinced of that. And I won’t have her hurt.” He glanced at the flowers. “Not when there’s hope she’ll meet a decent man.”
    His heart stilled with icy certainty that their conversation was now headed in a direction he did not wish to follow. “Am I being asked to step aside, or told to?”
    Mercer crossed his arms over his chest. “Perhaps you think that during my sister’s marriage, we knew nothing of her life. That is far from the case. Your name was connected with Tommy Evans’s. I followed your life of scandal because I followed Tommy’s. I have more than a small suspicion of the reason Sophie came home so altered. And that reason is closely connected with your name.”
    â€œI am not responsible for the state of their marriage. He made her unhappy long before I met her. Long before I met Tommy Evans, as well. I assure you, I am not responsible for his decision to elope with your sister. I didn’t know the man until after he was married.” Because, quite frankly, Tommy Evans hadn’t had the money to enter his circle until after he’d secured Sophie’s fortune. “Neither did I influence his decision to live in London while she remained at Rider Hall.”
    â€œAnd yet, as I say, she refused you at Havenwood, my lord.”
    â€œYour point?”
    He shrugged. “Perhaps you do love her. I can’t know what’s in your heart. But she does not love you. If she did, she would not have turned you away.”
    â€œYou say she is not unaffected by me. That observation is correct. When I went to Havenwood, I had not seen your sister in quite a long time.” He chose his words carefully. “Not seen nor corresponded with. Am I to have but one chance to convince her of my desire to make her my countess?” He looked Mercer in the eye. “Is that a connection you can afford to turn away?”
    Mercer’s eyes turned hard. “My lord, I cannot with any conscience at all support your pursuit of her.”
    He, too, looked at the roses. “Have I a rival already?” he asked.
    â€œNo one who’s declared himself, if that’s what you mean.”
    Well. And so. He wasn’t blockheaded about who this potential rival might be. “I’m to be thrown over for Vedaelin? Yes,” he said bitterly. “An earl in the hand may well be thrown over for the prospect of a duke.”
    â€œWhen you came to Havenwood, I thought you two had quarreled.” Mercer looked at him from under his lashes. “As lovers sometimes will.”
    â€œSophie was never my lover.” And not for want of his desiring that it should be so.
    â€œAnd yet you make free with her given name.” Mercer’s eyes flashed. “You look at her as if you want to devour her. With a rake’s eyes. Do you think me so rustic I am easily fooled by London manners and a lofty title?”
    â€œThis is absurd.”
    â€œI was willing to let you apologize and put yourself into her good graces. You did not. Having seen firsthand her reaction to you, I believe you cannot.”
    â€œThat’s something your sister ought to decide.” Banallt smothered his outrage. Mercer was a reasonable man, he knew that. As calculating as he was himself. Moreover, he believed he was acting in his sister’s best interest. And that, ironically, they had in common. “You say you know she’s not the girl who eloped with Tommy Evans. I say you don’t understand the woman she is.”
    â€œI hope, sir, that if you meet my sister socially, you will do nothing to upset her.”
    Banallt realized then that Mercer expected him to bring up Fidelia. He should.