The Makeshift Marriage by Sandra Heath Read Free Book Online Page B

been able to successfully involve Nicholas Grenville? The baron had used her to achieve this duel with Nicholas, and nothing anyone could say would turn her from that opinion.
    “Miss Milbanke, honor is a precious thing —in that the baron was correct. It cannot be set lightly aside if a man is to hold his head up among his peers, believe me.”
    “Then I ask you to think of Miss Townsend. Can you lightly set aside her future happiness because of honor?”
    “Do you honestly imagine Augustine would think better of me for taking such a cowardly course? She would scorn me, of that you may be sure.”
    She stared at him, tears pricking her eyes again. “I would not scorn you,” she whispered, “I would love you all the more for having the strength to refuse to be forced into something like this. No one questions your bravery, Sir Nicholas, least of all me. If Miss Townsend has an ounce of love for you, she will feel the same. If I were in her place I would thank God above for your safe deliverance from such a vainglorious and futile death!”
    For a long moment he looked into her tear-filled eyes. “But you are not in her place,” he said softly, “And I am vainglorious enough to wish to continue with this. He said things about you which no man of honor, least of all myself, could allow to pass unchallenged.”
    “Oh, how can you be so calm about it?” she cried, “He’ll kill you, he’ll make you his eleventh victim —and for what? You hardly know me, you don’t even like me very much—and yet you are about to die for my good name!”
    He smiled. “It is not true that I do not like you, Miss Milbanke; it is not true at all. Oh, I admit that my manner may have — did —give you that impression, and for that I have already apologized. I thought you knew that I meant every word I said last night. Perhaps it will convince you if I ask you to spend the rest of this day with me.”
    “Now you jest —”
    “It is hardly something to jest about. This may be my last day on this earth, and what better way to spend it than with you?”
    There was nothing she would like more than to spend a day alone with him, but not like this —not with such a dark and terrible shadow hanging over them.
    “If my past conduct weighs too heavily still…” he began, seeing her indecision.
    “No. No, it is not that. Please believe me.”
    “What then? Will propriety be offended?”
    “Propriety is offended already. It was offended the moment I left England alone, without a companion or a maid, and it is offended each time I speak to you when I have no chaperone to watch over me. No, Sir Nicholas, it is not propriety. What of Miss Townsend? How will she feel if she discovers not only that I am the cause of your predicament, but that you also spent a day with me? How will she feel then?”
    “She is not here, Miss Milbanke. You are. I do not see that under these circumstances there is anything else to consider, do you?”
    She met his gaze. “No, I suppose not,” she answered. Oh, dear God, how easy it would be to fall in love with this man. With a glance and a soft word he could melt her heart, make her forget everything but the pleasure of being with him. She had been drawn to him from the outset, and each moment with him now merely made her admit to herself that she was dangerously close to loving him already.
    “Then it is settled. Shall we go?” He offered her his arm.
    Slowly she slipped her hand over the rich stuff of his sleeve.
    “Besides,” he murmured lightly, almost to himself, “who is to say that this will indeed be my last day on earth? I am not exactly cross-eyed and palsied, you know, as many a Frenchman found out to his cost at Waterloo. It could be that the baron is my first victim —that would be a turn up for the proverbial book, would it not?”
    She felt an absurd desire to laugh as they walked from the room.
     

Chapter 7
     
    The gondola was pushed away from the hotel steps, sliding out from the