Mara was never so grateful in her life as she was the moment he shifted the conversation away from that long-ago night, and back to the matter at hand. She could handle him here. Now. Angry.
But the moment the present clouded over with past, she lost her nerve, uncertain of how to proceed with this enormous brute of a man and the years that had passed since the last time she’d seen him.
She resisted the thought and returned her attention to the matter at hand. “Then you are ready to negotiate?” Pretending not to be overwhelmed by him, she returned to her desk. Sat. “I shall draft the letter to the News today, assuming you are ready to clear the debts in question.”
He laughed. “Surely, you did not think it would be so easy.”
“I would not say easy.” It would not be easy. She’d written the letter a hundred times in her head. A dozen on paper. For years. And it never got easier. “I would say quick, however. Surely that is of interest.”
He raised a brow. “I’ve waited twelve years for this. Neither ease nor quickness is paramount.”
She asked the question despite knowing the answer. “Then what is?”
“Retribution.”
She huffed a little laugh to cover the way the words unnerved her. “What do you plan to do? Parade me through the streets? Tarred and feathered?”
“The image is not entirely unpleasant.” He smiled then, and she imagined he’d smiled that particular smile a hundred times in his club. In his ring. “I do plan to parade you through London. But not tarred and feathered.”
Her brows rose. “What, then?”
“Painted. And primped.”
She shook her head. “They won’t have me.”
“Not like the wealthy heiress you once were, no.”
They’d barely accepted her then. She’d been a threat to everything they were. Everything they had. The pretty young daughter of a wealthy working man. She might have been rich enough, but she’d never been good enough for them.
“They won’t have me in their company.”
“They shall do what I say. You see, I am a duke. And, if I remember correctly, while killer dukes are not favored by the doyennes of the ton, those of us who have not committed murder tend to be well received.” He leaned closer. “Ladies like the idea of dukes.” The words were more breath than sound, and Mara resisted the urge to touch the exposed skin of her neck, to at once rub them away and to keep them there. “And you are mine to do with as I please.”
Her brows knit together at the words. At the way they spread through her, hot and threatening. “And what is that, precisely?”
“Precisely, whatever I desire.”
She stiffened. “I shan’t be your mistress.”
“First, you are in no position to make such demands. And second, I don’t recall offering to have you.”
She went hot with embarrassment. “Then what?”
He shrugged, and she hated him in that moment. “I don’t trust you anywhere near my sleeping form . . . but they needn’t know that.”
The words stung. “Mistress in name only?”
He came closer, close enough to feel the heat of him. “Twelve years of lying to my detriment has no doubt made you a convincing actress. It’s time to use all that practice to lie for my benefit. As I please.”
She straightened her shoulders and tilted her face up to meet his gaze. He was so close—close enough that at another time, in another place, as another woman, she might come up on her toes and press her lips to his.
Where had that thought come from?
She wanted nothing to do with kissing this man.
He was not for kissing. Not anymore.
She pursed her lips. “So you wish to ruin me.”
“You ruined my life,” he said, all casualness. “I think it only fair, don’t you?”
She had been ruined for twelve years—from the moment she’d bloodied the sheets and ran from that room.
She had been ruined before then.
But she’d hidden it well, and she had a houseful of boys to care for. Perhaps her ruin was his due. Perhaps it was hers as well. But she’d be damned if he’d ruin MacIntyre’s and the safe haven she’d built for these boys.
“So I will have to leave. Start over.”
“You’ve done it before,” he said.
As had he.
Vengeance was a pretty thing, wasn’t it?
She straightened her shoulders. “I accept.” For a half second, his eyes went wide, and she took pleasure in his shock. Evidently, he’d underestimated her strength and her purpose. “But I’ve a condition of my own.”
Tell him.
The thought came from nowhere.
Tell him Christopher’s debt included all the orphanage’s funds.
She met his gaze. Cold. Unyielding. Uncaring. Like the eyes of the boys’ fathers.
Tell him that what he does threatens the boys.
“I see no reason why I should allow for any of your conditions,” he said.