Free Twin of Ice by Jude Deveraux

didn’t have a big house to give you. A lady like you wouldn’t even talk to a stableboy like me. What I want is for you to pretend, and to tell ever’body, that you…” He looked down at the parqueted floor. “I want people to think you did, uh, fall in love with me and that you ain’t just marryin’ me ’cause your sister jumped the gun and I just happened along. I want even your sister”—he said this with emphasis—“to think you’re crazy for me, just like I said in front of the church. And I want your mother to think so, too. I don’t want her to be afraid of me.”
    Houston had expected anything but this. So this was the big, fearsome man who stood aloof from the whole town. How awful it must be to not be able to do the smallest social thing. Of course women wouldn’t put up with having him in their houses when there were “accidents” and china was broken. Right now, he didn’t fit into any world, neither the poor one where his manners and speech placed him, nor the rich one where his money placed him.
    He needs me, she thought. He needs me as no one ever has before. To Leander, I was something extra, nice but not necessary. But to this man, the things I’ve learned are vital.
    “I will pretend to be the most loving of wives,” she said softly.
    “Then you are gonna marry me?”
    “Why, yes, I believe I am,” she said with a feeling of surprise.
    “Hot damn! Edan!” he bellowed as he ran out of the room. “Lady Chandler’s gonna marry me.”
    Houston sat down on a window ledge. He was going to marry “Lady” Chandler. Who in the world had she agreed to marry?
     
    It was evening before Houston drove back to her own home. She was exhausted, and at the moment she wished she’d never heard of Kane Taggert. He seemed to think he would be able to stay at his house and work, and his fiancée could attend all the engagement parties alone, tell everyone she was in love with him, and all would be well.
    “Unless they see us together, no one will believe we even know each other,” she said to him across his littered desk. “You have to attend the garden party the day after tomorrow, and before then we have to make you a proper suit of clothes and shave you.”
    “I’m tryin’ to buy some land in Virginia and a man’s comin’ tomorrow. I got to stay here.”
    “You can talk business during your fittings.”
    “You mean, have one of them little men put his little hands all over me? I ain’t havin’ that. You have somebody send over some suits and I’ll pick one out.”
    “Red or purple?” she asked quickly.
    “Red. I seen some red plaid ones once—.”
    Houston’s half scream stopped him. “You will have a tailor make a suit for you and I will choose the fabric. And you will attend the garden party with me, and you will also attend several other functions with me within the next few weeks before our marriage.”
    “You sure real ladies are this bossy? I thought real ladies never raised their voices.”
    “They don’t raise their voices to real gentlemen, but to men who want to wear red plaid suits they are allowed to use blunt instruments.”
    Kane had looked sulky at that, but he’d given in. “All right then, I’ll have a suit made like you want, and I’ll go to your dam…your lovely, dainty tea party,” he changed it to, making her smile, “but I don’t know about them other parties.”
    “We’ll do one day at a time,” she said, suddenly feeling exhausted. “I must return home. My parents will be worried.”
    “Come ’ere,” he said, motioning her around his desk.
    Thinking he wanted to show her something, she did as he bid. Roughly, he caught her wrist and pulled her into his lap. “You get to be my teacher, I guess I’m gonna have to teach you about some things, too.”
    He began nuzzling her neck with his face, his lips nibbling her skin. She was about to protest his treatment of her, but then parts of her body began to melt.
    “Kane,” Edan said from