Free Tangled by Mary Balogh

your own," he said. "Not
    58 Mary Balogh only that. You would have a definite purpose in life. You would be very much needed."

    "You are proposing a marriage of convenience?" she asked him.
    They had stopped walking and she had dropped her arm from his.
    "We would marry just because I need a home and you need a helper?"
    "Not entirely," he said. "We are not strangers, Rebecca. I am fond of you and I think you are perhaps a little fond of me. It would not be quite as cold-blooded as a marriage of convenience."
    "I am not fond of you." Her eyes were wide. She flushed deeply after the words were out, but she would not retract them. "Julian loved you and so I suppose I felt a certain bond with you. But I was never fond of you. I have no wish to marry you, David, either for convenience or fondness. Thank you but no."
    He felt rather as if he had been slapped across the face. But she had told him nothing that he had not known already. He could not retreat. He had heard too much of the loneliness of her situation in what she had told him a few minutes ago, although she had spoken without open self-pity.
    "Think about it," he said. "Think about a home and position of your own, Rebecca. Think about being able to move away from here and not having to contemplate living with your brother or with your sister-in-law, who would perhaps resent having you. Think about the fact that I need a wife."

    Her dark eyes blazed up at him suddenly and her nostrils flared.
    He could not remember seeing Rebecca angry. "You need a wife?" she asked him. "You have one, David. It is just that you have neglected to marry her. And you have a son."
    "No," he said.
    "Go and ask Flora to marry you," she said. "Have you even thought of calling on her today? Have you even thought to see how your son has grown in your absence? He has your dark hair, you know.''
    "Flora has dark hair too," he said.
    "So you are going to deny your paternity?" she said. "I despise you for that, David. I despise you more than I can say. Everything else you ever did I could put down
    ¦MM Tangled59
    to the wildness of youth, but not that. How could you beget a child and desert the mother?''
    "I did not desert her," he said, "or the child. They are safe and warm and have all their needs provided for, don't they?"
    "By you?" she said. "Or by your father?"

    "Both," he said.
    She turned from him and gazed across the wide lawn on which they had been strolling toward the distant line of trees.
    "She would not have accepted marriage with me," he said quietly.
    "I don't believe you," she said. "And by your very words you are admitting that you never asked her. You did not even try to do the decent thing."
    "Ask her," he said. "I believe she will tell you that she would not have married me even if I had asked. We had an understanding."
    .
    "Oh, yes," she said. "Money and a home in exchange for silence and docility. And so your son is a bastard, David. He will have to live his life with that stigma."
    "Yes," he said. "But he will be well cared for. Marriage between Flora and me would have been impossible, Rebecca. Ask her."
    She began to walk in the direction of the distant house. "Marriage between you and me would be even more impossible," she said. "I cannot think why you had the gall to ask." She stopped again and turned to look full at him. "I am Julian's wife. Julian's widow, if you will. Do you think I could marry you after being his, David? Do you?"
    He could think of no answer to give her.
    "I have tried," she said, and her eyes were tormented suddenly,
    "not to wish it were Julian coming home and not you. It would be a cruel wish, wouldn't it? But I have wished it nevertheless. And I wish it now, God help me. If it had to be one or the other of you, then I wish it were Julian standing there and you in the grave in the Crimea.
    And I hate you for forcing me to make that admission out loud.
    Don't follow me. Please."
    She hurried away across the lawn, holding up her full skirt in front