Free A Breach of Promise by Victoria Vane Page B

face mirrored a riot of emotion. Her eyes shone. She looked about to crumple.
    Anticipating her tears, Marcus pulled her against his chest, enfolding her in his arms, resting his chin upon her hair. He soothed her, rubbing her back and massaging her temples as her body shook with sobs muffled against his shirt. “There you are wrong, my dearest. While my motives were not the most honorable when you entered this carriage, I did leave you a choice.”
    Lydia’s head jerked upward knocking painfully into his chin. “What choice?”
    Damn! Marcus rubbed his jaw. “I mean I had every intention of taking your maidenhead, but contrary to my notoriously selfish inclinations, I left the decision to you. Now I ask you to make it.”
    “I don’t understand.”
    “I want you, Lydia,” he groaned. “Bad enough that I’m about to say something I never thought would pass my lips. I’m asking if you will have me as your husband and your lover. I’m asking you to marry me, but if you wish me to humble myself by kneeling at your feet again, I won’t be held responsible for my actions.”
    He watched her face as myriad emotions battled for supremacy, uncertainty and distrust foremost among them. He grazed a warm finger over her cheek. “I can’t believe you feel nothing for me. Despite your recent protests, I was under the belief that you once desired our union.”
    “I did. Once. When I was just a foolish girl thinking you the very sun that my world revolved around but people change. Feelings change.”
    He took her chin in his hand, forcing her to meet his gaze. “I never meant to hurt you, Lydia, but I could never have lived up to your ideal. I don’t know if any mortal man could have.”
    “I know that now. I was a girl. I am a woman now.”
    “I noticed,” Marcus said with a raffish curve of his lips. “I know how to please you, Lydia, and I intend to please you frequently and exhaustively in the marriage bed. Would that be so very bad?” He bent his head to kiss her.
    She averted her face. “I can’t deny my attraction to you but lust is not love, Marcus. To my understanding a man can perform the animal act of coition in virtually any circumstance without emotional engagement of any kind.”
    The smile in his eyes vanished, his gaze narrowed. “You imply men and women don’t have an equal capacity to love.”
    She looked perplexed. “Do they? Do you?”
    “Yes. No. I don’t know,” Marcus raked a hand through his hair with a groan. “There are differences. To a man, lust and love are commingled, the latter cannot exist without the former. A man doesn’t express love by spewing poetic nonsense, Lydia, but by worshipping a woman’s body and conversely a woman does not perform acts of love with the passion you display unless she feels something .” He grazed a finger along her cheek. “Why do you fight the attraction between us? Do you think such passion exists between every betrothed couple?”
    “Why, Marcus?” she cried. “Why can’t you understand I need more than you can offer me? Why do you persist when we both know you don’t love me? Is your pride so great that you would condemn us both to misery rather than let me go?”
    “Misery?” Bloody hell! I’ve just taken her to paradise and she speaks of misery? The thought filled him with exasperation, vexation. It was an effort to moderate his reply. “Is that how you really envision a life with me?”
    “Much of that life would exist outside the conjugal bed. I won’t enter such a marriage, Marcus. I won’t be cast aside for other women. I realize that many women turn a blind eye regarding their husband’s paramours, but I am not one of them. I won’t enter any marriage without friendship, respect, and if not love, at least the hope of genuine affection?”
    Once more he looked pained. “Why must you only assume the worst of me, Lydia?”
    “You have given me little reason until now to do otherwise.”
    “Have you so little faith in my