Free The Perfect Stranger by Anne Gracíe Page B

resist.”
    She blinked at his calm admission. “Well, what am I going to do without boots? I can hardly walk into town in my bare feet!”
    “No, I know.” He turned to his friend. “Mac?”
    Mac dumped several bulging string bags on the ground beside Faith, pulled two breadsticks free, and stomped off toward the fire without a word.
    Nicholas Blacklock squatted down, pulled out a brown paper parcel, and handed it to Faith. “Here.”
    Disconcerted, she accepted it. It was oddly shaped, both squashy and hard. What on earth could it be? And what was he up to?
    “Well, go on, open it.”
    She pulled off the paper and looked at what he’d bought her, what the horrid, arrogant, boot-burning, bossy pants had bought her. She felt her eyes fill with tears. She blinked them furiously away.
    “I hope they fit. I had to guess at the size.”
    They would fit, she knew. If she didn’t know better, she’d think they’d been made for her.
    “Don’t you like them?”
    She managed to whisper, “Yes. Thank you. They’re lovely.” And they were. Her new boots. Her beautiful, new, soft, blue kidskin boots.
    “Well, try them on.”
    “I—I’ll wait until I wash my feet. I don’t want to ruin them.” She was reluctant to put them on. They were so beautiful, and her feet were so ugly. And she was still angry with him in a strange sort of way.
    He shrugged and turned to Stevens, who had been observing with a fatherly told-you-so beam. “How was the fishing?” He turned back to Faith and added in an afterthought. “It will be tomorrow morning, by the way.”
    “What will?”
    “The wedding. It’s all settled and arranged for tomorrow morning.”
    Faith’s jaw dropped. “But we haven’t even discussed it!”
    He raised his black brows at her. “What is there to discuss?”
    She gave him a fulminating look. He glanced at Stevens, then held out his hand. “Come, let us walk along the beach then, and discuss whatever it is you wish to discuss. Stevens can pack up here.”
    His hand closed, big and warm and strong around hers. She felt both trapped and—annoyingly—soothed.
    She pulled her hand free. “I didn’t believe you meant it!”
    “I always mean what I say.”
    “But why would you wish to marry me?”
    He arched a sardonic eyebrow. “I don’t wish to marry you. I don’t wish to marry anyone. It will be a ceremony, that is all. A mere form. You must admit, your current situation is impossible.”
    Faith didn’t have to admit anything of the sort. Nothing was impossible. She just hadn’t yet worked out what to do. “But to marry a perfect stranger? It’s ridiculous!”
    “It’s unusual, but it’s the perfect solution.” He was completely calm. It was very annoying!
    “Solution for whom? What do you get out of it?”
    Nicholas Blacklock frowned, then said stiffly, “It would be a white marriage, naturally.” He meant it would not be consummated.
    “Would it?”
    “Yes, of course. After the wedding, I will send you back to England where you will be safe and protected. We would go our separate ways.”
    For some reason she found this even more annoying. “Oh, would we?”
    He frowned. “Are you angry with me?”
    She shrugged. She was, but anger was only one of the emotions that roiled around inside her at the moment, and she hadn’t a hope of sorting them out while he stood there like a—a masculine sphinx! “I don’t know what I feel.”
    Marry this man, this stranger who she’d known for less than a day? Who was he, truly, this Nicholas Blacklock? She knew nothing about him except that he rescued fallen women without a thought, then proposed marriage to them in a manner so disinterested as to be extremely irritating.
    “It will be a ceremony, that is all. A mere form.”
    She shook her head. “I…I’m sorry. I cannot think what to do.”
    “What is there to think about?”
    Her jaw dropped. “What is there to think about? Only everything! I’ve almost destroyed my life by trusting