Free Rogue's Mistress by Eugenia Riley Page A

shrugged. “Perhaps I think
he’ll make you a poor husband.”
    “He’ll make me no husband if he’s
dead.”
    “Quite true,” he uttered
agreeably.
    Mercy struggled to hold on to her
patience. “There’s an alternative—”
    “Yes?”
    She drew herself up proudly. “I
could take the veil.”
    Mercy’s pride was at once deflated
as Julian threw back his head and laughed. “You—a nun?”
    Mercy bristled. “Is the idea so
absurd to you, m’sieur?”
    “Utterly.” He looked her over in
an insulting way that could only be called a leer. “You’re far too earthy and
ravishing a creature to become a nun.”
    Mercy’s eyes grew enormous even as
she inwardly burned with indignation at Julian’s affront. Enough was enough,
she realized. Julian was clearly drunk. There was no getting through to the
man, and she might as well leave. Perhaps he was right, anyway, and she should
try to change Philippe’s mind.
    She stared at him coldly.
“M’sieur, I have had quite enough of your insults. As always, you are a
black-hearted, insufferable scoundrel, and I bid you good night.”
    That’s when something snapped in
Julian. Perhaps it was Mercy’s cold departing words, or the contempt that had
been building between them for nine long years. Perhaps it was the unspeakable
passion the girl inevitably spurred in him. But suddenly, he became fiercely
determined to penetrate her icy façade, to discover if the girl possessed a
heart at all.
    Even as she turned to leave, he
grabbed her arm. “Not so fast, Mercy.”
    She turned to glower at him,
trying to wrench herself free. “This is taking us nowhere, m’sieur.”
    “On the contrary. There is a
solution.”
    She paused, arrested. “Yes?”
    “Obviously, you need a proper
husband, and young Broussard needs to survive to his twenty-first year.”
    “What are you suggesting?”
    He looked her over again. “You
could marry me.”
    “Have you lost your mind?” she
gasped.
    “Undoubtedly. Still, the match
might prove . . . interesting.”
    “Lethal,” she amended. “How could
you think I could ever—”
    “Stop hating me?” he supplied.
“Stop blaming me?”
    Even as guilt stabbed her, she
cried, “Yes!”
    He loomed closer, the look in his
eyes chilling her, his breath hot on her face. “Do you actually think you are
the only one who has known loss in all of this?”
    “I—don’t know what you mean—”
    “Don’t you? Come now, dear Mercy.
You can’t possibly be that thickheaded. Your eyes alone have been impaling me
for years, like a knife in my heart—”
    “I never meant—”
    “Didn’t you?” He laughed, but it
was hollow, humorless. “Do you actually think you’re the only one who has felt
regret, or recrimination?”
    “Regret over what?” she cried.
    “Do you know what it’s like to
have someone hate you, year after year?”
    She was utterly confused. “How
could I think of you any other way?”
    “But of course!” he exclaimed
bitterly, flinging a hand outward. “Never mind what the magistrate said. Never
mind that I’ve provided for your every need for nine years.”
    “No one asked you to—”
    “Your mother asked me to, damn
it,” he said, his eyes brilliant in his rage. “And I gave her my promise that
night. But, of course, all of that is meaningless to you. In your eyes I’ll
always be guilty—irrevocably and eternally damned. Far be it from me to expect Mercy to be merciful—”
    “Please, m’sieur. You’re confusing
me—”
    “ Please, m’sieur ,” he
mimicked. He grasped her by the shoulders, his eyes boring down into hers.
“Call me Julian.”
    Now her eyes gleamed with pride.
“Never.”
    “Never?” he repeated in a
dangerously soft voice. “You always call me ‘m’sieur’—as if I’m anonymous, as
if I don’t exist. Well, I do exist—and, by damn, you will acknowledge
me.”
    “You’re drunk—insane,” she cried.
“You must know that I hate you. You must know that I’ll always