Free The Secret Rose by Laura Landon Page B

London. It seems especially important to you, and I’d like to know why.”
    She paced the floor, searching for a way to change what was happening. There was none. “How long do you expect us to be in London?”
    “A few weeks. Perhaps longer. There are banns to be read and announcements to be made. Although you will not be able to attend any social affairs due to your father’s recent death, there are still small family gatherings at which we will be expected to make an appearance. You can hardly expect me to go to London to announce our impending marriage and proclaim myself the future owner of Langdon Shipping without you at my side to tell the world it is true, and show them how happy we are about our new state of affairs.”
    “I doubt your mother will be happy to hear our good news.”
    “I doubt she will, either, but she will either accept it or be content to spend the rest of her life in poverty.”
    Abigail felt the sting of his meaning. She knew why he had agreed to marry her. Because he wanted her ships, and he could not bring himself to hand over the deed to Fallen Oaks. It was his misplaced sense of honor that forced him to take care of Stephen’s financial mess. It was an even more misplaced sense of principled integrity that forced him to take care of her.
    She intended to use the few months he’d given her to show him she did not need him.
    “The carriage is in front, sir,” Palmsworth said, standing at the door with their heavy cloaks in his arms.
    Ethan took hers and placed it around her shoulders. She tried to hold back the shiver that shook her body when he touched her, but she couldn’t.
    “Are you cold?”
    “No.” She wrapped the cloak tighter around her.
    “Here,” he said, handing her a thick fur muff, then putting on his own cloak. “This will help keep you warm.”
    Abigail wrapped a thick woolen muffler around her neck then slid her trembling hands into the muff. She wanted to tell him all the clothes in the world would not stop the chill that shook her body.
    His hand rested lightly on her back as he led her from the house. The heat from his touch burned through the thick layers of clothing. Doubt and indecision ate away at her. She was left trembling from the inside out.
    Didn’t he know she had more to fear from him than from the cold and the wind? Didn’t he know she would never trust him, no matter how desperately she wanted to? Putting her life in any man’s hands was a lesson Stephen proved would destroy her. It was a lesson she would never forget.
    She walked with him to the waiting carriage, the safety and surety of his nearness a false panacea to the trembling fear that would not go away. How could she ever feel safe with him? There were too many secrets to separate them.
    She thought of the bargain she’d just struck with him and knew she could never honor it. There was too much at stake. Too much she would lose. Let him think he could marry her for her ships. That is all he wanted anyway. Let him think all his problems had been solved. They had only just begun. She had survived far greater threats than Ethan Cambridge and his misplaced sense of honor and responsibility.
    She would go through the motions, pretend to agree to his proposal, but in the end, it would not be as he thought. Sydney would draw up the papers. Once they were signed, she would have Fallen Oaks and he would have her ships. He would be the only one who thought there would be more.
    One fact was for certain. She had no intention of ever becoming his wife.

CHAPTER 7
    Ethan stood alone in the quiet of a world already gone to sleep and stared at the multitude of shining stars that twinkled in the clear winter sky. Here at Fallen Oaks, away from the rude London noises, and despite the day’s earlier hard-fought battle, he felt strangely at peace. A huge moon shone radiant and full, reflecting its silver spires upon the blanket of pure white snow in a dazzling display of gleaming splendor. The vivid