And she knew what particular scruple was, beneath all his excuses, keeping him from complying.

“You don’t need to imagine that by sharing a bed with me you’ll compromise me — or rather that that fact will affect my future life in any degree.”

He blinked; in his usually unreadable face she detected a moment’s confusion.

“Yes,” she went on, “I’m perfectly well aware that after a journey such as this my prospects of ever marrying will effectively be nil. But they already were.”

Because the one man she might possibly have married had never seen her as a marriageable female. He stood before her now, and almost certainly still saw her as a too-young young lady. Witness this argument.

He stood before her refusing even to share a bed, even in these circumstances, arguing as only he would, deeming it an unwise “complication,” no less.

Regardless of anything, they never would, never could, marry now. The only reason he would now offer for her hand was because he felt forced to it by honor, by circumstance — a reason for marriage she would never accept. A reason her mother, her sisters, her aunts, all her female acquaintance would understand that she could never accept.

To have a man forced to marry her would be anathema.

To have Breckenridge forced to marry her. . was unthinkable.

“I know society as well as you do.” She continued more calmly, but no less decisively, “I’m twenty-five. In a few months, I’ll be declared formally on the shelf, and that will be that. I’ve already decided what to do with the rest of my life — this journey and its outcome won’t materially affect my plans.”

He was frowning. After a moment, he asked, “These plans of yours — what are they?”

As if he didn’t believe she truly had any.

She smiled, tight-lipped. “I like children, and I know Catriona has many under her wing, quite aside from her own. I’d already thought to visit the Vale this summer and stay for a time, learning more about what Catriona and her staff do, then go home to Somerset and explore what I might do there. So, you see, I have it all worked out — this journey merely moves my plans forward a few months. Whatever social repercussions flow from my kidnapping and this subsequent flight with you won’t affect me in the least — in large part I won’t even be aware of them, of what the ton might think and say.”

Holding his gaze, yet as usual totally unable to read his expression, she decided that, in this instance, total honesty would serve her best. “And just to make matters crystal clear, while I comprehend that society might well deem a marriage between us the only acceptable outcome, I will not be a party to any socially dictated marriage. I would never marry a man who only sought to marry me to preserve his, and possibly my, honor.” She paused, still holding, or more accurately now trapped by his hard hazel gaze, by eyes that seemed to bore into her with an intensity she couldn’t quite comprehend.

She drew in a tight breath, fractionally tilted her chin. “So I trust that’s now clear. And that now you understand that no part of this journey, including you sleeping beside me in this bed, is going to change my future in any way, you will simply shut up”—she let her eyes blaze, let her chin firm—“and damn well lie down!”

To cap her performance — her clear challenge — she glared, jerked up the covers, slid down in the bed, turned on her other side, away from him, and slumped down in the bed.

Leaving Breckenridge staring at one belligerently hunched shoulder.

And struggling with a riot of emotions.

He felt. . insulted. Infuriated. He wanted to shake her.

To shake some sense into her stubbornly dismissive mind.

In all her wonderful plans, her careful planning, she’d forgotten one thing.

She’d forgotten him.

Fighting a nearly overpowering urge to stomp about the room, to rake his hands through his hair, clutch at the locks, then continue arguing with her — raging at her if need be — he clenched his jaw and glared. . while beneath the churning feelings that part of him that had more in common with a warrior-general than any civilized, sophisticated, bound-by-convention gentleman swiftly reassessed.

He’d thought — clearly wrongly — that she hadn’t seen the social implications of her kidnapping and his involvement in her rescue. Instead. . the element she hadn’t seen was that he might hold a different view from hers.

Hands locked on his hips, he stalked silently to the side of the bed. Staring down at her, he revisited his thoughts and requestioned his conclusions, his adamantly held belief that he and she had to marry. That that was the only way he could countenance this adventure ending.

His belief, his certainty, his absolute, unshakable conviction hadn’t altered, hadn’t shifted, hadn’t been undermined by her arguments in the least. So. . lips setting grimly, hands still on his hips, he narrowed his eyes on her. It appeared he had a significantly greater challenge before him than he’d foreseen.

The simple truth — one she refused to acknowledge — was that in the wake of this adventure, he being him and she being her left him with no alternative but to marry her. Not simply because society would otherwise howl and figuratively, if not literally, call for his head, nor because he needed a wife and she was in many ways the ideal candidate, but because, over and above every other consideration, on that plane on which he’d long ago vowed never to venture again but with her found himself walking on anyway, marrying her was now. . mandatory.

To him their marriage was now a foregone conclusion.

And the warrior within him refused to give that up.

He looked down at her, at the sheen of the candlelight caressing the silken smoothness of her shoulder, at the golden glimmer of her wheat-blond hair. The only reason he had, to this point, fought to keep the sexual barriers between them up and functioning was because he’d foreseen that if he gave in to the increasingly sharp prodding of his instincts and seduced her, using as his excuse the fact that society would dictate they had to marry anyway, she would later view him as having taken advantage of her. Of him using the situation to unfairly tie her to him, of him capitalizing on her relative social naivety to ensure they married, that all played out as he wanted regardless of what she thought or felt.

He’d thought that seducing her would leave her resenting him, resenting him for strengthening his claim on her. It was one thing for her to view society as forcing them to marry, quite another for her to view him as actively forcing marriage on her, too.

Given he’d assumed that she hadn’t seen the social implications, that reasoning had been sound.

But she had seen, had considered, and had instead set her mind on not marrying at all, not him or any other man.

That changed things. Fundamentally altered the landscape.

Staring down at her, he assessed the new terrain.

If once they reached the Vale, she held to her present stance and refused to marry him, refused to bow to the dictates of society. . seducing her now wouldn’t necessarily give him any useable lever with which to change the outcome.

He knew the Cynsters, all of them, knew that if she put her delicate foot down and refused to marry him, established intimacy notwithstanding, while all the men would be on his side, the women — potentially all of them — might very well side with her. And the Cynster women were a formidable force. If push came to shove, he suspected that they would prevail; when it came to all things family within the Cynster clan, they were the ultimate authority.

So seducing her wouldn’t strengthen his hand, not in that way, but. . in seducing her, he had one more ace up his sleeve. He wasn’t widely acknowledged as the ton’s foremost rake for no reason.

And she was attracted to him. He had little doubt that attraction arose from the usual fascination most young ladies felt for a man of his lauded experience, but it gave him a place to start.

And looking at the entire scenario objectively, what had he to lose? As matters stood, the only way he could win her hand was to convince her to bestow it on him of her own accord.

He reviewed his options one last time, but nothing varied, nothing changed. No other option reared its head.

Accepting, embracing his new purpose, he considered the space beside her, then shrugged off his coat, unknotted his kerchief, undid the laces at his throat and wrists. He glanced at her, knew she was listening for all she was worth. Stooping, he stripped off his hose, undid the closures at his breeches’ knees, then blew out the candle, stripped off his breeches.

Clad only in his shirt, reaching over the bed’s head, he drew back the curtains covering the window in the rear wall, allowing faint moonlight to flood the small room, then he lifted the blankets. As he’d assumed, she was lying under the soft sheet. He slid into the bed on top of the sheet, leaving that as a last barrier between them.

Not that it would hold back the inevitable.

Laying his head on the pillow, he let himself relax as far as he was able.

Looking up at the ceiling, he waited for nature to take her course.

For fate to raise her head and have at them both.

Heather didn’t know whether to grin triumphantly or just feel vindicated when she felt the bed dip at her back. Sliding her hand over the edge of the mattress, she clutched to hold herself in place as he settled. . then realized she’d have to keep clutching if she didn’t want to roll back into him.