“You trapped me in exactly the same way as your mother did, placing me in a position where I had no choice. Oh, your tactics were different, but you and your mother had exactly the same intention—to force me to do what you wanted, regardless of my own wishes.”

He stared at her, stunned by her accusation. “I never thought—”

“No, I’m sure you didn’t. You just saw something you wanted and did what you had to to get it.”

He opened his mouth, then shut it. A pulse beat in his jaw.

“You could have wooed me, courted me, like any other man might have—”

“But you were adamant you didn’t ever want to marry.”

She tilted her head. “And there it is again, you see? You thought you knew what I wanted but it wasn’t what you wanted, so you just trampled over my feelings, my opinions, my wants in order to get your way. What I wanted didn’t matter to you at all. Just like your mother.”

He stared at her. He was white around the mouth. Her words had shocked him to the core, she could see.

Good. He needed shocking.

She pushed the rug aside and prepared to get down from the curricle.

“I’ll drive you—”

“No, I’ll walk across the square.” Unaided, she jumped lithely down from the curricle. He followed her.

“I will put a notice in the newspapers, canceling our betrothal.” His voice was heavy but sincere. “I’m sorry. I didn’t think—I didn’t realize—” He broke off and shook his head. “I have no excuse for my behavior. I’m truly sorry.”

George looked up at him. She’d never liked him so much as at this moment, when she was about to be free of him. “No, don’t do that,” she heard herself saying. “Call on me tomorrow and I’ll tell you of my decision.”

The cynical look returned to his eyes. “Toying with me, are you? Making me wait? Well, I suppose I deserve it.”

Anger sparked. “Don’t ever accuse me of that. I’m not the one who deals in strategies and playacting and lies. What I say, I mean. Please yourself then—call on me tomorrow or send a notice to the papers, I don’t care!” And she stormed off across the park.

Hart drove home in such deep shock that when his horses pulled up in front of his house, he looked around, blinking, having no idea how he’d driven from Berkeley Square to his house. He tossed the reins to his groom and went inside, deep in thought.

He had deliberately distanced himself from his mother over the years, ever since he’d first realized that the various illnesses and disabilities and megrims she suffered from were devices she used to trick people into doing what she wanted.