He blinked. “I beg your pardon?”

“Don’t bother. I already mentioned that you won’t be forgiven, didn’t I?”

He gritted his teeth. “That’s a blasted phrase that requests an explanation when delivered in that tone, not a request for forgiveness!”

“Is it indeed? When a simple ‘what’ would have gotten the point across without causing confusion? Another one of those subtle ‘intricacies’ understood only by you lordly types, I suppose?”

He rolled his eyes and said in a weary tone, “You are being obtuse, Anastasia.”

She matched his tone and added a sigh. “And you are being dense, Lord Englishman, or have you not grasped yet that I have nothing further to say to you?”

He stiffened. “Very well, but before we part, I would like to know how you thought you could possibly convince me that I had married you.”

“Convince you?” She laughed unpleasantly. “There is probably a paper in your coat pocket with our signatures on it, unless you managed to lose it last night. But then you could always ask the Reverend Biggs—I believe that was the name he supplied. You threatened to beat him to within an inch of his life if he didn’t marry us, and poor man, he quite believed you. So do whatever needs doing to unmarry us. There will be no need to inform me when it is done, since I have no doubt whatsoever that you will see to it posthaste.”

She was able to walk away from him again, because again, she’d rendered him quite beyond speech.

Chapter 19

Chapter 19

SHE WASN’T GOING TO CRY. HE WAS AN INSENSITIVE beast, an arrogant wretch, and as he might put it, a “bloody” snob. But she wasn’t going to cry. She had seen his confusion and wanted to help him. She had seen his pain and wanted to heal it. She had seen his emptiness and wanted to fill him with happiness instead. But she hadn’t seen that he could be so foolish as to put the opinions of others before his own needs. She hadn’t seen that he would sacrifice his own happiness because “it just wasn’t done.”

It was appalling, to have been so wrong about him, and worse, to let her own emotions take over. Her heart wasn’t supposed to get so involved—yet. She shouldn’t be devastated that he couldn’t stand the thought of being married to her, when she’d known from the start that he felt that way—when he wasn’t drunk. Drunk, he let his heart guide him. Drunk, nothing was going to stand in the way of what he wanted, certainly not his silly “it just wasn’t done.”