“What do you think I was doing, Robert?” she asked with low-voiced exasperation. “I heard Christiana and Suzette talking as they came up the hall, so slid under the bed to hide.”

“Why?” he asked blankly.

“Why?” Lisa echoed with disbelief. “So I wouldn’t be caught in your bed, of course. For heaven’s sake, there would have been an uproar, and you would have been forced to marry me, and—Robert Langley, are you laughing?” she asked with disbelief.

“Come here,” he said between chuckles and caught her hand to draw her onto the bed. She dropped onto it, mostly because she lost her balance, but he ignored that and her stiffness and wrapped his arms around her, dragging her down to lie with him, “It was very sweet of you to try to protect me, Lisa. And I am glad you didn’t have to suffer the humiliation of being caught in such a compromising situation, but it doesn’t matter in the end anyway. We will have to marry now.”

Lisa didn’t squeal with joy or throw her arms around him with gratitude as he’d expected. In fact, much to his surprise, she seemed to go still and stiff in his arms.

“Lisa?” he said uncertainly and then frowned when she eased from his embrace and sat up.

“There is no need to marry me, Robert. No one knows we were together. We can just continue as if it never happened,” she said coolly and stood.

“What?” he asked with disbelief and then lunged off the bed to stop her when her shadow moved around the bed and headed for the door. Catching her arm, he drew her to a halt and moved in front of her. “Just a minute, dammit. We have to talk about this.”

“There is nothing to talk about. No one knows, and I am not making you marry me. Everything is as it was.”

“The hell it is,” Robert said grimly. “Lisa, you could be carrying my child even now. We have to marry.”

“I am not marrying a man who doesn’t want me and doesn’t trust me and who will spend our entire lives together sure I will someday betray him,” she said unhappily. “This was a mistake.”

She tried to move around him then, but he caught her arm to stop her.

“Lisa,” he began, but then paused, completely flummoxed as to what to say. While he could tell her that he definitely did want her, that wasn’t what she meant. She meant he didn’t want to marry her, and mostly that was true. He didn’t want to marry anyone. And she was right, he would spend their entire lives together sure she would betray him and waiting for it to happen.