Scandals of an Innocent. Nicola Cornick

for marriage.”

      Alice made a sound like an enraged kitten and flounced away. “If you kidnapped me I would still refuse you,” she said. “You would need to pay a crooked clergyman to ignore my protestations.”

      “Another excellent idea,” Miles said. “I will if I must.” He sighed. “But to be quite honest with you, Miss Lister, it is a vast amount of trouble to go to when blackmail is available as an option instead.” He moved a little closer to her. “Think about it,” he said. “Transportation…imprisonment…These are harsh options, Miss Lister. They really would not suit you. You have already scrambled out of poverty once. I am sure that you do not wish to return. And being married to me has its benefits. Your situation in life would improve immeasurably. You would have the title of marchioness—and four strawberry leaves in the coronet, for a start.”

      “If you are looking for a woman who wishes for nothing more than to marry a marquis then you should wed my mama rather than me,” Alice snapped. “You are lower than a louse to seek to force me like this.” She gritted her teeth. “You are a worm and a weasel—”

      Miles laughed again. “Is a weasel lower than a louse?” He spread his hands wide in a gesture of appeal. “Shall we take your poor opinion of me as read, Miss Lister, and get down to business? Think of your mother. She will be delighted if you accept my proposal. Remember that she wishes you to marry into the aristocracy—not be clapped in Fortune’s Folly jail or dispatched to Australia.”

      Alice could feel a headache building behind her eyes. She rubbed her forehead. Think of your mother, Miles had said. She thought of her family and the fragile security that they had achieved since her inheritance. Could she risk losing all that? Her brother, Lowell, had the modern machinery he needed to make the farm profitable now. He was working hard to secure his future but it was not easy for him. Her mother felt safe if not happy as a wealthy matron in country society, but her confidence was so brittle. Any scandal involving Alice would devastate her. Then there was Lydia, pregnant, abandoned and alone, who would lose the roof over her head if anything happened to Alice. She could turn to her cousin, Laura Anstruther, but Laura and Dexter were poor as church mice themselves.

      Miles was threatening to take everything away that Alice had worked to build. He was an officer of the Crown, working for Richard Ryder, the Home Secretary, and as such, one word from him could ruin her forever. It would break her mother’s heart, and leave Lydia defenceless. As for a court actually convicting her…her mind reeled in horror at the prospect. For she was guilty as charged. She was totally in his power.

      She pressed her fingers to her temples. If only she could negotiate with Miles, make some sort of compromise. That might suffice.

      “I will make a bargain with you, my lord,” she said. “I understand that you are deeply in debt and that you must want my fortune, and so, if you do not speak of what happened last night, I will consent to the pretence of a betrothal between us to help you stave off your creditors for a little while—” She stopped, shocked. For a moment there was such a bleak and desolate look in Miles’s eyes that it took her breath away. She had never, ever thought to see an expression like that on his face. And then it was gone, as swiftly as it had come, and she wondered if she had imagined it.

      “It is far too late for half measures, Miss Lister,” he said. “The sale of the Drum estate and all the castle contents starts in a couple of weeks.” He smiled faintly. “I am in far deeper debt than you can ever imagine. I have already sold everything I can, and if I do not wed an heiress, and soon, I will be thrown in the Fleet—or be forced to flee the country.” He shifted a little. “That is why I am prepared to do anything to oblige you to marry me, Miss Lister. There will be no compromises. You wed me or you go to jail.”

      Chapter Four

      MILES WATCHED as Alice wrestled with his not in the least romantic proposal. Every expression was written clearly on her face. He could read that she wanted to tell him to go to hell. It was in every defiant line of her body and in the jut of her chin as she stood, hands on hips, staring him down. Miles was accustomed to calculating each cynical risk he took in his life and this was one he knew was a racing certainty. No matter how much she hated him, Alice had too much to lose to refuse him. She would succumb to his blackmail, wed him, and he would have the fortune he craved.

      He would have Alice in his bed, as well, and that was beginning to matter as much as the money. Well, not quite. But their sparring had only sharpened his hunger for her. For a moment Miles allowed himself to imagine Alice naked in his arms, the curves and hollows of her skin exposed to his questing hands, the scent of her wrapped about him as it had been the night before.

      The arousal ripped through him, startling him in its intensity.

      Miles clamped down on his excessive lust. This was not going to help him think straight and he was too calculating to be led astray by his desire. He looked at Alice again and almost forgot the resolution he had just made. She looked slightly flustered, completely defiant and totally irresistible. He wanted to kiss her. He wanted it very much.

      Something flickered in Alice’s blue eyes—fury and despair in equal mixture. She was trapped and she knew it but she was not going to break down. Miles felt a sudden admiration for her. Most women would have given in to the vapors by now, or have withdrawn into a strategic swoon. Alice, it seemed, had nerves of steel and a fundamental strength of character he had seldom encountered in a female before, the only other exception being his cousin Laura Anstruther. Miles was not conventional enough to believe that women were the weaker sex—he had seen enough of their strength and courage under duress to know that they had a hardiness that many of his peers would deplore as unfeminine and unbecoming. But Alice had something in addition. She had enormous resolution.

      He watched her narrowly as she paced the room. He was accustomed to weighing up his adversaries, assessing their strengths and weaknesses. Before he had gone to work for the Home Secretary he had been in the army and his work had taken him into dark places where he bartered for the lives of prisoners or hostages held by the other side, where he made bargains with men’s lives and futures as though they were no more than pieces on a chessboard, where he had always to consider the greater good and be prepared to sacrifice the individual. Over the years he had abandoned people whose only hope was that he could secure their safety. Always he reminded himself that a few had to suffer for the benefit of the majority. And gradually the choices had become less painful, more calculated, and with each decision another piece of his soul had been lost. He knew this was why he could look at Alice now and feel nothing but a tightening hunger for her and for her money, and a triumph that the game was almost won. He doubted that there was a man alive who was more unfeeling or cynical than he was now, so he felt no compunction about forcing Alice into marriage. She had something that he wanted. He had the means to compel her to his point of view. It was as simple as that.

      “Even if I agreed—” Alice began and Miles’s heart leaped to know that what he desired was so close to being within his grasp “—and I have not said that I will—there is a difficulty.”

      “I am sure,” Miles said, “that it is nothing we cannot overcome.”

      Alice’s eyes flashed with disdain. “I think it most unlikely you will be able to overcome this particular problem, my lord.” She turned on her heel sharply and walked away from him, the lemon silk skirts of her gown making a soft swishing sound.

      “Try me,” Miles said. Now that he was within an ace of winning Alice’s consent he was absolutely determined that nothing would stand in his way. He was aware of tension rippling through all the muscles in his body, and the hairs of the back of his neck standing on end. He only just managed to suppress a shiver.

      Alice gestured him to a seat and sat down opposite him. All her movements were very precise, as though she had herself under tight control. She was remarkably self-contained but he could see how much it was costing her in the tense way that she held herself together. Her strain showed in the tight grip of her hands in her lap and in the taut line of her shoulders as she sat up very straight.

      “The inheritance of my fortune is not without