The Rebel Bride by Catherine Coulter

“Marry you,” she repeated blankly. “You want me to marry you?”

“That’s right.” He wasn’t dismayed, not really, for she was quite innocent. Her uncertainty, her charming guilelessness pleased him, for it fitted to perfection the reaction he’d expected to see from her at his declaration. He could almost imagine now the softness of her lips and the feel of her silky hair in his hands. He wanted to stroke his hands down her back, cup her and bring her up tightly against him, let her feel how very much he wanted her.

“You’re not jesting with me, my lord?”

It occurred to Julien that perhaps she couldn’t quite believe that she would become a countess. “It’s a serious matter, Kate. I can’t imagine any man ever living has jested when he’s proposed marriage. I’ve already spoken to your father, as I said, and he gives us his blessing. It just remains for you to say yes to me and it is done. Then we’ll select a date and everything will go forward.”

“My father has agreed to this?” Her voice was a whisper, and he had to strain to make out her words.

“Yes, of course. Actually I had few doubts that he would.”

With an effort she wrenched her gaze from his face, terribly aware at that moment of his nearness to her. The day before, when he’d kissed her, she had known an instant of tingling excitement, an altogether new sensation that had been actually quite pleasurable. But the brief moment had passed so quickly that she wasn’t now certain it had happened at all. What she remembered was that she had felt at once so consumed with the unexpected deadening fear that had caused her to run from him. She hadn’t been able to understand either the unwanted feelings that had surged through her when he’d touched her or her sudden fear. She’d decided later that she had behaved foolishly, that the earl had merely given way to a moment of capriciousness. She realized now that she had been mistaken not only in her final dismissal of her own feelings, but in the earl’s motives as well. His had not been the action of a capricious nobleman. He wanted her. She felt the strength and possessiveness of his hand, knew the power in that hand, and jerked hers away. Her chest tightened painfully, as it had the day before. She felt an overwhelming desire to run, but she didn’t move. Her body seemed leaden, weighted down by a strange lethargy. Her mouth went dry and she licked her lips nervously. Without wishing to, she pictured his powerful man’s body barely held in check by his elegant clothing. The inexplicable terror that had consumed her at the copse now descended, cloaking her mind in a pervasive and dreadful blackness.

“Kate.” His voice penetrated the darkness.

Her mind cleared at the sound of his voice. The full realization of what he wanted broke over her like a massive wave of freezing, numbing water. Marry him. He would be her husband, a man who would rule her life just as her father did now. Her husband. She would belong to him. He would own her. She would have nothing, no escape, no freedom, nothing. Her father had given him his blessing.

A bitter fury gripped her and she encouraged her rage, for it gave her mind direction. How could he be so presumptuous, so very sure of himself? “How dare you? You bargain with my father for me like stocks on the ‘Change. Did it never occur to you that I would find your sly maneuver despicable?”

She paused for breath, and to find more words, hurtful words to drive him away, to keep him away, to give him a lasting disgust of her.

“I don’t understand you,” he said, staring intently at her, doubting her words even as she spoke them, not understanding her, not understanding any of it now.

She fanned her fury, searching out more painful words, more insults, anything to make him hate her, to make him leave her alone. “How odd. To this moment, I have always found your understanding to be quite superior. What’s wrong, my lord? Don’t simple words make sense to you? Are you so sure of yourself and what you are and what you want that you refuse to listen to a contrary opinion? Truly, your arrogance and conceit pass all bounds.”