Impulse. Candace Camp

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СКАЧАТЬ How else could I feel? You’ve betrayed us, thrown everything your grandmother and I have done for you right back in our faces. You’re an ungrateful, lecherous wretch of a girl!”

      “Then I must suppose you will be happy to be rid of me,” Angela retorted, stiffening her spine against the hurt his words aroused in her.

      “You tempt me.” He gazed at her with narrowed eyes. “But that young fool Dunstan is still willing to have you. You’ve fair dazzled him, though God knows he doesn’t seem the type to let a girl make him lose his good sense. After what you’ve done, I would not expect you to make a decent marriage, let alone one this good. You know it’s the connection Lady Margaret and I want—and ‘twill save your reputation, as well.”

      Angela stared at him for a moment, dumbfounded. Finally she said, “You think—you actually think that I will agree to marry Lord Dunstan?”

      “You will.”

      “I won’t.” She looked back at him, her face as implacably set as his. “I love Cam. I’ll have no one else, least of all that cold fish Dunstan.”

      The Earl made a disgusted noise and waved his hand, as if to push aside her sentiments. “Don’t give me any of that mawkish drivel about love. Love has nothing to do with marriage, not among our class. Perhaps it’s all right for farmers or merchants or mill workers. But a Stanhope marries for family considerations.”

      “Sells themself for money, you mean,” Angela shot back. “Well, I refuse to do that. I am going to marry Cameron.”

      “You don’t marry servants. I don’t know what maggot’s gotten into your head, but you’d best be rid of it quickly. You will marry Lord Dunstan.”

      “You cannot force me to marry him—any more than you can stop me from marrying Cam,” Angela pointed out. “You may lock me up, but I can promise that someday, somehow, I will get out of here. Cam will find a way to get me out. We are going to be married, and we will go to America to live, where nobody cares about things like rank. There’s nothing you can do to stop our love.”

      “I think spending a lifetime in prison might slow the young man down a little,” her grandfather said sardonically.

      Angela’s heart skittered in her chest. She stared at her grandfather. “What are you talking about? Cam won’t be in prison.”

      “He won’t if you agree to do your duty.”

      She wet her lips nervously. “You mean … you mean marry Dunstan?”

      “Yes.”

      Angela set her chin defiantly. “I don’t believe you. Why would Cam go to prison if I don’t marry Dunstan?”

      The old man reached into his jacket and withdrew a glittering object, which he held out to her. “You see this dagger? The one from the case in the gallery?”

      Angela nodded numbly. She was quite familiar with it. It had lain in its case in the long gallery as long as she could remember. It was a family heirloom, so old that no one was even sure how the Stanhopes had acquired it. Both scabbard and dagger were of intricately chased gold. Jewels marched down the middle of the scabbard, and a large emerald was embedded in the hilt.

      “‘Tis an expensive thing,” her grandfather went on. Angela eyed the dagger as if it were a snake. “Not just the jewels, but the antiquity of it makes it almost beyond price. If a disgruntled servant were to steal it, taking his revenge for being dismissed, it would go hard on him, I think.”

      “That’s absurd! Cam would never steal anything.”

      “I’ll tell you this, missy—if you don’t marry Lord Dunstan, that dagger will come up missing. And I’ll be happy to tell the sheriff where to look for it, since I had to throw an insolent servant off my land tonight. When he goes to the Monroes’ house, he will find that dagger amongst Cameron Monroe’s possessions. Now, you tell me how well your precious Cam will stay out of prison with that sort of evidence against him. If there’s anything more that’s needed, I imagine an eyewitness who saw him take the thing right out of the case will turn up.”

      Angela stared at him in horror. She had no doubt that her grandfather could do exactly as he threatened. The Stanhopes were a well-known and powerful family. Perhaps the family fortunes might now be on the decline, but they still ranked high, and people around here regarded them with awe and respect. They were wealthy in land, if not always in ready cash, and they provided the livelihood for many a family around about, either in the tin mines or on the estate. No one would doubt her grandfather’s word, and there would be men loyal enough to the Earl to lie for him.

      “If you do,” she said, trying to still the trembling in her voice, “I will go to the sheriff myself and tell him what you’ve done and why.”

      “If you wish to bring disgrace to yourself and the family by flaunting your love affairs with grooms, then do so. But no official will take the word of a lovesick girl over mine. They will say you are all about in the head, that you have been seduced by the man’s charm. He will still go to jail.”

      “How can you do this? How can you be so wicked? So cruel?”

      “I will do anything to save the Stanhopes,” he returned flatly. “You know how our fortunes have been going. Bridbury Castle is in sad need of repair. The lands need money spent on them, as well. And the tin mines simply are not producing what they used to. Both you and Jeremy will have to marry well. Dunstan is perfect. He has wealth and power, and his family is excellent. And your reputation will be saved. He is the only outsider who knows what happened tonight, and if you are his wife, he will have as little reason to reveal it as any of us.”

      “I can’t,” Angela moaned. “You cannot ask this of me. I cannot give up Cam. I love him.”

      “If you love him,” the Earl told her harshly, “then you damn well will give him up. Because that is the only way you can save him. If you don’t marry Dunstan, your Cam will die in prison.”

      “No.” Tears streamed down her face. “Please, please, don’t send him to prison.”

      “Marry Dunstan.”

      “All right!” she cried out. Sobs shook her frame. “All right. I will marry Lord Dunstan!”

       CHAPTER ONE

       1885

      A CARRIAGE RATTLED around the turn below at a spanking pace. Angela, watching from her perch on the rock, shaded her eyes to see it better. It was a large, comfortable black coach, very much like her brother’s. However, Jeremy and Rosemary were still in London, surely. It was the height of the Season, and Jeremy rarely ruralized at Bridbury at any time, but especially not during the Season.

      Still, Angela thought she could make out a gold smudge on the side, which at this distance might very well be the family crest. Anyway, it had to be traveling to the castle. What else was there out this way except Bridbury? And who else would be coming here in a carriage except her brother? Unless, of course, she thought with a groan, it was someone like Great-aunt Hepzibah, coming to spend a few weeks with Grandmama. Having endured such a visit from her grandmother’s other sister only two months earlier, Angela was not sure she could bear that.

      She СКАЧАТЬ