Sweet Love of Mine

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Twelve

His immediate reaction was to balk, to shake his head most vehemently, even if the thunderous staccato of his heart urged him to shout yes.

“Don’t be a fool,” Sophie snapped. “You know it is the only way you can keep her safe!”

Finally, he found his voice and it emanated as little more than a strangled cough. “It’s absurd!”

“Sebastian, be reasonable.”

He was being reasonable! Emily couldn’t marry him- he was a cad, a rogue, a reputable rake of the worst form! Where he was dark, she was light. They did not match. In the end, he’d break her spirit by binding her to him. Then there was his father’s sickness… he couldn’t put her through that, couldn’t allow her to endure it. It was unthinkable.

He shook his head again. “I cannot marry her.”

“Why not?” Sophie glared at him. “Are you scared she won’t have you?”

That was a possibility. After all, she did not love him. It was only he who loved her with blinding, ravaging need. One-sided and cruel- yet another reason why he couldn’t marry her. When she could not return his affections, he was bound to become bitter and sordid. It was doomed to fail, their union. “There is that,” Sebastian conceded. “And it’s damned good of her if she does.”

“Any women would be mad to refuse an offer from you,” Sophie snorted. “It does not signify. I insist that you propose to her.”

An inappropriately humorous image came to mind of Sophie wielding that infernal cane at their backs as both he and Emily faced a solemn-looking priest. He pushed it away. “Sophie, I can’t marry her.”

“Rubbish. You have to. If you want that girl to be safe, you will.”

“I can keep her safe without the bindings of marriage!” he snapped.

“Not,” Sophie informed him acidly, “as well as you could were she your wife! Why, you’d have all the reinforcement of the law behind you should anything happen and any man would think twice before abducting another man’s wife to prostitute.”

Sebastian flinched inwardly at the implication that that was indeed what Emily was to become if her father succeeded capturing her. He couldn’t bear dwelling on it. “This is madness,” he rasped, hastily procuring Gabriel’s previously abandoned chair and sinking into the cushioned depths. “I can’t marry her.”

“For goodness sake, Sebastian,” Sophie growled forcefully. Her tone surprised him enough to feel compelled to glance at her. Her wrinkled lips were pursed with impatience and disapproval, and her beady silver eyes glinted with a perseverance that hinted at her determination to see this foolish plan through to its culmination. Although meritorious, Sebastian was still hesitant, wholly so. It would be mad for his sensibilities as well as Emily’s that they wed. But her life was in danger, the threat imminently potent now that Joscelyn had been murdered. He’d be a fool not to take every precaution to insure Emily’s safety, the livelihood of the woman he loved to distraction.

God, he was relenting. Slowly, he was seeing Sophie’s warped logic. It made his throat tighten. “No,” he mumbled wearily. “She’d not be happy with me.”

“Well thank God you’ve clarified that,” Sophie fumed. “For a minute I believed it was your own aversions to being shackled to the girl that was preventing you!”

He shook his head quickly. “I’d gladly marry her. I’d destroy her, though. I can’t be responsible for that.”

“Bah! How much brandy did you have? That is the most ludicrous thing I have ever heard.”