Dunham

Chapter 44

He laughed bitterly. "Oh, my love, I am most certainly poor. My family ensures that, with the way they steal everything I provide my villeins. Those lands are investments I made while I awaited the day I wed you and left you in command of my estate."

Celia blinked, stunned, attempting to parse what he had said. "You ... All those years— You wanted me to ... "

"I needed a partner I could trust to take care of my people," he said matter-of-factly, "who could control my mother and brothers as well as or better than I could, until I could marry and produce an heir to prevent my brothers from inheriting. I was not expecting this person to be my condesa, but then you landed in my lap like a gift from God. Who better to rule my lands than the daughter of King George's pet corsair?"

"You're the conde," she murmured, confused. "'Tis your responsibility to rule your lands."

"I am the conde of barren lands whose villeins can barely scrape enough out of the ground to eat, much less pay their forfeit. What livestock they manage, my family takes. I am obligated to care for them, and the only way I have been able to do so is by my university wages and whatever I earn on my voyages as I cannot be in two places at once."

"Oh," she breathed. "But all those years, you spent so much money to give me whatever I wanted—"

"An investment, just like the properties." Celia gritted her teeth and balled her hand up between her chest. "No, none of that." He gently took her fist and attempted to open her fingers, but soon gave up. "My plan began to change," he murmured, leaning forward to kiss her softly, "when I fell in love with you."

She pulled in a soft breath. "When?" she squeaked.

"Your sixteenth birthday." Her breath hitched. "When you went to the coast with the rector's wife and her retinue. I slept alone that night for the first time since we had become lovers, and I was so lonely I could not bear it."

That week, spent in the care of the only woman she could trust to help her and keep her secrets, had been one of the most miserable she had ever spent.

She banished those memories immediately.

"Rafael," she said, raising her hand to massage the bridge of her nose, "find another way to deal with your serfs and your family. I am not going to marry you. I thought I made that clear."

"The court has decided. You have no choice."

She sighed. "I'm a pirate. I don't honor contracts I have no wish to honor, and certainly not ones made for me, without my signature and against my will."

"Why not?" he demanded. "You begged me to marry you for years."

"Why did you refuse if you needed me so badly?" she countered.

"You weren't ready to face my family."

"And when I graduated?"

He said nothing for a second or two, caressing her forehead with his finger. "I wanted nothing more than to wed you. But you were yet young and torn between wanting to earn Dunham's approval and wanting to be my wife. If I had asked, you would have defied your father only to grow restless with me and unhappy ere long." He paused. "I loved you enough to let you go and hoped you would come back to me."

Rage exploded in her mind and she jerked away from him. Sat up. Presented her back to him.

If she looked at him, she would strike him.

"When I left, you immediately took a woman to your bed," she growled, "and then laughed at me when I lay with another man in retaliation. Explain that!"