Catch a Falling Heiress: An American Heiress in London by Laura Lee Guhrke Page B

Mr. Holland muttered behind him.
    Jack couldn’t help agreeing with that. He took a deep breath and turned to face the man who it seemed was about to become his father-in-law. “Mr. Holland,” he began, but he got no further before the older man interrupted.
    “I ought to kill you.”
    “An understandable reaction,” he agreed at once. “But it might be better for all concerned if you don’t. We know what’s already being said about your daughter, and I am the man responsible. Honor demands I marry her.”
    “I won’t marry you,” the girl cut in before her father could speak. “And the idea that you think I would proves you are out of your mind.”
    “There are many people who know me well enough to share your opinion of my sanity,” he answered as he turned to face her. “Nonetheless, we must marry. No other choice is possible.”
    “I can think of plenty of choices.” She folded her arms, glaring at him. “Homicide comes to mind.”
    “Linnet,” her mother remonstrated, “that is no way for a lady to talk.”
    “I’m not a lady, Mother, and as we have discussed many times before, I have no intention of becoming one. Let’s not forget that Lord Featherstone’s oh-so-noble effort to marry me in order to restore my reputation wouldn’t have been necessary had he not so conveniently ruined me in the first place.”
    “Conveniently?” Jack echoed. “I find nothing convenient in this situation, believe me.”
    “No?” Her dark blond brows lifted in disbelief. “You’d be the first British lord, then, who didn’t find a fat American dowry convenient.”
    He stared at her as the implications of her words sank in. “You think I ruined you to gain your dowry?”
    “Well, you didn’t do it to regain your investment,” she countered. “If that was all you wanted, you’d have let Frederick become engaged to me and borrow what he needed. Then you’d have gotten paid. But instead, you took me for yourself, a much more lucrative investment, I’d bet.”
    “I didn’t do any of this for money.”
    “Let’s not pretend your actions were born of any tender regard for me. You don’t even know me.”
    “The man is desperate, Miss Holland. I could not be sure what he would do if he got you alone. He—” Jack stopped. He couldn’t reveal Van Hausen’s deeper sins without offering proof, and that would mean naming the women Van Hausen had raped, something he could never do. He couldn’t even hint such a thing, without jeopardizing the duchess’s secret. “The man is a cur and a cad,” he said instead. “I stopped him from taking advantage of you the only way I could think of on the spur of the moment.”
    “By taking advantage of me yourself. How heroic of you.”
    “You’d have been disgraced either way once Mrs. Dewey arrived. The only question was who would be the one to commit the disgrace, me or Van Hausen. You’ll have to forgive me if I decided I was a better option for you than a despicable swindler.”
    “Yes, that’s the point, isn’t it? You decided. I had no say in the decision.”
    “There wasn’t time for a discussion of your preferences on the subject,” he shot back, fully aware that she’d just put him on the defensive.
    “But you needn’t have interfered in the pagoda,” she pointed out, shrewdly honing in on the weak spot of his actions. You could have gone to my father instead and told him of Frederick’s true intentions. Daddy would have postponed any promise of a dowry, and Frederick’s fraud would have been revealed without jeopardizing my reputation. But you didn’t do that. Instead, you followed me, got him out of the way, and stepped into his shoes. Why?”
    He stared at her, helpless to explain the risks to her safety. With the arrival of Mrs. Dewey and her mother, proposing marriage had been the only honorable thing to do. As for kissing her, well, that had been an irresistible impulse of the moment. Fighting it would have been like fighting