A Touch of Passion by Bronwen Evans Page A

my name and my money, but she will never own my heart.”
    “I feel sorry for you. The giving and receiving of love is the most precious gift any person can bestow on another.” She watched him silently for a moment. “I never thought you’d be scared of a little word like ‘love,’ but I guess I can understand it after all the losses you’ve suffered. However, you and I have different views on love. I believe that dying without ever experiencing true love would be unforgivable. I’m willing to risk anything if I could experience my heart’s desire.”
    “I think I’ve earned the right to be a little wary of love. When it comes to my home life, stable, sedate, and ordered is all I require.”
    She scoffed, twirling a stray curl around her finger. “I suspect that like most men, you’d then find your excitement outside of the matrimonial home and bed. If men would marry women more suited to their needs, mistresses would cease to exist.”
    Grayson choked back a cough. He had indeed decided that a mistress or two on the side would keep his life from being too staid. “Men have certain needs that a wife—”
    “Don’t you dare preach ‘needs’ to me. Papa never kept a mistress because he had everything he desired at home.” She turned away from him and hunched her shoulders. “I don’t think that I meet any of the criteria on your list.”
    His voice softened. “Yes, you do. You’re beautiful beyond words, but
my
list is now irrelevant, much the way your list will be if we are to have a cordial marriage.”
    “I can’t accept that. I can’t marry a man who will stifle me and suffocate me with rules and obligations, especially he if doesn’t love me.”
    “I’m in complete agreement that our situation is not what either of us desires.”
    “If that is the case, then surely you must see that there is no need to fall on your sword for me. When I find a man who loves me, he will not care that I was kidnapped and lived for a few days in an Arab harem.”
    He brushed an errant curl blowing in the breeze from her cheek. “I would not call marrying you falling on my sword. It would be my honor to marry you. Don’t expect me to walk away, I’m not that kind of man.”
    Blast him to Hades.
Indeed, he wasn’t that kind of man. It was one of the reasons she loved him … and it was also why she would not trap him in a marriage he did not want, just because she’d behaved recklessly.
    That fateful night in Vauxhall Gardens, Portia had indeed been suspicious of the note he’d purportedly sent. Her head had rung with warning bells, but her heart refused to listen. Logically she knew Grayson would not have invited her to the gardens. If he’d wanted to court her, he would have approached Philip for permission first. But hope is the eternal flame. She’d hoped that one day he’d see her as a woman with passion, a woman who would challenge him and make their lives interesting and fun. Clearly, though, he did not want that in his wife—in his mistress maybe, but not his wife.
    He seemed to take her silence as affirmation of his plan. “Your family will not stand by and see you become the target of malicious gossip. You know they will look to me to fix things. Philip and I talked before we even set off on this rescue, and I agreed to a betrothal.. We will wed, but we will talk no more about it until we reach England.”
    Portia’s mind was telling her naughty things. What if she could make Grayson see her as more? Make him realize the life he imagined with an obedient but boring wife was not what he really wanted? She couldn’t believe the vibrant rake that he was, or had been before the war, would settle for a life of mediocre dullness.
    She had several days on this ship in which to seduce him. It couldn’t be that difficult. He had quite the reputation as the ladies’ man, a lovable rake who seemed to remain friends with all his paramours. Even Rose said that if Portia hadn’t been in love with him,