Bronwyn Scott's Sexy Regency Bundle (111 page)

Scott

"Please, stay with us. There's plenty of room and with the celebration going on it will be quieter here. Besides, I'd like to keep this situation to ourselves for awhile,"

said, rising to

show Flaherty to an upstairs room.

"I'm sorry. I had hoped this would be happy news," Flaherty said to

but he was

looking at her. She wished she could gather her composure, wished she could stop sobbing into the napkin.

escorted Flaherty up the stairs and Elena took the opportunity to martial her resources. There had to be a chance to fight for him-for them.

Chapter 18

trudged down the stairs. He had to deal with Elena now. His emotions roiled. He didn't know how to feel. Betrayed? Used? Abused perhaps? What about what they'd shared? Was any of that real? If it was, what did it mean?

Clearly she was devastated by the news.

Elena, who was the most capable of women, who'd demonstrated an incredible amount of strength by

the pazo alone, had broken

down in the parlor.

He should be angry at her. He should leave tomorrow and never look back. There was a preponderance of reasons for doing so. She'd deliberately lied to him. She'd filled his blank memories with faulty ones. She'd led him to believe he'd abandoned her with no word for the better part of a year. The list was quite long. Yet, when he entered the parlor and saw her dark head bent, her shoulders heaving with her sobs, his heart spoke a different message than his mind. He didn't see a

woman. Instead, he saw a

Scott

woman he'd come to love with every inch of his being.

She looked up, finally aware of his presence in the room.

leaned against the

doorframe. "Why did you do it?" The question was practically rhetorical. He knew why she'd done it and he couldn't blame her. He'd taken every chance aboard the failing ship to save his life. Why should she be any different?

"I had nothing left to lose," she said sullenly.

"If I did nothing, Don Alicante would take the pazo. I could not live in a marriage like the one he offered. Then there was the scandal to avert. I was found naked in bed with you by multiple witnesses. The

had already started. That

night on the beach, several people commented that you resembled

andro." Elena

"I had

to

"You had to know my memories would likely return."

pushed off the door

and

walked to the sofa. His anger was slowly subsiding and it felt good to have rational thought flowing again.

"Yes," she said simply. "But I hoped.. . . She broke off, her eyes searching his face, pleading.

"What did you hope for?"

asked, a

hope of his own springing to life in his chest, a hope born out of the desire to believe that there

's Seduction

had been some

in the fiction of the last few

months.

"I hoped you might save me anyway."

It wasn't what he'd wanted to hear but it was something to start with. "Save you?"

"That you might not betray me to the village, to Don Alicante." Elena tossed her hair back and met him squarely, looking more like her old self.

She was challenging him.

He'd deserved that. He'd set himself up to be used by her yet again. His retort was acerbic.

"And what should I do? Sign a document that gives you control over the pazo? One that Don Alicante cannot challenge? Shall I simply slip back into the sea and conveniently 'die' in a far off country? No one would believe my luck if my ship foundered again."

"If that's what you feel is best," Elena said with quiet steel. "It would work. Such a document could be obtained in Santiago di Compostela."

She rose and walked to the window, looking out at the dark night.

Grayson's anger surged. How could she be so acquiescent? How dare she act like this was suddenly his plan?

He went to her and grabbed her by the forearms,

her around. "Look at me, damn

you. You've used me. You've set me up to be